Exodus 3:5

_AND HE SAID, DRAW NOT NIGH HITHER: PUT OFF THY SHOES FROM OFF THY FEET, FOR THE PLACE WHEREON THOU STANDEST IS HOLY GROUND._ Put off thy shoes. The direction was in conformity with a usage which was well known to Moses; because the Egyptian priests observed it in their temples, and which is observed in all eastern countries, where the people take off their shoes, or sandals, as we do our hats. But the eastern idea is not precisely the same as the western. With us, the removal of the hat is an expression of reverence for the place we enter, or rather of Him who is worshipped there. With them, the removal of the shoes is a confession of personal defilement, and conscious unworthiness to stand in the presence of unspotted holiness....

1-6 The years of the life of Moses are divided into three forties; the first forty he spent as a prince in Pharaoh's court, the second as a shepherd in Midian, the third as a king in Jeshurun. How changeable is the life of man! The first appearance of God to Moses, found him tending sheep. This seems a poor employment for a man of his parts and education, yet he rests satisfied with it; and thus learns meekness and contentment, for which he is more noted in sacred writ, than for all his learning. Satan loves to find us idle; God is pleased when he finds us employed. Being alone, is a good friend to our communion with God. To his great surprise, Moses saw a bush burning without fire to kindle it. The bush burned, and yet did not burn away; an emblem of the church in bondage in Egypt. And it fitly reminds us of the church in every age, under its severest persecutions kept by the presence...

Verse Exodus 3:5. _PUT OFF THY SHOES_] It is likely that from this circumstance all the eastern nations have agreed to perform all the acts of their religious worship _barefooted_. All the Mohammedans, Brahmins, and Parsees do so still. The Jews were remarked for this in the time of Juvenal; hence he speaks of their performing their sacred rites _barefooted_; Sat. vi., ver. 158: Observant ubi festa _mero pede_ sabbata reges. The ancient Greeks did the same. Jamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras, tells us that this was one of his maxims, Ανυποδητος θυε και προσκυνει, _Offer sacrifice and worship with your shoes_ _off_. And Solinus asserts that no person was permitted to enter into the temple of Diana, in Crete, till he had taken off his shoes. "_AEdem Numinis_ (_Dianae_) _praeterquam nudus vestigio nulles_ lici

PUT OFF THY SHOES - The reverence due to holy places thus rests upon God’s own command. The custom itself is well known from the observances of the temple, it was almost universally adopted by the ancients, and is retained in the East. HOLY GROUND - This passage is almost conclusive against the assumption that the place was previously a sanctuary. Moses knew nothing of its holiness after some 40 years spent on the Peninsula. It became holy by the presence of God....

THE CALL AND MISSION OF MOSES. EXPOSITION EXODUS 3:1 THE MISSION OF MOSES. After forty years of monotonous pastoral life, affording abundant opportunity for meditation, and for spiritual communion with God, and when he had attained to the great age of eighty years, and the hot blood of youth had given place to the calm serenity of advanced life, God at last revealed Himself to Moses "called him" (Exodus 3:4), and gave him a definite mission. The present chapter is' intimately connected with the next. Together, they contain an account of that extraordinary and indeed miraculous interchange of thought and speech between Moses and God himself, by which the son of Amram was induced to undertake

AND HE SAID, DRAW NOT NIGH HITHER,.... Keep a proper distance: PUT OFF THY SHOES FROM OFF THY FEET; dust and dirt cleaving to shoes, and these being ordered to be put off from the feet, the instrument of walking, show that those that draw nigh to God, and are worshippers of him, ought to be of pure and holy lives and conversations: FOR THE PLACE WHEREON THOU STANDEST IS HOLY GROUND; not that there was any inherent holiness in this spot of ground more than in any other, which ground is not capable of; but a relative holiness on account of the presence of God here at this time, and was not permanent, only while a pure and holy God was there: hence, in after times, the temple being the place of the divine residence, the priests there performed their services barefooted, nor might a common person enter into the temple with his shoes on k; and to this day the Jews go to their synagogues bar...

Exodus 3:1. _Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb._ It must have been a great change for Moses, after forty years in the court of Pharaoh, to be spending another forty years in the wilderness. But it was not waste time; it required the first two periods to make Moses fit for the grand life of the last forty. He must be a prince, and he must be a shepherd, that he might be both a ruler and a shepherd to God's people, Israel. He must be much alone; he must have many solitary communings with his own heart; he must be led to feel his own weakness. And this will be no loss of time to him; he will do more in the last forty years because of the two forties thus spent in preparation. And it is not lost time that a man takes in putting on his harness before he

CHAPTER 3 THE BURNING BUSH AND THE CALL AND COMMISSION OF MOSES _ 1. The vision of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1)_ 2. Jehovah speaks and calls Moses (Exodus 3:4) 3. Moses' answer (Exodus 3:11) 4. The name revealed (Exodus 3:13) 5. The commission of Moses (Exodus 3:15) 6. The promise (Exodus 3:19) The two last verses of the preceding chapter form the introduction to the great manifestation of Jehovah in the burning bush and the call

EXODUS 2:23 TO EXODUS 3:15. THE CALL OF MOSES ( FIRST ACCOUNT). Exodus 2:23_ a_, J, Exodus 2:23 _b_ - Exodus 2:25 P, Exodus 3:1 E, Exodus 3:2_ a,_ J, Exodus 3:4_ b_, E, Exodus 3:5 J,...

DRAW NOT NIGH HITHER. This may be taken as proper to the Old Testament dispensation, which was. dispensation of darkness, bondage and terror, which the Gospel happily frees us from, giving us boldness to enter into the holiest, and inviting us to draw near.--_ M. Henry._ We must come to God; we must not come too near him. When we meditate of the great mysteries of his word, we come to him. We come too near him when we search into his counsels. The sun and the fire say of themselves, Come not too near; how much more the light, which none can attain unto? We have all our limits set us.--_ Bishop Hall._ PUT OFF THY SHOES. By _shoe_ here is meant the leathern or wooden sole attached to the bottom of the foot by "shoe-latchets" passed round the instep and ankle.--_ Bush._ The reverence indicated by putting off the covering of the feet is still prevalent in the East. The Orientals throw off...