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.
The Angel of the Lord appeared. It is common in the Scriptures to represent the elements and operations of nature, as winds, fires, earthquakes, pestilence-everything enlisted in executing the divine will-as the 'angels' or messengers of God. But in such cases God himself is considered as really, though invisibly, present. Here the preternatural fire maybe primarily meant by the expression. "Angel of the Lord" (Whately, 'Good and Bad Angels,' p. 16); but it is clear that under this symbol the Divine Being was present, whose name is given, Exodus 3:4; Exodus 3:6, and elsewhere called "the Angel of the Lord," "the Angel of God" (Genesis 7:7; Genesis 7:9; Genesis 7:11; Genesis 21:17-18; Genesis 22:12-13; Genesis 31:11); "the Angel of the covenant" (Malachi 3:1). A critical examination of the language fully determines this point: for it is not 'an angel,' but "the Angel of the Lord," who appeared-the use of this title identifying Him with the Divine Revealer of the past. It is important to observe that an advance is here made in the progressive revelation of the Diving Being. In the patriarchal age He manifested Himself as a MYSTERIOUS MAN, who ruled over the world, assuming that form and character to impress the minds of his chosen servants with a sense of his personal existence. These Theophanies were afterward discontinued, and God at this stage began to appear in symbols.
In ... the midst of a bush, х hacªneh (H5572)] - the acacia gummifera, or acacia Seyel, the al Sunt of the Arabs. The wild acacia, or thorn, with which that desert abounds, attains a considerable height. Its wood is very hard, and generally dry and brittle; so much so, that at certain seasons, a spark might kindle a district, far and wide, into a blaze. A fire, therefore, being in the midst of such a desert bush, was 'a great sight.' The Arabs now carry on an extensive traffic in the peninsula by carrying this wood to Cairo and Suez for charcoal. 'And as this probably has been done in a great degree by the monks of Catherine's Convent, it may account for the fact, that whereas in the valley of the western and eastern clusters of the Sinaitic mountains this tree abounds more or less, yet in the central cluster itself, to which modern tradition certainly, and geographical considerations probably, point as the mountain of the burning 'thorn,' there is not now a single acacia to be seen' (Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine').
It is generally supposed to have been emblematic of the Israelites condition in Egypt-oppressed by a grinding servitude and a bloody persecution; and yet, in spite of the cruel policy that was bent on annihilating them, they continued as numerous and thriving as ever. The reason was, 'God was in the midst of them.' Kurtz, following Hoffmann, considers it a symbol, not of the past, nor of the existing state of Israel, but of the future-namely, of the dispensation which was then about to commence. Israel was represented by the bush; God in his holy character in the flame in the midst; and it should only be by a constant miracle of grace that, in their state of sinfulness, presenting fuel for this flame to seize upon, they were not consumed. х 'ukaal (H398), in the pual form, signifies not - "was not consumed," as if part of it had been burnt, but 'did not suffer at all from the effects of the fire.']