Introducing Yahweh: The Personal Name of God by J.E. Rose
Most of us who grew up in church heard the story of Moses in the wilderness and his experience with the burning bush:
Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you;’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, 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 this is my memorial to all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15)
​
While it is intriguing that there could be a bush that burned and was never consumed, much more significant in the story is what the voice said to Moses. When Moses asked who it was that was speaking to him, the voice replied in Hebrew, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.”
When people say they believe in “God” that doesn’t really mean much. It is always appropriate to ask, “what God do you believe in?” God is not a name it is a status. However, Yahweh is not just a status or position of a being greater than us. Yahweh is the personal name of the “most high God.” That’s what I want to discover with you in this article.
Though many English Bibles translate Exodus 3:14 as “I Am Who I Am” Hebrew scholars admit that is only one of many possible translations. For this reason it can be helpful to give a range of translations that combine to capture the scope of its meaning.
Why is this important for us? Like Moses, God desires that we continue to grow in our knowledge of him. We certainly need to study what God has done throughout history. But we often neglect to study who he has revealed himself to be. This is why a study of his personal nam can be so beneficial.
As we examine the three English translations of Yahweh’s name, we can also gain important insights into what theologians call his “attributes.” There are two broad categories. “Communicable attributes” are those we share with God by virtue of our design in his image (Genesis 1:26,27). They are “communicable” because they enable real, personal “communion” and “communication” with our creator. The others are called “incommunicable.” They are attributes impossible for finite, mortal creatures.
​
​
​
​
Three Translations of Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh
I am because I am (Used by Revised Standard Version)
Where did God come from? Who made God? Though ancient stories of the gods always included origin stories, the God who revealed himself to Moses had no origin. When he said of himself, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, he wanted Moses to know he exists solely because he has always existed! When thee Revised Standard Version translated the name it did so based on the assumption that the verb (asher) describes what/who produced the action. We could call this the “past tense” point of view.
​
For me, I exist because my mother and father existed before me and through procreation “caused” me to be born at a specific point in the past. This is true for all created beings and things. They exist because something existed before and caused them to exist.
Yahweh alone is “self-existent.” Nothing came before him. Nothing and no one else made him. The theological term for self-existence is “divine aseity.” Aseity is from a Latin word “a se” which means, “from self.” God comes from himself not from any other source. “I Am Because I Am” captures that sense of self-existence.
​
How could any being be that different from us? And because of that, how powerful must Yahweh be? Because of divine aseity, Yahweh alone has absolute authority to rule his creation as he desires. There is no being higher or more powerful. Our English word “omnipotence” captures this truth.
​
Ascribing this kind of absolute power to Yahweh was as necessary for Moses as it is for us, especially in contrast to our own power and authority. What caused Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-18) was their rejection of God’s absolute authority. Indeed, it was the serpent’s cunning temptation that God and his word were not absolute (“has God said”) that sealed their disobedience. This remains one of the chief ways even those who claim to believe in God fall into sin. .
I am who I am (Used by King James Version)
​
The most prevalent translation of Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is found in the King James Version. The translators viewed asher as present tense, “I am who (that) I am.” If the Revised Standard assumed more of a historical, backward look, this one is more present tense: who is God now.
There are many ways we can meaningfully ponder this translation but I want to focus on what it says about God’s self-knowledge: what does God think about himself right now? The word “omniscience” means “all knowing.” So, what does it mean that God knows all things? Obviously, he knows everything about the world he made. Jesus put it this way, “he knows the number of hairs on our heads” (Matthew 10:30). And this is true for not only the eight billion people alive right now, but for the more than ten billion that have ever lived in history!
But we often overlook that God’s omniscience includes his knowledge of himself. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have absolute and complete self-knowledge.
Though this attribute of omniscience is non-communicable, as creatures made in his image humans do have something similar. We do have some degree of self-knowledge. It is evident in our capacity for self-reflection (thinking about what we are thinking). Animals do not have what scientists call “metacognition” or the higher level of thought that can create poetry, invent machines or write a symphony.
Theologians describe God’s self-knowledge in different ways, including the term “divine simplicity.” When used of God is doesn’t mean ignorant or incomplete. Rather, it means that God’s knowledge (as with his being) is single and without any complexity. Even the different attributes are just verbal expressions of one, singular essence or truth about God.
When I think about myself, I get some things correct but many I do not. When i try to make a plan for something, I cannot know everything that could go wrong. My human self-knowledge means that even when trying to do something right, I have mixed motives. The poet said, “the heart has reasons reason knows nothing of.” Adding the sin in our hearts and minds is why the Bible warns, “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). We are plagued by self-delusions and blindspots of denial about who we are. God is not in any way self-deceived. In short, it can never be said of us that we share with God his simplicity. In the context of omniscience, simplicity practically means we can always trust him. He is absolutely reliable. Simplicity means “He is not a man that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19) and, this is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).
I will be what I will be (Used by Hebrew Scholar Robert Altar)
Can God do anything? Most children (even adults) would say, “yes, otherwise he would not be God!” Does that mean God make a rock so big he cannot lift it? That riddle leaves many confused. The solution is that God can do anything that does not contradict himself. God would never make a rock so big he cannot lift it because that would be self-defeating and ultimately a contradiction of his very perfections.
A third English translation, by a Hebrew scholar named Robert Altar, views the verb as future tense. To say Yahweh means, I will be what I will be not only points to his omnipotence and absolute power, as well as his omniscience and absolute knowledge. It also points to his omnipresence. God eternally exists everything in the present but also everything that will ever be in the future. That’s because God exists outside of our time and space and exercises his attributes in all times and places to complete his will. Not only does he control the future for the world, he also determines his own “future” (though technically, it is not future to him).
​
God’s omnipresence in all times and spaces (and outside of them too) means he is self-determined. God does not react to other events or beings to accomplish his will. Though we can make plans and set goals for the future, even work diligently to bring them to pass, God alone is self-determining. Our will is always subject to things outside our control.
An important theological doctrine arising from this attribute of self-determination is divine immutability. That word means “unchanging.” Though sometimes a Bible story will say God “changed his mind” (Exodus 32:14; Jonah 3:10), or have God speak as if he didn’t know what was going to take place (Genesis 22:12), theologians say these phrases are “anthropomorphisms” in which human characteristics are used to describe (albeit imperfectly) what God appears to be doing. Divine immutability means that even when God appears to change his mind it is because he always planned to change at that moment.
​
God is never surprised by anything. He is the author of the story of creation. Scripture calls him the “alpha and omega” (Revelation 22:13). In his omnipresence, he is “right now” just as present at the alpha point of history (beginning) as he is at the omega (ending) and everywhere in between! Some theologians today have denied the doctrine of immutability suggesting that God does not really know the future so can’t possibly control it. However, the witness of Scripture disproves this in no uncertain terms:
“Remember this, and show yourselves men. bring it to mind again, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me. I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My counsel will stand, and I will do all that I please (Isaiah 46:9,10).