# Moses and the Burning Bush

- By: Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665)
- Date: 1641
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: height 203.7 cm, width 170.8 cm
- Culture: French
- Museum: [SMK – National Gallery of Denmark](https://open.smk.dk/artwork/image/KMSsp688)
- Rights: [Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/)
- Picture: https://iip-thumb.smk.dk/iiif/jp2/dz010w35z_KMSsp688.tif.jp2/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Poussin painted and drew a range of scenes showing the Old Testament figure of Moses. In the artist’s own day Moses was considered a ”type” – a predecessor – of Jesus, and the narratives of the Pentateuch were seen as foreshadowing the New Testament stories about the Messiah. The painting merges two passages from Leviticus and The Book of Numbers (3:2; 34:3). God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush that is never consumed by the flames, ordering him to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. The staff of Moses is transformed into a snake; a miracle that convinces the Jewish people that they should follow Moses. The entire composition exudes the same sense of weight and calm as sculptures from classical antiquity.