Moses said to God, \u201cSuppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, \u2018The God of your fathers has sent me to you,\u2019 and they ask me, \u2018What is his name?\u2019 Then what shall I tell them?\u201d
\n14 God said to Moses, \u201cI AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: \u2018I AM has sent me to you.\u2019 \u201d
\n15 God also said to Moses, \u201cSay to the Israelites, \u2018The LORD, the God of your fathers\u2014the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob\u2014has sent me to you.\u2019
\n\u201cThis is my name forever,
\nthe name you shall call me
\nfrom generation to generation. (Exodus 3:13-15)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
God\u2019s name is written with four letters (yod, he, vav, he) and thus God\u2019s name is sometimes referred to as the tetragramaton (a four letter word).<\/p>\n
His name is a third person imperfect of the verb to be; I AM in verse 14 is the same verb, to be, but it is the first person imperfect form. <\/p>\n
The form of the third person imperfect used for God\u2019s name is the archaic form, with a vav instead of what was used later (and is used elsewhere throughout the Bible), a yod.<\/p>\n
In the ten commandments, in Exodus 20:7, God tells the people not to \u201cmisuse\u201d his name (or to \u201cuse it in vain\u201d). The Jewish people developed the habit of building hedges around the law; that is, in order to avoid breaking one of God\u2019s commands, they added other commands that if followed, would prevent you from even getting in a position to violate God\u2019s commandment. So for instance the command in Exodus 23:19, 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21 to not cook a young goat in its mother\u2019s milk is the basis for the kosher regulations that milk and meat products can never be mixed; some even use separate dishes, cooking pots, and utensils for milk and meat products and some even go the extreme of having entirely separate kitchens for the two products.<\/p>\n
Thus, the Jewish people built a hedge around the commandment not to misuse God\u2019s name by deciding that God\u2019s name must never be pronounced.<\/p>\n
Thus, whenever his name was seen in the biblical text, instead of saying God\u2019s name, Yahweh, they said the word adonai, which in Hebrew meant \u201clord\u201d or \u201cmaster\u201d. That then became a synonym for God and eventually came to be used exclusively for him; in Jewish thinking, that word was the same as the word \u201cGod.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 600s AD, when the vowel system was developed in Tiberias by the Masoretes, they enshrined the no pronunciation rule by \u201cmispointing\u201d the divine name by putting the vowels for adonai in place of the vowels for Yahweh and putting two vowels upon one consonant, an impossibility by the rules of vowel pointing laid down by the Masoretes. Thus, not only was the rule that God\u2019s name was not to be spoken, by doing this they made the name unpronounceable in fact.<\/p>\n
But\u2026<\/p>\n
When gentiles first learned to read Hebrew, the rules for God\u2019s name didn\u2019t initially stick and so God\u2019s name was transliterated, which is how the word \u201cJehovah\u201d came to exist. It is a misreading by early translators, but it has stuck. And the tradition of never saying God\u2019s name has passed on to gentile students of Hebrew in every seminary and Bible college in the United States. When I took Hebrew, I was taught\u2014at a Baptist school—not to pronounce God\u2019s name, but instead to say \u201cadonai.\u201d<\/p>\n
And you\u2019ll notice that all English translations, instead of putting God\u2019s name in the OT, put the word LORD, all in capitals. Or, sometimes, the word GOD all in capitals, to signify that it is God\u2019s name there.<\/p>\n
When the Bible was translated into Greek in the 200s BC, the tradition was already firmly in place, so that every time God\u2019s name appeared, it was transformed into the Greek word for Lord: kurios.<\/p>\n
Some bad theology has grown from this. Although this word is a word that normally in Greek would mean \u201clord\u201d or \u201cboss\u201d or \u201cmaster\u201d, when it is used in place of God\u2019s name by Jewish people, it loses that sense and simply means \u201cGod\u201d, just as for most English speakers it is simply another word for God. In New Testament usage, it has become a technical term with a specialized meaning: it just means “God.” Just as the Greek word “ecclesia” developed a technical meaning for Christians; although in Greek it meant a political assembly, among Christians it took on the meaning “church.” <\/p>\n
Thus, by the time of the NT, Jewish people (and then Christians) refused the annual oath to Caesar, when all Romans were required to utter the phrase \u201cCaesar is Lord.\u201d Which, for Jews and Christians was the same as saying \u201cCaesar is God.\u201d They refused and the Roman Empire had given Jewish people an exemption (since the Romans didn\u2019t want never ending rioting).<\/p>\n
Thus, in the NT when Jesus is called \u201cLord\u201d he is not being called master, or boss, he is simply being called God. The odd concept of \u201clordship salvation\u201d is based on a misunderstanding of the Bible’s use of the term.<\/p>\n
After Moses gets to Egypt and performs his first two signs, Pharoah rejects him and adds more work on the people, so that now the people are mad at him too. Moses complains to God about the situation and then God reassures Moses that everything will work out. During the comforting process, God comments:<\/p>\n
In Exodus 6:2-3:<\/p>\n
God also said to Moses, \u201cI am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, l but by my name the LORD n I did not make myself fully known to them.<\/p>\n
At first glance, this seems very odd, since we find God\u2019s name appearing repeatedly in the book of Genesis from its first appearance at Genesis 2:4\u2014and then on and on; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all use the word. But in Exodus 6:2-3, we are told they didn\u2019t know the name.<\/p>\n
What gives?<\/p>\n
The author of Genesis, writing after the time of Exodus 6:2-3, wanted his readers to know that the God of their forefathers, the patriarchs, were worshipping the same God that had rescued them from Egypt. The God who created the world was the same God that had parted the Red Sea and fed them mana for 40 years. The God in whose image they had been created was the same God that the Levitical priests sacrificed their sin offerings to in the Tabernacle and then the Temple.<\/p>\n
It is anachronistic and not \u201cliteral\u201d in the mouths of the patriarchs; but putting the name back upon their lips serves and important theological purpose.<\/p>\n
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Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"God\u2019s name is singular: he only has one: Yahweh. All the other words are designations or descriptions, like referring to myself as \u201ctheologian\u201d or \u201cauthor\u201d or “annoying.” But neither of those is my name. Some people have nick names. And … Continue reading