I’ve been to many homes where the first rule upon entry is to take your shoes off and place them by the door. In some cases, it’s a custom; in others, it’s just to keep the house clean. In both (and more) situations, it’s probably a good rule.
But the reason that God wanted Moses to take his shoes off upon seeing the burning bush has nothing to do with tracking dirt indoors, but everything to do with purity. For the first time in his life, at nearly 80 years old, he was seeing God for the first time. He needed to be ready for such an occasion.
It’s actually kind of humorous to see all the different reasons people have come up with to try and explain the reason for Moses taking off his shoes. Everything from shoes representing vulgarity to Moses being a type of the law, of which shoes played an impediment.
To be clear, when I say those remarks were “humorous,” I certainly am not trying to demean other people or their opinions. I just think the idea that we can pinpoint exactly why God told Moses to take his shoes off, as if we’re able to uncover some grand, theological symbolism in the act, is our way of throwing spiritual darts. We don’t really know, and probably will never know. But it’s there. So we dissect it.
The only thing that we can know for sure is that Moses was standing on “holy ground,” but even that statement can bring forth questions. How far out does the holiness extend? When can Moses put his shoes back on?
Neither of those questions are as important as “why” the ground is important in the first place. The answer to that is simple: God’s presence. Shoes provide a barrier to that intimacy, but even more than that, they’re dirty. When you come into the direct presence of God, a cleanliness is required.
We see this type of purity built into the Old Law. Before priests could enter the Tabernacle, they had to go through an elaborate cleansing ritual (Numbers 8:5-22). Bowls, utensils, plates, and anything else that was used in the sacrifices had to be cleansed as well (Leviticus 8).
The whole idea of the tabernacle is to provide a meeting place between God and man. As God tells Moses, the Tabernacle will be a place where God can “dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8) – the only way that’s possible is if it’s built to His specifications and maintained in His way.
For that reason, this first meeting between Moses and God has to take place without shoes. Those shoes aren’t cleansed by God, they’re defiled, dirty, not to God’s regulations. But rather than strike Moses down for this, God simply tells him to take them off. All the other regulations will come later.