John Calvin Commentary Exodus 3:1

"Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb." — Exodus 3:1 (ASV)

Now Moses kept the flock. We have already said that he was occupied as a shepherd for a long time (namely, about forty years) before this vision appeared to him. The patience, then, of the holy man is commended by his continuance in this work; not that Moses had any intention of boastfully celebrating his own virtues, but that the Holy Spirit dictated what would be useful to us and, as it were, suggested it to his mouth, that what he did and suffered might be an example forever.

For he must have had much mental struggle at this tedious delay, when old age, which weakens the body, approached, since even in those days few retained their activity after their eightieth year. Although he might have lived frugally, temperance could not protect even the most robust body against so many hardships, because it is granted to very few people to be able to live in the open air in this way and to bear heat, cold, hunger, constant fatigue, the care of cattle, and other troubles.

God, indeed, miraculously supported the holy man in the performance of his arduous duties; but still, the internal conflict must have continued—why does God so long delay and suspend what he so long ago determined? It was, then, no ordinary virtue that overcame these distracting assaults, which were constantly renewing his anxiety. While, in the meantime, he was living poorly, in huts and sheds, as well as often wandering over rough and desert places, though from childhood to mature manhood he had been accustomed to luxury. As he here relates, having led his flock across the Desert, he came to Horeb, which certainly could not have been accomplished without his experiencing the cold as he lay on the ground by night and burning heat by day.

The title of “the mountain of God” refers³⁵ by anticipation to a future period, when the place was consecrated by the promulgation of the Law there. It is well known that Horeb is the same mountain that is also called Sinai, except that a different name is given to its opposite sides; and, properly speaking, its eastern side is called Sinai, its western, Horeb.³⁶ Since, then, God appeared there and gave so many manifest signs of his heavenly glory when he renewed his covenant with his people and provided them with a rule of perfect holiness, the place became invested with peculiar dignity.

³⁵ κατὰ πρόληψιν. — Lat

³⁶ Horeb appears to have been the general name of the whole mountainous district, of which Sinai formed a part. This solution fully meets the objection of certain modern cavillers, who have argued, at least, against the identity of the author of the Pentateuch, if not against its inspiration, on the ground that the same events are recorded as having taken place sometimes on Horeb, sometimes on Sinai. Vide Hengstenberg on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, Ryland’s Transl., vol. 2, p. 325; Fisk’s Memorial of the Holy Land, p. 146.