WHAT IS THE BURNING BUSH IN YOUR LIFE?
November 19, 2009
by Claire-Lise Walk – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Exodus 3:1-5
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.
2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground.
The book of Exodus is one of the 5 books of Moses, also known as Torah. The original text was in Hebrew and Hebrew always expresses a function unlike English, for one. So it is important to know what the Hebrew root of that English translated word really means, as we shall see in the following example.
Let me first recapitulate the events up to the above passage. Moses had a mighty call on his life which he was very much aware of, but in his zeal and lack of understanding of God’s ways, he took matters in his own hands, killed an Egyptian and when he saw that it backfired on him, fled into the land of Midian. “Midian” ( Strong’s number H4080) speaks of a quarrelling mind and attitude, it speaks of strife; he had fled in the desert, a barren land of strife. The root of this word is דּן (or din דּין ) and means “A quarrel requiring the need of a ruler or judge to mediate the incident.”
Yet because of his desire to really know Him, God lead him and he came to the mountain of God, in Horeb. A mountain speaks of a place of teaching – later on he would have the children of Israel sit and learn, by companies of 10, 50, 100 and 1000s (Deut 1) Yeshua would do the same and teach the people (Luke 9:14). He was in Horeb which is the Hebrew word חרב chorev H2722 and H2717 in the Strong’s dictionary– meaning a desert, desolate, destroy, kill, to lay waste, to be in ruins, to be dried up, to attack, to fight.
Note briefly that it is also another name for Mount Sinai. I’ll get back to that.
Again, in Hebrew, letters are also numbers and when added up, compose what is called a gematria. A word or chain of words that have the same total or gematria are said to be associated. In this instance the word *street* רחב has the same letters and is pronounced *rechov*. Symbolically the street is our mind, or mindsets, the path we tread. Its root comes from the word to think – חשׁב *chashav*. The letters ח -chet and ב -bet are part of those words and in this also we know that other words having these same letters are affiliated in their meaning.
From this so far, we understand that Moses was not in a good place to dwell in and his mind was reflecting all of the desert attributes enumerated above. A miserable feeling person he was.
Rain is symbolic of revelation, as he would later proclaim as the Prophet of YHVH, in Deuteronomy 32:2 *My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass*
The word doctrine is actually teaching, which root is torah.
In the desert it does not rain, so he was in a place of no revelation, a dry or droughty place, a dead mindset.
The angel of the Lord appeared to him: Angels (H4397) are messengers who bring a message from the throne room that we should observe and obey. We need eyes to see and ears to hear the language of YHVH. In this instance God graciously gave him this gift of vision (H7200) and he perceived, he distinguished the appearing, the manifestation of that message from YHVH, and he looked at Him face to face, never to be the same again.
Our God is a consuming fire and as such He appeared to him in a flame of fire. The word *flame* is H3827 and means a gleam, a flash (lightning flashes and again is symbolic of revelation that comes in the twinkling of an eye, and transforms us); it speaks of a sharply polished blade or point of a weapon. God’s Word is a two edged-sword, it is a sharply polished blade which ends in a point to pierce and circumcise our heart. The word *flame* is the Hebrew word להב lahav, which root is *heart* or לב.In ancient Hebrew it reads : 1255) ac: ? co: Heart ab: Think: The pictograph for Lamed ל is a picture of the shepherd staff representing authority, the Bet ב is a picture of a tent representing what is inside. Combined these mean “authority inside”. The consciousness of man is seen as coming from deep inside the chest, the heart. Thirst as an Inside desire for water.
It speaks also of: The organ that pumps blood. This organ is also seen as the seat of thought and emotion, the mind, understanding, wisdom.
So God’s Word, His flame is His heart, the authority inside that Sword, His passion we are to reflect and possess. His flaming Sword is there to quench the thirst for living waters we all have inside our chest, our heart that only He can satisfy. It is there to bring us to a right thinking, because His thoughts (mind, heart and thinking) are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).
And here goes the kicker:
In the midst of a: bush (H5572) סנה seneh- meaning to prick, a bramble. In Ancient Hebrew pictographs it means (1336) SN) ac: Pierce co: Thorn ab: Hate: The pictograph for Samech is a picture of a thorn, the Nun is a picture of seed. Combined these mean “thorn seed”. The thorn, the seed of a plant with small sharp points) cause one to turn directions to avoid them. (eng: sin)
It is a *tree* of the desert, it has thorns; it survives in a droughty place. It causes one to avoid it whichever directions it can- it speaks of a wavering to and fro, a staggering. It pierces the soul, and breeds hate!!!! From the same root comes the word – ( סנאSNA) : Hate: Like a thorn, hate causes one to turn away from another.
We are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and spirit, and to love our neighbour as ourselves… (Deut 6: 5, Lev.19:18) To love ourselves speaks of when we seek the truth and mercy from God that brings forgiveness, an atonement and frees us from our bondages. In order to love our brother/neighbour, we need to bring to them the same truth that freed us, the same truth that YHVH used to erase that debt. This is how we bless our enemies. As long as we turn away from another, or avoid in one form or another, we harbour hate, resentment, bitterness. We keep each other in bondage.
The seed is the word, Yeshua said, good seed or bad seed. All trees/bush grow from a seed. This kind of tree/bush is NOT the Tree of Life.
The letters that compose the word *bush* are a ס Samech, which speaks of a ring of protection from predators and is also symbolic of a ring of marriage or covenant (which can be with God or with satan, depending on who your father is). נ Nun, which represents a seed (the seed is the word – Luke 11:5- it can be a good (divine, resurrection) seed or a bad (evil, poisonous) seed) and the ה Heh , which speaks of the breath, which can be of the Spirit of God or the spirit of man.
To summarize this, it speaks of a place protected by a droughty seed which produces a tree of sort, but it is really a bush, a bramble that pricks; its fruit is hate. It is not even a real tree! It speaks of carnality, of the covenant or marriage with a deadly carnal seed. It has no rain, no life – it is a false mindset, in a desolate, ruined place laid to waste.
In contrast Sinai סיני is spelled סSamech יYod נ Nun י Yod and still means *thorny*.
The letter Yod is symbolic of the Spirit of God, His character, which is manifested in every letters of the Hebrew Alef-Bet. It represents True humility. Therefore, *Sinai* speaks also of a protection, a ring of marriage which is received in humility by the appearance of the character of God found in the Yod, His Spirit. This in turn, is projected in the true seed (Nun) which reflects again the character of God – This is the place of the true marriage covenant, where God cut covenant with the children of Israel and betrothed them. To some it would still be a thorny place, and remain a * seneh*, a bramble ground, a hateful place, in Horeb, the desert or wilderness, and to some it would become the place of protection of the Almighty having received His character, His prophetic Seed, that would crown and protect their minds from predators.
God told Moses that he would know that He spoke to him when he would have brought the people to Mount Sinai. (He had killed an Egyptian mindset alright, but inherited a Midianite one…he was still out of God’s will.)
Horeb was the place of call for a marriage – chet/huppah- an invitation to covenant and hear – resh or head/mind – the Love of God, His word, He wanted to put/form in the bet/house/tabernacle- that we are.
But first Moses needed to let go of his own “bush mentality” – the SNEH סנה – allow the fire of God to consume the wood, the hay and the stubble in his life, to see, perceive, understand the message from the Angel or else it would remain a bush that never consumes and the fire would burn hotter and hotter….
However Moses had a hard time to let go, for these same letters form the word: H597 -אנס ‘ânas which means *to insist, compel – to grab hold of one to perform* and also
H5375 – נסה נשׂא – To lift up a load, a burden and carry it. (note: both spellings are valid)
When a seed-word springs up in bitterness and its resultant hate and anger (these always go together) and take a hold of someone, it inflicts the pain of carrying a burden, it compels not to let go, no matter what we try (if we try)….and all kinds of unanswered reasons keep on nagging. It grows, and grows, until we see some of its fruit and we realize this is not going to go without some supernatural help. We need the “ruler or judge to mediate the incident”. His name is YESHUA, the Word of Life, the Deliverer.
However, we have to do just like Moses. Only once he was “willing AND enabled” to turn, give up, own up and face up to his bitterness and the lack of revelation, could God call out to him. The word *call* is *kara* and means *to name the name*. In Hebrew a name, a word, is a function, a character; Moses’ name means *drawn out of the waters, rescued*. When God called to Moses, He drew him out of the waters of Mara (later on when the children of Israel faced the same thing as he did, he knew what to do), and He was telling Him, *from now on you will bear MY secret Name*, for Moses or משׁה Moshe in Hebrew, speaks of a parabolic name. That means God could bring His character, His name into Moses, cause him to overcome that “midianite” mindset he was plagued with after his failure in Egypt. Now where did this mindset come from? Didn’t God say he had a call on his life? Couldn’t his brethren see that God had appointed him? Well, NO! Just like him, they also needed eyes to see and ears to hear. He sighed about it later on as recorded in Deuteronomy 29:4 – *Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.*
When Moses humbled himself and realized he had to give up before a Mighty God, is when God answered him. He gave him eyes to see and ears to hear, a mind to perceive and a heart to receive. It caused him to turn from his wicked ways or his walk before God – the word *wicked* means to twist the Truth. He was willing to forgive the people for not receiving him when he tried to free them, though by his own power and misinterpretation of God’s ways. He had not the power of God and he was defeated.
But when God impregnated him with His revelatory Seed, when God initiated him in the mysteries of Who He is, was when Moses was set on THE Way to reap a SINAI mentality, get intimate in marriage with the Living Breath of God, also known as the *Holy Spirit Who Leads us into All Truth* and be able to cross over to the Promised Land where there is rain, the revelation founded on the Law and the Prophets, and big fruit pleasing unto God.
Every wrong mindset is covered by a veil, which is the flesh. Whatever the reason for a wound which creates unforgiveness in our life, a prickly place of no revelation, the flaming heart of God’s Love cannot consume it until we are willing to turn. We are at enmity with God. We partake of the world. It is just about impossible on our own, because the wound is real, but to God all things are possible and the Apostle Paul encourages us when he affirms in 2 Corinthians 3:16 – *Nevertheless when he shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.* TURN TO THE LORD and let him heal the wounds the seed of the prickly bush in your Horeb has tormented you with. By God’s Grace and Mercy, He is leading me to this truth time and time again. Praised be He for His goodness towards the children of men.
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