Was it God or an angel who spoke from the burning bush?

The text itself identifies the two. The narrator who says in verse 2 that “the angel of the Lord appeared unto him” says two verses later that “God called unto him out of the midst of the bush”, and the speaker says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham” (Exodus 3:6). Moses hid his face, “for he was afraid to look upon God”. Stephen, who is cited for the angel, says both things in one breath: an angel appeared in the bush, “the voice of the Lord came unto him”, and the Lord told him to take off his shoes (Acts 7:30–33). Neither writer thought he was telling two different stories.

The Hebrew mal’ak (H4397) and the Greek angelos both mean ‘messenger’: the word names a task, not a kind of being. In the Old Testament ‘the angel of the Lord’ is a figure who often speaks as God and is recognised as God. Hagar calls him “Thou God seest me” (Genesis 16:13). He swears by himself to Abraham, “By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord” (Genesis 22:15–16). When he vanishes, Manoah cries, “we have seen God” (Judges 13:22). Jacob names God and “The Angel which redeemed me” in one blessing (Genesis 48:15–16). So Exodus can say ‘angel’ of the one who appeared in the flame, and ‘God’ of the same one as he spoke, because the messenger was the Lord’s own presence. Moses could later speak of God as “him that dwelt in the bush” (Deuteronomy 33:16).

Christians explain this messenger in two main ways (see below). On either view the accounts agree: God spoke to Moses from the bush, in or through the angel of the Lord, and Stephen’s words that God sent Moses “by the hand of the angel” (Acts 7:35) fit both.

The Son of God before his birth

From Justin Martyr in the second century, many Christians, including most of the Reformers and commentators such as Gill, Hengstenberg and Keil, have taken the angel of the Lord to be the Son of God appearing before his incarnation: God, and yet sent by God. They compare Malachi 3:1, where the Lord who comes to his temple is called “the messenger of the covenant”.

A created angel speaking for God

Augustine, Jerome and, later, scholars such as Delitzsch and Kurtz held that he was a created angel who spoke in God’s name and with his full authority, as an ambassador speaks the words of his king. On this view the words were truly God’s, though spoken through a messenger.

Which of these views is right is still debated. Both hold that the one who spoke from the bush spoke with God’s own authority, and that Moses truly met God there.