- Name 29 of 70A Consuming Fire
- HebrewEsh okhlah
- In plain wordsThe God who is like a fire that devours
- Where to find itDeuteronomy 4:24, Moses speaking on the plains of Moab
When Moses told Israel that God is a consuming fire, he was naming what they had seen with their own eyes. The words come from Deuteronomy 4:24, and in Hebrew they are esh okhlah, "a fire that eats." The name says that God is holy, bright and powerful, warm to those who come near the right way, and dangerous to anything that tries to take His place.
An old man remembers the mountain
The book of Deuteronomy is a set of speeches Moses gave near the end of his life. Israel was camped in the land of Moab, east of the Jordan River, about to enter the land God had promised (Deuteronomy 1:5). Most of the people listening had been children, or not yet born, when their parents stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, also called Horeb. So Moses told them what had happened there.
The mountain had been covered in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire
(Exodus 19:18). God spoke the commandments out loud from the middle of the flames. Moses kept coming back to one detail:
And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.
Deuteronomy 4:12
A similitude is a likeness or a shape. They heard a voice and saw fire, but they saw no form at all. That was the reason, Moses said, that they must never carve an image of God (Deuteronomy 4:15 to 16). A statue can be lifted, moved, dusted and set on a shelf. Fire cannot be handled like that. Then, after warning them not to forget the covenant, he gave them this name:
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 4:24
Fire all through Israel's story
Moses was not reaching for a new picture. Fire had marked God's presence from the start. He first spoke to Moses from a burning bush. He led the people through the desert by a pillar of fire at night, to give them light (Exodus 13:21). On the day the priests began their work at the tabernacle, there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering
(Leviticus 9:24), and the people shouted and fell on their faces.
The very next chapter shows the other side. Two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not
, and fire came out from the LORD and they died (Leviticus 10:1 to 2). Strange here means unauthorized, not the way God had told them. The same holy fire that blessed the people could not be treated carelessly.
Esh okhlah: the eating fire
Esh is the plain Hebrew word for fire, the kind you would cook over. Okhlah is a form of akal, the everyday verb "to eat." In Hebrew, a fire that burns something up is said to eat it. So the King James word consuming is a good fit: this is a fire that devours what it touches.
In Hebrew, the two halves of Deuteronomy 4:24 sit side by side: He is an eating fire, a jealous God. Moses tied fire and jealousy together. God's burning holiness and His protective love are not two different things. Both refuse to share His people with idols.
There is a beautiful contrast hidden in the same Hebrew verb. At the burning bush, Moses looked and the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed
(Exodus 3:2). That word consumed is a form of akal too. The fire did not eat the bush. The first time Moses met the fire of God, a plain desert shrub stood in the flames and lived. The fire of God can destroy, and it can also rest on something without destroying it, when God chooses.
Key King James verses about God as fire
Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
Deuteronomy 9:3
Five chapters later Moses used the same picture as a comfort. The fire that warned Israel would also go in front of them against enemies they could not beat alone.
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
Malachi 3:2-3
A refiner heats silver until the impurities rise and can be skimmed off. Fullers' soap was a strong soap for cleaning cloth. Here God's fire is not meant to throw anything away. It is meant to make something pure.
Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
1 Kings 18:38
On Mount Carmel, the prophet Elijah asked God to show who the true God was. The fire fell on the soaked altar and burned up even the stones.
For our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12:29
The New Testament quotes Moses directly, and it says our God. The fire did not go out when the Old Testament ended.
Standing near the fire today
Many people want a God who is easy to manage: one who agrees with them, never surprises them, and stays where they put Him. That is the very thing Moses warned about. A god you can control is a statue, even if it is only a statue in your head. The real God is more like the fire on the mountain: beautiful, warm, bright and far beyond our control.
That should shape how you pray, how you read the Bible, and how you come into worship. Not with fear that freezes you, but with respect, the way you would stand near a great fire on a cold night. Close enough for warmth. Never careless.
And remember the bush. The God who is a consuming fire can come close to an ordinary person and not destroy them. His fire can burn off what is false in your life, like dross skimmed from silver, and leave you more alive than before.
- Ask yourself whether you have shrunk God down into someone safe and small.
- Name one habit or attitude you would want God's refining fire to burn away.
- Read Exodus 3 and Deuteronomy 4 together and notice both sides of the fire.
A Consuming Fire is name 29 of the 70. It sits between Jealous, which Moses joined to it in the same verse, and A God of Truth, from the song Moses taught just before he died. You can also find it on the Hebrew names of God page.
