I was reading through the responses that people have sent me, and this question was among them: “What do you think is the sacred name, and why don’t you use it?” It was a question that I have never wrote an article about, and if there is one person asking this question, then there was a good chance that others may be out there who have the same question.
What is God’s Name?
This is the same question that Mosheh (Moses) asked God at the burning bush in Shemot (Exodus) 3. Obviously, the best response to this question is to look at the passage where God Himself responds to this question.
Moses called to God, “When I come to the Israelites 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?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh has sent me to you.'” And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: The LORD {YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: This shall be My name forever. This is My appellation for all of eternity. Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: the LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt,…. [Shemot (Exodus) 3:13-16, JPS]
For those who may not be familiar with the abbreviation, JPS stands for the Jewish Publication Society (JPS). When Mosheh (Moses) asked God His name, He responds with actually three names: His Personal Name, His Proper Name, and His Memorial Name.
HIS PERSONAL NAME
His first response was not with the sacred covenantal name of YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY as many people assume, but this was not the case. His first response was with the phrase, Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. According to the JPS, the Hebrew here is uncertain, so this is why there is a variation in how this phrase is translated into English: “I am that I am,” “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” He then says, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, Ehyeh has sent me to you” [Shemot (Exodus) 3:14, JPS]. However, notice that Ehyeh is consistently translated as “I am.” The confusion seems to be with the word Asher about how to translate it. According to KJ Kronin’s online site, The Name of God As Revealed in Exodus 3:14: An Explanation of Its Meaning. in “Part 2: Textual Analysis of Exodus 3:13-15,” he writes, “EHYEH is the first-person singular form of the verb, hayah, (“to be”). This is the name by which God knows Himself, a personal name.” In other words, this is how God views Himself. He is the eternal “I am.” For us who are limited by time, we have a past, a present, and a future, but for God, the past, present, and future do not exist. There is only an eternal present.
HIS PROPER NAME
The sacred covenantal name of YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY was actually His second response. YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY is the third-person masculine form of the verb, hayah. According to Menahem Recanati, a 14th century Kabbalist and halakhic authority, writes,
…because it is God’s creations who address this name to their Creator. (qtd. in Kronin, “Exodus 3:14 in Kabbalah.”
In other words, this is the name that others call Him.
ANALYSIS OF THE TWO NAMES
These two names – EHYEH and YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY – share two letters, but they also differ as well. The two letters they share are the YODH and the HEY, but where they differ is with the letters ALEPH and VAHV. The word EHYEH is spelled ALEPH-HEY-YODH-HEY, and the sacred covenantal name is spelled YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY. The two last letters of the name EHYEH are the same as the first two letters of the sacred covenantal name. The first letter of EHYEH and the third letter of the sacred covenantal name are different. One must wonder, what are we to learn from these similarities and differences between these two names is an on-going mystery?
According to KJ Kronin’s online site, The Name of God As Revealed in Exodus 3:14: An Explanation of Its Meaning. in “Part 2: Textual Analysis of Exodus 3:13-15,” he writes, “EHYEH is the first-person singular form of the verb, hayah, (“to be”). This is the name by which God knows Himself, a personal name.” In other words, this is how God views Himself. He is the eternal “I am.” For us who are limited by time, we have a past, a present, and a future, but for God, the past, present, and future do not exist. There is only an eternal present. Kronin goes on to say,
Therefore Ehyeh must be the Personal name of God and YHWH His proper name. It will be recalled that this conclusion is supported by the interpretations of Recanati, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Sarna and Buber among others.
Kronin his chapter on “Exodus 3:14 in Kabbalah,” he quotes Manahem Recanati, a 14th century Kabbalist and halakhic authority, when he writes,
…because it is God’s creations who address this name [YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY] to their Creator.
We would say that EHYEH (“I am”) is the name that God uses for Himself that expresses how He views Himself, but the sacred covenantal name of God – YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY – is His “legal name,” or His “proper name.”
As a college instructor for almost thirty years, I have taken the class roll a number of times, and there have been students who told me a different name than what was on the class list since it was the name they preferred to be called, rather than their “legal name.” And just like them, God has a name He prefers and how He sees Himself, and then He has a name that others call Him, His “legal name,” the sacred covenantal name. This led me to ask, “Could it be that God’s first response to Mosheh’s (Moses’) question – EHYEH – was because God was wanting to build some friendship between Himself and Mosheh (Moses), but at the same meeting He also included His sacred covenantal name?
HIS MEMORIAL NAME
Right after telling us His “proper name” (or “legal name”), He then goes on to tell us His “memorial name:”
And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB has sent me to you: This shall be My name forever, This is My appellation for all eternity. [Shemot (Exodus) 3:15, JPS; emphasis added]
The series of phrases – “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” – remembers or memorializes the covenant that God entered into with each of the three Patriarchs of Israel. The idea of it being a “memorial” comes out better in the most English translations of the Bible. For example, in the NASB, we read,
This is My name forever, and this is MY MEMORIAL-NAME TO ALL GENERATIONS (Exodus 3:15b, NASB; emphasis added)
And then in the very next verse, we are given both His proper “legal” name and His memorial name together. We read,
Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: the LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt,…. [Shemot (Exodus) 3:16, JPS)
EL SHADDAI – Another Name?
So here in these four verses from Shemot (Exodus) 3, we have three names for God, but then in Shemot (Exodus) 6, we are given another name – El Shaddai. We read,
God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as EL SHADDAI, but I DID NOT MAKE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEM BY MY NAME YHVH. [Shemot (Exodus) 6:2-3, JPS; emphasis added]
So here God clearly states that He did not reveal Himself to the Patriarchs by the sacred covenantal name of YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY – but by the name of El Shaddai. This is not speculation on my part. God explicitly states this here in the Written Torah, so here we have a fourth name.
HASHEM – Another Name?
Yet another name for God is seen in Vayikra (Leviticus 24. In this chapter, there is a fight that breaks out between a man who was half-Egyptian and half-Israelite, and a man who was a native (full-blooded) Israelite. The man who was half-Egyptian and half-Israelite “blasphemed the name of the LORD and cursed.” The man is held under arrest until Moses could find out what God wanted them to do with the man. God told them that the man should be taken out and stoned to death. God then says,
Whosoever curseth his God shall bear His sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well as the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death. (Leviticus 24:15-16, KJV)
The phrase “of the LORD” in the last line of verse 16 is italicized, which means that it was added by the translator, and it is not there in the Hebrew text. So in the proper translation of the Hebrew is “when he blasphemes HASHEM (“the Name”), he shall be put to death.” Here then is the last verse, HASHEM is used in place of the sacred name of God right here in the Written Torah by God Himself. So how could saying Hashem instead of the sacred name be wrong when God Himself does it here in Scripture?
Therefore, in just three different passages, we see five different names for God, so how can it be biblically true that God expects us to use only ONE NAME when so many different names are seen and used in the Scriptures? Those who only push ONE NAME can’t agree on even how that ONE NAME should be expressed or translated, and most of their translations violate the rules of Hebrew. Also, those who push the ONE NAME do so using poor Hermeneutics and having an agenda. It is not simply because they believe the Hebrew should be used, there is far more to this than that. For example, these people also believe that the name of the Messiah should include the ONE NAME. This is why they push names like “YAHSHUA,” “YAHOSHUA,” “YAHUSHUA, etc.” They base this on their misinterpretation of Yochanan (John),
I am come IN MY FATHER’S NAME, and you receive me not: If another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. [Yochanan (John) 5:43, NKJV; emphasis mine]
When Yeshua said, “I am come in my Father’s name,” that did not mean that the Father’s name was part of his name, but that Yeshua came representing God. So in like manner when a person comes to a place “in the name of the Lord,” it does not mean that the Lord’s name has become a part of their name, but it means that they came REPRESENTING THE LORD. So I am not going to use or push this whole idea of having to use the Sacred Name of God, because God Himself does not always use His sacred covenantal name but uses other names at times, so if it is NOT wrong to use other Scriptural names for Himself, so how could it be wrong when we use the same words for God since God NEVER Sins?
CONCLUSION
Now in my blogs, I use the name Yeshua, because it is the Hebrew name given by the angel Gabriel to Mary and Joseph, and because it is what they named him at his B’ris (circumcision). However, when i comes to the name of the Creator, I use the other names that are seen and used in the Scriptures, but I do not use the sacred covenantal name, because there’s no agreement on how it should be translated or understood in the English language. Also, Jewish readers are offended by its use, and since I want to invite them to read them, so these ideas can be discussed between us, then obviously I am not going to use something that would keep them from reading it.
Therefore, is the sacred covenantal name of God all that He ever calls Himself? Obviously, the answer is no. So ask yourself, “Why are there people who push so much the Sacred Covenantal name when this was His second response to Mosheh’s (Moses’) question – not His first?” Now I will say that the sacred covenantal name is used over 6000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures; however, it is not the only name that God uses for Himself. For example, as we seen in Shemot (Exodus) 3:14, He also used the word ‘Ehyeh. Now there is a relationship between ‘Ehyeh and YODH-HEY-VAHV-HEY, but no one really knows what this relationship is. It is the greatest mystery of all time.
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