Exodus 3: Into the Unquenchable Flame—The Infinite Embraces the Finite

"When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?' God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'" (Excerpts from Exodus 3:4, 11, 14 NIV)

A question that had drifted upon the river of silence finally finds its answer. In the desolation of the Midian wilderness, a strange bush—blazing yet unconsumed—captures Moses' gaze. God speaks to Moses: "Moses! Moses!" This calling echoes back to the Garden of Eden. It is the same voice that sought out Adam, who had sinned and hidden himself behind the trees: "Where are you?" But unlike Adam who hid, Moses moves toward the unquenchable flame. Though trembling with fear, he approaches with holy curiosity. This scene reveals that the severed relationship between God and humanity is entering a new chapter.

Yet this encounter bewilders Moses. Forty years ago, when he wielded the power of a prince and tried to save his people by his own strength, God remained silent. Now, precisely when Moses has abandoned all hope, redefined himself as a mere Midian shepherd, and resigned himself to obscurity—now God suddenly appears and says, "Go." The buried wound is torn open again. "Who am I that I should do such a thing?" (v. 11). This is more than humility; it is a protest. It is a piercing cry: Why did You remain still when my abilities were at their peak, only to come to me now when I am a powerless old man? Here lies the paradox of the cross: God's beginning opens only at the very end of human strength.

Moses asks this fearsome Presence for His name. In the ancient world, to know someone's name meant to define them and, ultimately, to control them. When Adam named the animals, it was originally an act of loving stewardship, but fallen humanity corrupted naming into a tool of possession and domination. Moses, too, may have wanted to grasp this God within the framework of his own understanding. But God refuses to become a noun that humans can label. Instead, He answers with a verb: "I AM WHO I AM."

"Being itself." This is God forcing Himself into the narrow vessel of human language. Creatures have names because they were made by another, but the Creator, who exists by Himself, has no name. He existed before Moses, He is present now beside Moses in his suffering, and He will continue to act forever. Before this overwhelming declaration of existence, Moses' time stops. Or rather, Moses' fleeting moment (the finite) is drawn into God's eternity (the infinite).

The bush was burning with fire, yet it was not consumed. This is a holy contradiction, a mystery. The infinite God, a consuming flame, has come to finite Moses, dry as a stick, yet does not destroy him but embraces him. God exists beyond our understanding or control. A god we can name and manipulate is not the true God. Moses must now cast everything—his name, his past wounds, his future fears—into the vast ocean of "the Self-Existent One."

If in Exodus 2 we had to endure God's silence, in chapter 3 we stand before His overwhelming presence that seeks us out. Coram Deo—before the face of God. The infinite has embraced the finite. Now Moses will grasp his old staff, but in truth, he has been grasped by this Presence and will journey toward Egypt. The flame in the bush will not be extinguished; that flame has now transferred into Moses' own heart.