In the fourth installment of “Jesus and the Wells”, Professor Kingsley shifts his focus away from specific moments at specific wells and widens his view to look more closely at the character of the Lord through another well-known Old Testament passage, Exodus 3.
The Backdrop of Exodus
The beginning chapters of Exodus open in a crisis. Israel, the promised nation of the Lord, has become a nation of brick-making slaves under Egyptian tyranny. With their current situation, the promises of the Lord look far off, as if His promises have failed. They are far from being a great nation, they are in the wrong land, and Egypt is thriving even though the Lord promised to curse those who cursed Israel. It begs the question, are the Lord’s promises truly unilateral and unconditional as He declared they were?
The Introduction of Moses
It is in this crisis that Moses enters the scene. In Exodus 2, Moses was born and when he could no longer be hidden, his mother made for him an ark of papyrus and sent him down the river Nile, only to be found by the daughter of Pharaoh. The word “ark” is the same word used to describe Noah’s ark. While the basket Moses was placed in was nowhere near the size and magnitude of Noah’s ark, it creates a connection between Moses and Noah. Just as Noah was used by God to deliver his family from the Flood, now Moses will be used to save his people from slavery.
However, Moses is quite the unlikely candidate to be a leader. He is a man with great zeal, but it is wild and misguided. On one account, he murders an Egyptian found striking a Hebrew. Shortly after, he tries mediating a fight between two Hebrews, his own people, and they are skeptical of him, wondering if will be as quick to murder them as well. God is going to have to greatly refine Moses.
Moses and the Burning Bush
After Moses was exiled by Pharaoh for his actions, he became a shepherd and while pasturing the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the LORD appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush. One of the questions that Moses asks of the LORD is, “What shall I say to them?”, when they ask who the LORD is. Moses wants to know God’s name. In this culture, names are greatly related to essence, or who someone is. He is asking the question of God’s ontology and character. In verse 14, the LORD replies, “I AM WHO I AM…I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14, LSB). The LORD’s response unveils two core characteristics of God.
First, God is transcendent. God cannot be reduced, boiled down to one or two things. He cannot be quantified. He is altogether separate. His transcendence is also known as His otherness. His otherness spurs us on to pursue Him more and more.
In the next and final episode of the series, Professor Kingsley will continue on in Exodus 3, sharing the second characteristic of the LORD unveiled by the LORD’s response to Moses’ question.
This blog post captures the essence of Professor Jared Kingsley’s series on Jesus and the Wells. You may click on the video above to hear more insightful details about the provision of the LORD shown through the image of the well. Professor Kingsley is professor of Hebrew and Old Testament for The Master’s University traditional on-campus program.
