The burning bush is an object described by the Book of Exodus as being located on Mount Horeb; according to the narrative, the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name. In the narrative, the burning bush is the location at which Moses was appointed by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan.
The Hebrew word used in the narrative, that is translated into English as bush, is seneh (סנה), which refers in particular to brambles; seneh is a biblical dis legomenon, only appearing in two places, both of which describe the burning bush. It is possible that the reference to a burning bush is based on a mistaken interpretation of Sinai (סיני), a mountain described by the Bible as being on fire, and some scholars think that the reference to the burning bush in Deuteronomy, in particular, might be a copyist's error, and may perhaps originally have been a reference to Sinai.
Read more about Burning Bush: Biblical Narrative, St. Catherine's Monastery, Interpretations From Eastern Orthodoxy, Alternative Theories, Symbolic Uses of The Burning Bush
Famous quotes containing the words burning bush, burning and/or bush:
“These people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails,” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“What have I thus betrayed my libertie?
Can those blacke beames such burning markes engrave
In my free side? or am I borne a slave,
Whose necke becomes such yoke of tyranny?”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all. And another storm brewing, I hear it sing i’ the wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)