Chapter Overview
Summary
Exodus 3 is the burning-bush theophany, the call of Moses, and the revelation of the divine name. The chapter contains what may be the single most consequential LXX rendering in the Pentateuch — egō eimi ho ōn at 3:14, 'I am the one who is' — which shaped Hellenistic Jewish, patristic, and scholastic theology of divine being. Four additional passages from this chapter (3:5 holy ground, 3:6 patriarchal triad, 3:12 ehyeh immak, 3:15 divine-name formula) are directly cited or evoked in the New Testament.
Notable Variants
The asyetos ('burning yet not consumed') language of 3:2–3; holy ground vocabulary at 3:5 cited in Acts 7:33; the patriarchal triad of 3:6 cited by Jesus at Matt 22:32 / Mark 12:26 / Luke 20:37 and by Stephen at Acts 7:32; the egō eimi ho ōn self-identification at 3:14 whose Greek ontological phrasing became the single most discussed LXX rendering in Western theology; the name-forever formula at 3:15 that LXX Malachi 4:5 also echoes.
Structural Notes
LXX Exodus 3 preserves MT's 22-verse structure with no verse-numbering divergence.
Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Masoretic (WLC)
חֹרֵבָה הַר הָאֱלֹהִים
to Horeb, the mountain of God
Septuagint (LXX)
εἰς τὸ ὄρος Χωρηβ
to the mountain Chōrēb
LXX omits the qualifying phrase 'the mountain of God' in some witnesses, simply reading 'to the mountain Chōrēb.' Other LXX manuscripts match the MT. Jethro (LXX Iothor) is the name used here for Moses' father-in-law, distinct from Reuel at 2:18.
The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked, and the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.
The angel of the LORD appearing in the flame is rendered angelos kyriou in LXX — the standard rendering of malakh YHWH that will supply NT angel-vocabulary. The burning-yet-not-consumed paradox is preserved.
Moses said, "I must turn aside and see this remarkable sight — why the bush does not burn up."
Moses' decision to turn aside and see the remarkable sight (mega horama — 'great vision') is rendered closely.
When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush: "Moses! Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."
God's call to Moses and Moses' 'Here I am' (idou egō) follows MT in LXX.
He said, "Do not come near. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
Masoretic (WLC)
כִּי הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עוֹמֵד עָלָיו אַדְמַת־קֹדֶשׁ הוּא
the place on which you are standing is holy ground
Septuagint (LXX)
ὁ γὰρ τόπος ἐν ᾧ σὺ ἕστηκας γῆ ἁγία ἐστίν
for the place on which you stand is holy ground
Acts 7:33 (Stephen's speech) cites this verse verbatim in its LXX form: 'The place where you are standing is holy ground (gē hagia).'
The LXX's gē hagia ('holy ground/earth') became the standard NT and patristic designation for sacred space. The locution is distinctively Septuagintal — it gives the Christian tradition the category 'holy ground' that does not arise from Greek philosophical or Roman religious usage independently.
The instruction to remove the sandals (hypodēmata) at a theophany is later echoed at John 13's footwashing, where the inversion is deliberate: the Lord himself takes up the role of the sandal-handler.
Then He said, "I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Masoretic (WLC)
אָנֹכִי אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב
I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob
Septuagint (LXX)
ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ θεὸς τοῦ πατρός σου θεὸς Αβρααμ καὶ θεὸς Ισαακ καὶ θεὸς Ιακωβ
I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob
Jesus cites this verse in its LXX form at Matthew 22:32 / Mark 12:26 / Luke 20:37 as the decisive proof against the Sadducees' denial of resurrection: 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' — 'he is not God of the dead but of the living.'
Stephen quotes the verse at Acts 7:32 in his recounting of the burning bush.
The patriarchal triad 'God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob' becomes a fixed LXX formula (Exod 3:6, 3:15, 3:16; Deut 1:8, 6:10; 1 Kgs 18:36; Jer 33:26; 1 Chr 29:18; 2 Chr 30:6) that every NT writer who invokes patriarchal theology deploys.
Matthew 22:32 also drops the 'your father' of Exod 3:6, preserving only the triad — a Jesus-adaptation that intensifies the argument.
The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sufferings.
The LORD's 'I have surely seen' (idōn eidon) preserves the Hebrew emphatic infinitive absolute (ra'oh ra'iti). The afflicted-in-Egypt language tracks MT.
I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey — to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
The descent-to-deliver narrative and the 'land flowing with milk and honey' (gē rheousa gala kai meli) use the standard LXX formula that recurs across Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Prophets.
Now the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Israel's cry and Egypt's oppression tracks MT in LXX.
Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
The commission to go to Pharaoh and bring out the sons of Israel is rendered directly in LXX.
But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?"
Moses' 'Who am I?' (tis eimi egō) preserves the Hebrew. The self-deprecation formula recurs at Exod 4:10, 6:12 and supplies vocabulary for NT prophetic call-reluctance (Luke 1:34, Luke 5:8).
He said, "I will surely be with you, and this will be the sign for you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."
Masoretic (WLC)
כִּי־אֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ
I will surely be with you
Septuagint (LXX)
ὅτι ἔσομαι μετὰ σοῦ
for I will be with you
Hebrew ehyeh immakh ('I will be with you') anticipates the name revelation in v. 14 by using the same verb ehyeh. The LXX renders with esomai meta sou — a direct promise of presence, losing the anticipatory ehyeh-wordplay.
Matthew 1:23 (Immanuel, 'God with us') and Matthew 28:20 ('I am with you always') pick up the with-you promise-formula from Exod 3:12, Isa 7:14, and other LXX passages. The 'I will be with you' assurance is a Moses-inheritance in the NT.
Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' — what shall I say to them?"
Moses' anticipated question from Israel about God's name ('what shall I say to them?') follows MT in LXX.
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Say this to the sons of Israel: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Masoretic (WLC)
אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה … אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם
I AM WHO I AM … I AM has sent me to you
Septuagint (LXX)
ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν … ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς
I am the one who is (the Being) … the One Who Is has sent me to you
The LXX renders Hebrew ehyeh asher ehyeh ('I will be what I will be,' or 'I am what I am') as egō eimi ho ōn — 'I am the One Who Is / I am the Being.' The participle ho ōn ('the One Who Is') converts the verbal ehyeh ('I am/I will be') into an ontological noun-phrase.
This single rendering is arguably the most consequential LXX decision in the entire Pentateuch. Hellenistic Jewish philosophy (Philo), patristic theology (Origen, Athanasius, the Cappadocians), and medieval scholasticism (Aquinas reading the verse as God's self-identification as Esse Ipsum, pure act of being) all build on the LXX's ontological gloss.
Revelation 1:4, 1:8, 4:8 ('the one who is, and who was, and who is to come' — ho ōn kai ho ēn kai ho erchomenos) uses ho ōn directly as a divine self-designation, drawing the LXX's Exodus 3:14 vocabulary into John's Christology.
The Hebrew's future-oriented 'I will be what I will be' (promising presence and action, not defining essence) and the LXX's present-participial 'I am the One Who Is' (declaring ontological existence) pull the divine name in different philosophical directions. The two directions have generated two different theological traditions: covenantal (Jewish, biblical) and ontological (Hellenistic, philosophical).
TCR renders the Hebrew: 'I AM WHO I AM' — a deliberately ambiguous English form that preserves the Hebrew's tense-openness without resolving it into Greek philosophical being.
God also said to Moses, "Say this to the sons of Israel: 'The LORD, the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob — has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
Masoretic (WLC)
זֶה־שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם
This is My name forever
Septuagint (LXX)
τοῦτό μού ἐστιν ὄνομα αἰώνιον
This is an eternal name for me
The LXX's onoma aiōnion ('eternal name') is the specific phrase Isaiah 63:12, 63:14 also use of God's name. The eternity-of-the-divine-name theology receives its LXX crystallization here.
Jesus' 'I have made your name known' (John 17:6, 26) and the Lord's Prayer's 'hallowed be your name' (Matt 6:9) work with this LXX onoma-theology. The divine name as an eternal reality, manifest at Sinai and perfected in Christ, runs through the whole NT on the basis of the LXX.
The patriarchal triad is repeated here, sealing the name-revelation to the covenantal history.
Go and gather the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob — appeared to me, saying: I have carefully watched over you and seen what is being done to you in Egypt.
The command to gather the elders and deliver the message about divine visitation follows MT closely in LXX.
I have declared that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites — a land flowing with milk and honey.'
The list of Canaanite peoples is rendered in LXX's standard transliterations (Chanaanitōn, Chettaiōn, etc.).
They will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go a three-day journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.'
The 'three-day journey into the wilderness' to sacrifice to the Hebrew God is rendered directly in LXX. The phrase 'the God of the Hebrews' (ho theos tōn Hebraiōn) recurs in Paul's missionary vocabulary as a designation for the Jewish-Christian God distinctive from Gentile divinities.
But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.
The prediction of Pharaoh's refusal 'except by a mighty hand' (bi-yad chazaqah / en cheiri krataia) uses the 'mighty hand' formula that recurs throughout Exodus, Deuteronomy, and the Prophets.
So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders that I will perform in it. After that he will let you go.
God's stretching out the hand and striking Egypt with wonders (thaumasia) is rendered closely.
And I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.
The promise that Israel will find favor in Egyptian eyes is rendered charis ('favor, grace') in LXX — the word that NT theology inherits for divine favor.
Each woman shall ask of her neighbor and of the woman staying in her house for articles of silver and articles of gold and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians."
Masoretic (WLC)
וְנִצַּלְתֶּם אֶת־מִצְרָיִם
So you shall plunder the Egyptians
Septuagint (LXX)
καὶ σκυλεύσετε τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους
and you shall strip / despoil the Egyptians
Hebrew nitsaltem ('you shall despoil') is rendered skyleusete ('you shall strip/plunder as of a defeated enemy'). The LXX's military-despoliation vocabulary intensifies the image of the Exodus as a victorious campaign against Egypt.
The 'plundering the Egyptians' motif was ethically contested in later Jewish and Christian exegesis: Origen, Augustine, and the rabbis all debated whether the plundering was just compensation for slave labor or theologically problematic. The LXX's pointed vocabulary did not help ease the question.