The Bible in a Year | November 12, 2026
Today’s Reading · Exodus 3:1–22
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” — Exodus 3:14 (NIV)
When someone says, “Tell them I sent you,” the name matters because of the person behind it. An old friend’s name may open a conversation because you know how that friend keeps a promise. Moses had good reason to ask whose name he should give the Israelites. He was tending sheep in Midian when God called him from the burning bush and sent him back to Egypt. He was to go before Pharaoh and lead a people out of slavery. I can hear the hesitation in Moses’ first question in Exodus 3:11. Who was he to do such a thing? God answered with a promise Moses would need every step of the way. “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:12, NIV)
A few verses later, when Moses asks what name he should give the people, God answers with the Hebrew phrase ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh. The NIV reads “I am who I am” and offers “I will be what I will be” in a footnote. The same word, ’ehyeh, occurs in God’s promise to be with Moses. Then in verse 15 God gives the name YHWH, commonly rendered LORD in English Bibles, and identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The words echo one another in Hebrew. I find it worth reading those verses together. The God who sends Moses is the God Israel’s ancestors knew, and He is committing Himself to be with Moses in a task Moses can scarcely imagine carrying out.
Before God tells Moses His name, He has already told him what He has seen and heard. He has seen the misery of His people. He has heard their cries. He knows what their suffering has cost them, and He has come to rescue them. I can read right past those details if I hurry to the part where Moses gets his assignment. Yet those are the words I need to sit with when I wonder whether God has noticed a sorrow that has gone on a long time. By the time Moses sees the bush, God has already heard the people. When I come to John 8:58 and hear Jesus say egō eimi, “I am,” before Abraham was born, I hear an echo of the God who made Himself known at Horeb. Jesus speaks as One whose life reaches back beyond the very patriarch God names to Moses.
There is a question I want to keep beside me as I read Scripture. “What does this tell me about God?” Try asking it before you ask what you should do. In Exodus 3, it might draw your eye to the Lord’s attention to people whose cries Pharaoh could afford to ignore. That changes what obedience looks like when you close your Bible. Perhaps a family member has tried twice to tell you how hard things have been, and both times the conversation moved on. You might call and ask them to finish what they were saying. What we learn about God can change whose voice we stop to hear.
As you read Exodus 3 today, ask the Holy Spirit for understanding that reaches your heart as well as your mind. Choose one thing the passage helps you see about the Lord. Put it into your own words, then let it shape one decision or conversation before the day is over.
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