Tag: burning bush

The Fire of God

Posted on by jovial_cynic

And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
Genesis 22:6 (NASB)

Fire is dangereous. It burns. It destroys. But when you look carefully at scripture, it is also a symbol of where God dwells.

The first time we see this Hebrew word אֵשׁ (esh), or fire, it’s when God passes between the pieces of the sacrifice before Abraham. It’s there that we first learn that God reveals himself in the flame.

Now it came about, when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch appeared which passed between these pieces.
Genesis 15:17 (NASB)

The next time we see it, God rains down fire and brimstone from heaven onto the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. When Lot’s wife looked back at the destruction of the city, we wonder: did she see God in the ensuing pillar of fire? Is this why she died?

Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven.
Genesis 19:24 (NASB)

After Genesis, the next time we see the esh, it’s in the Burning Bush, where God meets Moses.

Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed.
Exodus 3:2 (NASB)

So in this passage in Genesis 22, with the fire in his hand, we read that Abraham walks with his son. Together.

Perhaps we’re meant to understand that God is there, too.

From the Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Then [God] said to him, “I am יהוה who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession.”
Genesis 15:7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

The Midrash contains a fascinating story about Abram, suggesting that Nimrod (king of Babylon) threw Abram into a blazing furnace for not worshipping his idol. “Ur” means “flame.”

He was in the fire, but not consumed by it.

The rabbis say that Genesis 15:7 is the first time God tells Abram His name.

Later, when God meets Moses, He presents His name and another fire, this time on a bush that is not consumed.

Perhaps this is how Moses remembers the covenant God made with Abram: these are intentionally linked stories. God preserves us, even through the fire that should consume us.

God’s Name and a Burning Bush

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Jumping forward to Exodus, we learn that Moses doesn’t know God’s name until Exodus 3:15 when he meets God at the burning bush.

But WE are given God’s name in Genesis 2:4, right before the Tree of Life is described:

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NKJV)

God’s name and the Burning Bush seem linked, both in Exodus and in Genesis.

I wonder if Moses was given a vision of the Tree of Life, barely obscured by flaming swords (Gen 3:24).

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:24 (NKJV)

Perhaps the imagery is that the Tree of Life can only be accessed by Fire. This could point to following the Pillar of Fire, or being refined by Fire, or perhaps being “burned in the Fire” as a Living Sacrifice.

It could be many things, but it seems to be linked… to dying.