Commentary for Exodus 3:3

אָסוּרָה means I WILL TURN ASIDE from here in order that I may approach thither.

אסורה נא ואראה; I will try and understand the phenomenon by looking at it more closely. מדוע לא יבער הסנה. Why the Egyptians do not perish from the many plagues they have to endure. The normal reaction to burning is that the object afire is consumed by the fire, as mentioned in Ovadiah 18.

מדוע לא יבער הסנה, “why the bush refused to burn up and turn into ash.” The root בער used here for burning up is used to describe the process of something being utterly destroyed, leaving no trace of having existed. Compare the confession of the farmer in Deuteronomy 26,13: בערתי הקודש מן הבית, “I have utterly destroyed anything sacred from the house;” my teacher preferred to interpret Moses’ words as being phrased as a question: “seeing that the fire has not consumed the bush, why is this so?”

מדוע לא יבאר הסנה, “why the bush fails to burn.” This is a verse that has been artificially shortened. After having observed that the bush had not been consumed by the fire, Moses wanted to investigate the reason for this, i.e. “why does it not burn?” As it is written, it makes no sense, since Moses had witnessed that it was burning; he had only not observed the outcome of this, i.e. that the fibers would be turning into ash.