Bible Strands
Exodus 3:2
There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from within a bush. Moses saw the bush ablaze with fire, but it was not consumed.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses is shepherding Jethro's flock at Horeb, the mountain of God, when the angel of the LORD appears to him in a flame from within a bush.
The words — וַיֵּרָא (wayyera', H7200) is the reflexive form of ra'ah, "to see," here meaning "he appeared" or "he was seen"; it is the same root that drives Moses's own act of seeing in verse 3.
The thread — Stephen retells this as "an angel" in Acts 7:30, and Deuteronomy 33:16 looks back to "Him who dwelt in the burning bush" as a source of blessing; Isaiah 43:2 echoes the non-consumption motif without naming the event.
Why it lands — The verse presents an anomaly that violates natural expectation, and the text treats that violation as the reason Moses turns to look; the reader is asked to recognize that the sign's purpose is to draw attention, not to explain itself.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Cross-references
- Acts 7:30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
- Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.
- Deuteronomy 33:16 with the choice gifts of the land and everything in it, and with the favor of Him who dwelt in the burning bush. May these rest on the head of Joseph and crown the brow of the prince of his brothers.
- Mark 12:26 But concerning the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the Book of Moses, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
- Psalms 66:12 You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us into abundance.
- Luke 20:37 Even Moses demonstrates that the dead are raised, in the passage about the burning bush. For he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’
- Exodus 3:16 Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.
- Isaiah 63:9 In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
- Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- Genesis 16:7 Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.