Bible in 90, Day 05: Ian sent you?

Exodus 1-15

*image courtesy of dimitri_c at stock.xchng

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

Shakespeare was right about some things, but on this one I have to call shenanigans.  I won’t go into the linguistic debate about prescription versus description, but suffice it to say that I think the name of a person is quite different than the name of a flower.  A person’s name is bound up in who they are.  The combination of sounds that make up the name call to mind not just letters and syllables, but the person himself.  When you hear “George Washington” or “Britney Spears” or “Fred Flintstone,” your mind conjures up all kinds of facts, images, and even emotions related to that name.

When it came time for Moses to tell the people of Israel that someone had sent him to deliver them, what was he to say?  This is the very question on his mind in Exodus 3.  In asking God this question, he is also asking Him to identify Himself.  God replies, quite cryptically, “I AM WHO I AM.”  So, Moses is to tell Israel that “I AM” has sent him.  Good thing he didn’t have to email that in, imagine the typos…

“Ian sent you?  Who’s Ian?  Hey, does anyone know the divine Ian?”

God has done an amazing thing here.  This is the first time in recorded revelation that God revealed any kind of personal name.  Look in v. 15.  In the English, it reads like this:

“Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Ok, so God declares quite clearly that His name forever, the name to remember is “The LORD.”  Do you notice how “LORD” is all caps?  There’s a reason for that!  It’s because this is a translation of an old custom of substituting LORD for the divine name.  That’s right, our God has a name!  In Hebrew, it is YHWH (originally Hebrew had no consonants).  If you add the vowels that we think go in there, it’s Yahweh.  This Hebrew words sounds a lot like the Hebrew for “I am,” the answer God gave to Moses.  This is why you may have heard the God of the Bible referred to as The Great I AM.

Now, why is this name significant?  First off, it sets Yahweh apart from any other supposed God.  He is not Ra, or Dagon, or Asherah, or Baal, or Zeus, or Jupiter.  More modernly, He is not Allah, or Vishnu, or Sophia, or Shiva.  It’s important to know what God you’re talking about, because (contrary to popular opinion) they are not many names referring to one truth!  Compare the traits of Yahweh with any other god mentioned in the Bible.  Compare Yahweh’s love, compassion, and involvement in the universe with that of many eastern gods of today.  You will find that Yahweh is indeed a unique God, because He is the true God.

Secondly, Yahweh is telling us something about Himself through His name.  Your Bible probably has some kind of footnote in v. 14 that says that “I am that I am” could be translated “I will be what I will be.”  The reason for this is that there is no tense in Hebrew verbs.

The less-boring, more-important thing is this: God is saying that He is the eternal one.  He is the self-being One!  He simply is.  God doesn’t not have beginning or end, and He doesn’t require us to exist.  He existed long before us, and will continue on forever!  He is the being one.

God is.

Let’s understand that our God is a specific God.  He has a name that represents who He is, Yahweh.  Let’s never take this name in vain, let’s never abuse it, and let’s never downplay it as one label among thousands.  Let’s remember that our God is the Eternal One.  He has no beginning or end, and He has no need of us.  Let’s also remember that even though He doesn’t need us for His survival, He still loved us by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for us.

Originally at Words of Reason