Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Moses had finished his second forty years when God called him. He was kept in obscurity, tending sheep, yet God honors industry and trains him in meekness and contentment before raising him to great service. His long preparation shows how God works by His own timing, not ours.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 3:1-6
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...
put off thy shoes--The direction was in conformity with a usage which was well known to Moses, for the Egyptian priests observed it in their temples, and it 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.