Exodus 1-4 - God's Name

I was torn between my two ideas for this journal entry, but instead of going with a post applicable to the hardships of the Israelites based around this blog post that I saw a few days back on Facebook, I'm going with what I had originally intended to write.

For a very long time, I have been fascinated with names. What do they mean? Are they significant? Why are they named that way? Interestingly enough, I'm not a genealogy fan, but I do love etymology (and the spelling that comes from all those awesome roots). So when God gives His name to Moses when calling him into service, that's where my investigation headed.

First of all, his name is rendered differently throughout various translations of the Bible:

I am who I am - NIV & ESV
I AM WHO I AM and WHAT I AM, and I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE - Amplified Bible
I AM THAT I AM - KJV
... and the footnote from the Contemporary English Version: The Hebrew text has “Yahweh,” which is usually translated “Lord” in the CEV. Since it seems related to the word translated “I am,” it may mean “I am the one who is” or “I will be what I will be” or “I am the one who brings into being.”

When we think of names, we think of nouns... of specific people in specific times, places, and spaces. Isn't it interesting then that God, in speaking to Moses, chose to name himself as a verb? By naming himself as a verb, in one broad stroke, God is instructing us that he automatically transcends time and space; God is not bound to the confines of a god like Baal, Zeus or Shiva. God has given us a name that is absolutely limitless.

Now, when we take the I AM and translate it into Hebrew, one would expect to find that it would translate to the tetragrammaton, aka the letters that make up God's name, right. Yet, interestingly, it doesn't. Instead of translating to יהוה (yehôvâh), it translates to הָיָה (hâyâh). Now, the definition of hâyâh does indeed mean 'I am', but there's an interesting twist when one also looks at the words that this is related to.

Hâyâh is closely related to the words hâvâh and âvâh. Are you with me so far? :) Now the definition of hâvâh is indeed "to be, become, exist, happen." But the definition of âvâh is "desire, incline, covet, wait longingly, wish, sigh, want, be greedy, prefer."

Now when I was originally going to post this, I was about ready to say that a root for God's very name comes from the Hebrew word for "desire." But, to be more precise, according to the Interlinear Bible, those two words are only related to one another. Even so, the devotional thought is still quite evident:

In giving God's name as he did to Moses, there is at least a hint or an allusion to desire and even a longing, waiting and wanting.

But what does God want? What in the world could he desire? Recall what we read in Genesis: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7). God created our human race because he desired a relationship with something that was other than himself. He wants you, he wants me; he wants our neighbors; he wants our enemies; he wants everyone! Indeed, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ" (Ephesians 1:7-10).

Other questions to think about (and that I didn't have time or space to write about):
- Wow Pharaoh is slow, isn't he? Whenever he keeps tasking the Israelites more, God blesses his people more and makes them multiply even quicker and become more defiant. Lesson to be learned here about earthly governments perhaps?

- Do you wonder what the Bible would be like if it was more standardized? The reason I ask is that I found that God called to Moses from the mountain of Horeb (Exodus 3:1). So what? Well, that mountain is also known as Mt. Sinai, which we'll be hearing about very soon. Imagine if our people knew that; so many more connections can be formed within our minds! --- Indeed, check out v. 12: "And God said, 'I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.'" We would catch that verse much easier if Horeb was indeed called Sinai here :).