Exodus 3:2

Bible in Basic English (1941)

And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַ֠יֵּרָא מַלְאַ֨ךְ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֵלָ֛יו בְּלַבַּת־אֵ֖שׁ מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַסְּנֶ֑ה וַיַּ֗רְא וְהִנֵּ֤ה הַסְּנֶה֙ בֹּעֵ֣ר בָּאֵ֔שׁ וְהַסְּנֶ֖ה אֵינֶ֥נּוּ אֻכָּֽל׃

Transliteration

Wayyērāʾ malʾaḵ YHWH ʾēlāw in-labbat-ʾēš from-tōḵ hasseneh wayyarʾ and-hinnēh hasseneh bō'ēr in-ʾēš and-hasseneh ʾênennû ʾukkāl.

Grammar Details

• *Wayyērāʾ*: consecutive imperfect, 3rd masculine singular, niphal - and he appeared
• *malʾaḵ*: noun, masculine singular construct - messenger/angel of
• *YHWH*: proper noun - Yahweh/LORD
• *ʾēlāw*: preposition with 3rd masculine singular suffix - to him
• *labbat*: noun, feminine singular construct with preposition - in flame of
• *ʾēš*: noun, feminine singular with preposition - in fire
• *tōḵ*: noun, masculine singular construct with preposition - from midst of
• *hasseneh*: noun, masculine singular with definite article - the bush/bramble
• *wayyarʾ*: consecutive imperfect, 3rd masculine singular, qal - and he saw
• *hinnēh*: interjection - behold
• *bō'ēr*: participle, masculine singular - burning
• *ʾênennû*: particle of negation with 3rd masculine singular suffix - was not
• *ʾukkāl*: participle, masculine singular, pual - consumed/devoured

Word Meanings

• *malʾaḵ*: messenger/angel/representative
• *labbat*: flame/blaze/heart
• *tōḵ*: midst/middle/among
• *hasseneh*: the bush/bramble/thornbush
• *bō'ēr*: burning/kindled/consuming
• *ʾukkāl*: consumed/devoured/eaten

Referenced Verses

• Acts 7:30-35 : 30 At the end of forty years, an angel came to him in the waste land of Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn-tree. 31 And Moses, seeing it, was full of wonder, and when he came up to have a nearer view of it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, 32 I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses, shaking with fear, kept his eyes from looking at it. 33 And the Lord said, Take off the shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. 34 Truly, I have seen the sorrows of my people in Egypt, and their cries have come to my ears, and I have come down to make them free: and now, come, I will send you to Egypt. 35 This Moses, whom they would not have, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? him God sent to be a ruler and a saviour, by the hand of the angel whom he saw in the thorn-tree.
• Deut 33:16 : 16 The good things of the earth and all its wealth, the good pleasure of him who was seen in the burning tree: may they come on the head of Joseph, on the head of him who was prince among his brothers.
• Isa 43:2 : 2 When you go through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not go over you: when you go through the fire, you will not be burned; and the flame will have no power over you.
• Mark 12:26 : 26 But as to the dead coming back to life; have you not seen in the book of Moses, about the burning thorn-tree, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
• Luke 20:37 : 37 But even Moses made it clear that the dead come back to life, saying, in the story of the burning thorn-tree, The Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
• John 1:14 : 14 And so the Word became flesh and took a place among us for a time; and we saw his glory--such glory as is given to an only son by his father--saw it to be true and full of grace.
• Isa 63:9 : 9 It was no sent one or angel, but he himself who was their saviour: in his love and in his pity he took up their cause, and he took them in his arms, caring for them all through the years.
• 2 Cor 1:8-9 : 8 For it is our desire that you may not be without knowledge of our trouble which came on us in Asia, that the weight of it was very great, more than our power, so that it seemed that we had no hope even of life: 9 Yes, we ourselves have had the answer of death in ourselves, so that our hope might not be in ourselves, but in God who is able to give life to the dead: 10 Who gave us salvation from so great a death: on whom we have put our hope that he will still go on to give us salvation;
• Dan 3:27 : 27 And the captains, the chiefs, and the rulers, and the king's wise men who had come together, saw these men, over whose bodies the fire had no power, and not a hair of their heads was burned, and their coats were not changed, and there was no smell of fire about them.
• Hos 12:4-5 : 4 In the body of his mother he took his brother by the foot, and in his strength he was fighting with God; 5 He had a fight with the angel and overcame him; he made request for grace to him with weeping; he came face to face with him in Beth-el and there his words came to him;
• Zech 13:7 : 7 Awake! O sword, against the keeper of my flock, and against him who is with me, says the Lord of armies: put to death the keeper of the sheep, and the sheep will go in flight: and my hand will be turned against the little ones.
• Mal 3:1 : 1 See, I am sending my servant, and he will make ready the way before me; and the Lord, whom you are looking for, will suddenly come to his Temple; and the angel of the agreement, in whom you have delight, see, he is coming, says the Lord of armies.
• Rom 8:3 : 3 For what the law was not able to do because it was feeble through the flesh, God, sending his Son in the image of the evil flesh, and as an offering for sin, gave his decision against sin in the flesh:
• Isa 53:10-11 : 10 And the Lord was pleased ... see a seed, long life, ... will do well in his hand. ... 11 ... made clear his righteousness before men ... had taken their sins on himself.
• Ps 66:12 : 12 You let men go driving over our heads; we went through fire and through water; but you took us out into a wide place.
• Gen 15:13-17 : 13 And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years; 14 But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth. 15 As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place. 16 And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full. 17 Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.
• Gen 16:7-9 : 7 And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife. 9 And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority. 10 And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered. 11 And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow. 12 And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers. 13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
• Gen 22:15-16 : 15 And the voice of the angel of the Lord came to Abraham a second time from heaven, 16 Saying, I have taken an oath by my name, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not kept back from me your dearly loved only son,
• Gen 48:16 : 16 The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.
• Exod 3:4-9 : 4 And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5 And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. 6 And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God. 7 And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows; 8 And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 9 For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them. 10 Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
• Exod 3:16 : 16 Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;
• Deut 4:20 : 20 But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.