Exodus 3:5 · World English Bible
Exodus 3:5 Meaning He Said
He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.”
What does Exodus 3:5 mean?
To remove the shoes is to strip away the protective certainty a man carries between himself and the ground of being. Shoes are what let a person walk over the world without feeling it.
From the Clinical Psychology reading below.
Exodus 3:5 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Clinical Psychology
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Clinical Psychology
To remove the shoes is to strip away the protective certainty a man carries between himself and the ground of being. Shoes are what let a person walk over the world without feeling it. Ordered to take them off, Moses must stand exposed, admitting he does not understand what confronts him. Making friends with one's own ignorance is the precondition for anything worth calling revelation.
The ground is called holy because attention has finally landed on it. A man can walk past a burning bush his whole life. The one who stops, who narrows his focus onto the single strange thing in front of him and stays there, finds that the narrow problem opens onto everything. Standing naked before the mystery is the posture in which a person can be spoken to. Take off what protects you from feeling where you stand, and the place beneath your feet turns out to be alive.
Clinical Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Clinical Psychology lens
Live Exodus 3:5 today
- Pick one opinion you hold firmly and spend ten minutes honestly looking for where you might be wrong. Not to perform humility, just to loosen your grip enough to see.
- In one conversation today, say "I don't know" or "I hadn't thought of that" and mean it. Most arguments are two people defending certainty they do not actually have.
- When you walk into a familiar place today, your kitchen, your office, the same grocery store, slow down for thirty seconds and look at it like you have never been there. You can walk past your whole life without ever once feeling the ground.
What am I protecting myself from feeling by being so sure?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen · beginner's mind
Shunryu Suzuki taught that in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. Admitting you do not understand is what reopens the room.
Tao Te Ching 71
To know that you do not know is the beginning of wisdom. Certainty is the sickness that keeps a person from learning anything.
Socrates · the Delphic reply
Socrates concluded he was wise only in that he knew he knew nothing. Everything he learned came through that one admission.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Exodus 3 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store