God With Us (1)
God’s covenant with Man is one of the great themes of the Bible.
This finds expression in that simple, oft-repeated declaration of God’s: “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.” (eg. Jeremiah 31:33)
This is staggering when you think about it.
Why should “the High and Lofty God, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy” choose to “dwell with him who has a contrite and humble spirit”? (Isaiah 57:15) – especially when those He dwells with are not only infinitely beneath Him, but also part of the Great Rebellion against Him, their Creator.
God’s covenant with us, sinful creatures, is amazing.
Over the next few posts I would like to look at how God reveals Himself in covenant with us, especially through His names, in the Bible.
Let’s begin by considering God’s sacred covenant Name:
YHWH
This is how God’s sacred covenant Name appears in the Bible (though in Hebrew letters) when written without vowels. Hebrew was originally written without vowels.
If you leave out vowels in text it is not all that difficult to read – at least, it isn’t if what is written is in your native tongue. Eg. try:
TH CT ST N TH MT
Those of you from across TH DTCH will have no problem. 
And the Hebrews had little trouble reading and pronouncing their own tongue before the script included vowels.
But when it came to the sacred covenant Name of God, the Hebrews held that in such reverence they wouldn’t pronounce it anyway. Instead, in the margin, there would be a note: “Instead, read ‘the Lord’”.
As a result, by the time the Jews started to put vowels into their Hebrew text, no one was sure what vowels to put in, or how to pronounce: YHWH.
English Bibles followed the Hebrew tradition and simply translated this sacred Name as: “The LORD” (usually printed in small caps).
When English translators sought to transliterate the sacred Name, and add vowels, they came up with: YeHoWaH – or (as it is usually spelt) “Jehovah”.
We’re now pretty sure they got it wrong. Best guess is: YaHWeH.
(But I’m still not used to that. I still read: “The LORD”.)
What does YHWH mean?
Though this Name appears in the Bible before Exodus 3, its meaning is traced back to there, to God’s revelation of Himself to Moses at the Burning Bush.
There, Moses was running out of excuses for not returning to Egypt (after a 40 year absence and having settled into retirement), even though God had told him to go: “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)
Moses opened his case by objecting: “But, who am I that I should go?”.
God told him it didn’t matter who he was, as the one being sent; it only mattered who was doing the sending. God reassured Moses by telling him: “I will certainly be with you.” (vv 11-12)
It only mattered who God was.
However Moses is undeterred. Unlike his counterpart years later, all he wants to say is, “Here am I. Don’t send me.” So, he raises a second objection.
God has told him it only matters who God is.
So Moses comes up with: “But who are You? What is Your name.”
His concern there is to be able to tell his countrymen what God is like, what is His character.
By way of reply God answered: “I AM who I AM” (v 14) which, in Hebrew (without vowels) appears as: ’HYH [who] ’HYH. ( v 14)
Then God added: “The Lord (i.e. YHWH)… This is My name…” (v 15).
Evidently God meant that, in some way, His name: YHWH was bound up with His declaration: “I AM who I AM” – both of which are connected with the verb “to be”.
Whether God’s Name is directly derived from “I AM who I AM”, or whether this was simply meant as a play on words, we can’t be sure.
But one way or another, yes, God’s covenant Name is bound up with those words: “I AM who I AM”.
What does this tell us about God and His covenant?
There are some who like the philosophical sound of: “I AM who I AM”, and tell us that God is telling us that He just is: He is altogether self-sufficient, self-existent.
He doesn’t need anyone. He is just eternally who He is.
This emphasises God’s transcendence.
“Transcendence” refers to how God is altogether different from us; He is “other” than us, independent of us – even remote, above and beyond the time and space in which we dwell.
The nature that is God’s is so unlike human nature.
He just is.
All of which is true: the Bible teaches God’s transcendence. At one time I too would have interpreted this passage in Exodus 3 that way.
But if so, it leaves you wondering how such a Name reminds us that God is intimately bound up with us, by way of covenant; that He is especially our God, and we His people.
What is so significant about this interpretation of God’s Name for His covenant with us?
This is where it is important to consider the context in which God revealed His Name to Moses.
Moses was having cold feet; he was coming up with all sorts of excuses (there are five of them) why God had got it wrong: he wasn’t the “Chosen One” to go and shirt-front Pharaoh.
God has already answered his first objection by telling him: “I will certainly be with you.”
In Hebrew, what God said was: ’HYH [with you]. Exodus 3:12
“But who are You?”
God’s answer to Moses’ second objection is: “I AM who I AM”, which in Hebrew is ’HYH [who] ’HYH. Exodus 3:14
You’ll notice that the word/s translated in English as “I will be” in v 12, are translated “I am” in v 14. Either translation is fine (Hebrew tenses can be tricky).
But why should exactly the same expression, within a couple of verses, be translated differently? God uses the same word: the two responses have to be connected.
If so, what God is saying to Moses is this:
Moses: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
God: “I will certainly be with you.
Moses: “But who are You? What is Your name?”
God: “I have told you ‘I will be with you’. My Name is “I will be just what I said I will be.”
[then God adds how this also explains His Name]
God: “Tell them, ‘The LORD 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 this is My memorial to all generations.’”
This means His Name, “the LORD”, is really just shorthand for “I will be just what I said I will be.” In fact, if you wanted to render God’s Name, Yahweh, in English that would be a good way to do it: “I-WILL-BE-WITH-YOU” .
This is no novel interpretation; I am not being original here.
Many commentators have observed the same thing.
Other Commentators
John L. MacKay, in his commentary on Exodus, recognizes that this “is one of the most controversial questions in the study of the Old Testament”:
One of the earliest explanations is that adopted by the translators of the Old Testament into Greek in the third century B.C. They rendered the expression as ‘I am the One who is’, the one whose very being is existence itself. In this way the LORD was distinguished from the objects of pagan worship, because he alone really is. While this explanation is true, it does not fit well into the context where it is not the claims of rival gods that are being discussed.
Similarly attempts to render the expression as ‘I cause to exist whatever I cause to exist’, pointing to God as Creator, are difficult to justify in terms of the context – quite apart from the question of whether or not it is a possible translation of the Hebrew.
The most obvious interpretation, according to John MacKay, is:
The most appropriate explanation seems to be that what is said here builds on the earlier assertion; ‘I will be with you’. The verb form ‘I am’ is the same as ‘I will be’ in verse 12 (note the alternative translation of verse 14, “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”, in the NIV footnote).
It is not merely the existence of God that is to encourage Moses, but the fact of his active and committed presence to help his people. That is his character, and it is on that basis that they may have confidence for the present and the future. [emphasis mine]
Likewise, consider Ralph Davis’ comments on Psalm 23: “The LORD is my shepherd”:
The first [keynote] is intimacy. ‘Yahweh is my shepherd.’
In Exodus 3:12-15, God indicated to Moses that ‘Yahweh’ was theological shorthand for ‘I will be present is what I will be’; an expanded paraphrase might be, ‘I will be present with my people to be whatever they need me to be for them.’
Most of our English Bibles translate this divine name as ‘the LORD’ (in small caps), and, when they do so, we know that the covenant name of God (Yahweh) stands behind it. Now I am not about to overthrow centuries of tradition; but you need to see that we lose something with the translation ‘the LORD,’ for the simple reason that ‘the LORD’ is a title, not a name, and conveys more distance than intimacy.
One may sometimes be around a group of (perhaps older) men and hear one of them refer to his wife. ‘The wife doesn’t eat Brussels sprouts,’ or ‘the wife went shopping for shoes,’ or ‘the wife asked me to vacuum the carpet for her.’ One can talk like that and folks know to whom such a fellow is referring. But he is using a title and it seems a bit cold and detached. ‘The wife’ this, ‘the wife’ that. Maybe he even addresses her as ‘Wife.’ One can do that; it works. But I never call my wife ‘the wife’; I call her Barbara, because that’s her name.
And here David calls God by His ‘first’ name, Yahweh. It is not only calling Him ‘my shepherd’ that connotes intimacy but the very use of God’s covenant name.
What does this mean for us?
This being so, God’s name – the LORD, Yahweh, Jehovah – is not a sign of His transcendence. Rather it is a reminder of His immanence.
“Immanence” is the counterpart of transcendence – it refers to how God is present in this world. While God is not this world (as pantheism teaches) nonetheless He is everywhere present, dwelling among us.
What a great thought. The LORD dwells among us in the midst of a world that is falling apart.
Even more wonderful though: because God has bound Himself by covenant to His people, He dwells intimately among those who are His by faith.
As noted above, I’m still not used to reading “Yahweh”. Having grown up with calling God by the Name: “the LORD”, I see in that Name all that God is.
The more recent popularity of the Name “Yahweh” in writings and commentaries seems foreign, and even more remote to me, as I am not used to it.
But I recognise that for some this will not be so and that “the LORD” will continue to be a title, not a name to them.
I would be more comfortable reading “I-WILL-BE-WITH-YOU” than “Yahweh” when I come across God’s covenant Name – though, admittedly, that is a mouthful, and unlikely to take off.
But either way, let us be reminded that, in this covenant Name that God has chosen for Himself, He is telling us:
“I will be present with My people to be whatever you need Me to be for you.”
What a wonderful name!