The Great I AM - Pt. 1

 

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘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, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15 ESV).

 

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. I hope you had a wonderful season of celebration with family and friends. Today, I thought it would be encouraging to center our thoughts around the name of God. The name “Jesus” is one of the names associated with the Second Person of the Trintiy. Jesus is indeed fully divine and fully human, though He refers to the Father and the Holy Spirit as tow other manifestations of who He is. We use the name “Jehovah”, or “Yahweh”, as the name of God. This is the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush (see today’s reading from Exodus 3).

 

Jehovah is a Latinized version of the Hebrew name for God, Yəhōwā (יהֹוָה‎), which is one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה‎, or YHWH). The Tetragrammaton is the proper name for the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. Yahweh is based on the consonants YHWH, which is one of the names for God used in the Old Testament. In ancient Hebrew, the vowels were not normally written. This would not have been a problem for native speakers and readers. Jehovah is the same name based on the Latin equivalents of the Hebrew letters: JHVH. Jehovah became the English translation of the Latin form of the Hebrew name. For all practical purposes, Jehovah and Yahweh are the simply English and Hebrew pronunciations for God’s name. However, it has become more popular in recent years to use Yahweh instead of Jehovah because it is technically more accurate.

 

The name Yahweh comes from the Hebrew word for “I am.” When God met Moses at the burning bush and commanded him to go back to Egypt and lead the people out, Moses asked who he should say has sent him. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: “I am has sent me to you.”’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: “The LORD [YHWH], 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, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations’” (Exodus 3:14–15). We should understand the depth of the name God gave to us. It provides so much encouragement and inspiration. We’ll look more at this in the next few days. Today, simply rest in the truth that you KNOW God by His name as He knows you!