Reading Exodus: Encountering God (2)—I will Send You…
“ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. ” （ Ex 3:10 ） The LORD appears to Moses in the bush that burns and yet is not consumed. There He speaks to him, entrusts to him the mission of bringing Israel out of Egypt. And at precisely this decisive moment, He freely discloses His own name. Now this raises a question—if God is willing to reveal His name of His own accord, why does He not do so from the very beginning? Why does the revelation come only after this extended exchange with Moses? One could, of course, answer simply: because Moses asks. But the disclosure of the divine name is not merely a response to a question. It is deeply bound up with the commission God places upon him. At the close of Ex 1-2, after recounting the bitter oppression of the Israelites under the Egyptian king “who did not know Joseph,” the narrator adds a brief but weighty statement: “…t he people of Israel groaned because o...
