


The meaning of the Divine Name


וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה

וַיֹּאמֶר, כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם

וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה כֹּה-תֹאמַר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

יהוה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב

שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם

זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם  וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר

'And God said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM' [or I will be Who I will be]; and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.'

'And God said moreover unto Moses: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: The LORD (YHVH), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.'

It is common Rabbinic practice now to superstitiously avoid the pronunciation of the Name to hedge the third (not second) commandment.

Josephus writes (Antiq.2.12.4) 'Whereupon God declared to him [Moses] His holy Name, which had never been discovered to men before; concerning which it is not lawful for me to say any more.' It is clear from many passages in the Tenach, that the Name's letters were known from the beginning (Gen.4.1,26), and that the Sacred Name was widely and properly used in Israel (to give just one of 100s of examples, Ruth 3.12) till these unlawful scruples stifled the worshipful employment of the great Name.
Even chapter headings in the Hebrew Bible (the Tenach) avoid combinations like יה to avoid invoking the Divine Name thoughtlessly and are substituted with other letters with the same numerical value. Despite this, the Divine Name is a common component of personal names, especially but not exclusively, after the Exodus (for an example of an exception see Issachar's grandson Rephaiah). The serving PM of Israel's valiant brother, the leader of the Entebbe raid, had a near palindromic example, Yehonatan Natanyahu.

What then was Moses asking in (Exod 3.12) and in what sense had the Name not been known before (Exod.6.2-3)?

A message on the subject.

      יהוה is the sacred personal Name of God, not a title, role of office.

Hebrew names have a meaning, often of great significance to the understanding of the passage in which they occur.

It was Moses' second question to God, when he was commissioned to liberate Israel from Egypt. He knew it was a crucial test he would be posed when he returned claiming a revelation. 'They shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?' Exod.3.13b.

It is also apparent though the letters and pronunciation of the Divine Name had been known and called upon since Creation, its all important meaning had not.

'And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am YHVH:
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name YHVH was I not known to them.' Exod.6.2-3.

When the Divine reply, by the mouth of the Angel or Messenger of God, out of the midst of the bush came to Moses, light shone into his mind.

'I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.' Exod.3.14.

The connexion between the verb to be and the Divine Name had never been made explicitly before. This unlocked its significance to Moses, and he realised this would provide a full answer that would satisfy the most restive of the children of Israel.

Yet the name does not mean  יִהְיֶה   which would be simply He is.

It's a grave mistake to assume that the sacred Name reflects only God's divine existence (carrying a purely an ontological significance), important though that sense is, being sanctified both by the LXX and by the New Testament. ο ων or to spell out its sense superfluously 'the One who is in being' is the expression by the Jewish translators of the Tenach for 'I AM' and is used un Revelation 1.4 of the Father and 1.8 of the eternal Son. The assertion that God's essence is identical with His existence, which may be founded on this wrong understanding of the Name, leads to the error of Divine Simplicity.

For one thing it is wholly inconsistent with the conjugation of  היה (to be), would have been unconvincing to the captive Hebrews, and makes the common later expression  יהוה צְבָאוֹת (The Lord of Hosts - a reference to the armies of Heaven) sound like an expression of equivalence rather than one of absolute dominion.

היה (to be), is triply weak (gutteral פ, a yod ע and לֹיה) and is not easily conjugated.

Here is the conjugation chart for Lamed Heh verbs, taken from the FSU site  (here).

Albright and other scholars* suggest the meaning of the name is derived the 3rd person singular imperfect Hiphil form of היה.

This seems the correct grammatical solution. The correct pronounciation would then be יַהְוֶה (Yahveh) or something very similar.

The Hiphil or causative tense of היה is not otherwise utilised, which perhaps explains why this sense of the name was obscure to Moses and his people and the patriarchs before them.

He who brings into being.

This is the essential and eternal character of the Divine Being, not only at Creation, but also within the Godhead. 

This also naturally and properly explains the formal compound:

יַהְוֶה צְבָאוֹת

The Lord Who brings even the Hosts of Heaven into Being. Given that astronomers now reckon that there are at least

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe, that is a reasonable starting place  for our worship.

יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן מִרְיָם

The Messiah's Name derived from the Sacred Name

YHVH is salvation, or He will bring salvation into being.

This may be properly spoke of the eternal Father, by appointment, conception and commission, or the eternal Son, by covenant agreement, and by execution in perfect atonement, or the Holy Spirit by its accomplishment by empowering the Son, and effectual application to His seed.

They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.' (Isa. 49.6-9)

The Name also applies to the eternal essence of the Divine Being.

John 1.18  θεον ουδεις εωρακεν πωποτε ο μονογενης υιος ο ων εις τον κολπον του πατρος εκεινος εξηγησατο

 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is (ο ων) in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

The Divine Son draws His being from the Father by eternal generation, without beginning, without creation, by distinction without separation of the Persons, with the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and by the Son, so that God is One being. It belies the error of simplicity of God's essence


Divine Wisdom in communion with the Father - a glimpse of this eternal generation

When there were no depths, I was brought forth (חוֹלָלְתִּי); when there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth (חוֹלָלְתִּי):
Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;    Prov.8.22-30.

Eternal Son of the Father

'For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;' John 5.26

Although the passage is usually confined to the Messiah's authority to quicken as a mediator, to which it certainly alludes, here there appears an analogy to the relation between Father and Son too.

The occasion of this statement was the Messiah's unmistakeable profession of Deity expressed in words about the Sabbath, that would have deeply shocked his scholarly hearers,

'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' (v.17).

Again in John 6.57.


This shortly after Messiah's promise that, 'I am the living bread which came down from heaven:'

Is this the sense in which the Sacred Name is used as a verb in the third person in conjuction with the abbreviated  version of the Name Yah as a noun, in Isa 26.4?

בִּטְחוּ בַיהוָה עֲדֵי-עַד:  כִּי בְּיָהּ יְהוָה צוּר עוֹלָמִים

A usual translation is: 'Trust ye in the LORD for ever, for the LORD is GOD, an everlasting Rock.'

(AV: Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: {Footnote: everlasting … : Heb. the rock of ages })

However if the full Name is translated as its verb meaning, the second clause might be read,:

'For by Yah He brings forth or gives being to the Rock of Ages.'     (That Rock was Christ).

Perception of the begetting character of the Essence of Deity is a cardinal foundation stone of salvation

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Messiah? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. 1 Jn.2.22-23.


צוּר יְלָדְךָ, תֶּשִׁי;  וַתִּשְׁכַּח, אֵל מְחֹלְלֶךָ.
Of the Rock that begot thee thou wast unmindful, and didst forget God that bore thee. (Deut .32.18)

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