What Is In a Name?

The Old Testament uses many different terms when referring to God. The most common word for God, Elohim, is actually a description and not a name. In some ways, "Higher Power," introduced by Bill W. through Alcoholics Anonymous, is a great synonym for Elohim (more on this point in a future blog).

But did you know that God actually introduced Himself and gave His personal Name to Moses at the "burning bush" in Exodus 3?

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God [Elohim] of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3: 13-14).

God, in essence, said to Moses that He could use His personal name, I AM. In the Hebrew, the actual Name is often referred to as the tetragrammaton, for the "four letters" that make up the Hebrew root: Y-H-W-H. Since the original Hebrew text did not include the vowel markings, the only way of knowing the pronunciation is through tradition. Since the verb "to be" would be a very common word, the Name is actually conjugated in an obscure form to avoid accidentally speaking it in casual conversation. The Name is probably close to Yahweh. And it would more literally mean something like "I will be."

[As an aside: the Third Commandment says, "Do not misuse the name of Yahweh Elohenu" or "Do not take the name of the LORD your God in vain" (Ex. 20: 7). Fearing the breaking of this commandment, a Jewish tradition arose to speak the word Adonai (Lord) whenever the name Yahweh appeared in the text. Thus a distinction between the kethib (the thing written) and the qere (the thing spoken). The Masoretic text is the result of hundreds of years of Jewish scholars' attempt to codify the vocalization of a text that originally contained no vowel markings. Whenever the reader came to the word, YHWH in the text, he was to speak the word for "Lord," Adonai (or sometimes the word for "God," Elohim). In order to ensure this, the vowels for Adonai were attached to the consonants for Yahweh which created a non-word, yahovah. So, Jehovah is actually a non-word that was never meant to be spoken. This is why the over 6,800 occurances of Yahweh are usually translated "the LORD" in most English-language Bibles.]

I have a kind of pet peeve over this particular issue. God told His people to use His personal name, Yahweh. I see this as an invitation into relationship with Him. It would be like the President saying, "I know I'm the President, but please call me Abe." In essence, he would be saying, "I want to relate to you and you to me on a personal level." To refuse to use "Abe" would be a refusal of relationship.

Not only that, it creates confusion at some points in translation. Case in point: "THE LORD said to my Lord" (Ps. 110: 1). Notice that the NIV translators use all-caps when translating Yahweh and lower-case when translating Adonai. This would be more accurately translated "Yahweh said to my Lord."

Or in Psalm 8: 9: "O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Doesn't it make more sense to sing: "O Yahweh our Lord..."?

I will continue the implications of the Divine Name in my next blog, but let me close this one with an observation. The God of the Universe is a personal God who created us humans with the capacity to enter into a relationship with Him where we can actually get to know Him. It doesn't make sense to get a personal invitation and then refuse it because we are afraid of Him.

Jesus came to us as the way that this personal God becomes accessible in a way that Israel could never seem to grasp. Don't you think it is time to accept that invitation?

More next week...