Exodus 3 and the name of G-d

Howard Beale

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I have opened this thread because of a posting by Der Alter here: God's Name is I Am What I Am

This thread is to open a discussion about the meaning(s) of the Hebrew in Exodus 3, particularly 3:14.

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac was an 11th Century Talmudic Scholar known often simply as Rashi He is known for many writings and commentaries. With regard to the of G-d given to Moses in Exodus 3:14, Rashi (and others) offer “I am what I am becoming”, “I am what I will be” and similar as appropriate renderings of the Hebrew which they are.

Using his and other Jewish rabbis and Christian Scholars understandings I suggest the following as the fullest understanding of the name “shem” og G-d given to Moses.

The first piece is to understand the meaning of the Hebrew term “shem”. In Exodus 3:13 “Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his “name”?

The Hebrew term “shem” is the term translated as “name” in this verse. It is also often translated as “name” throughout the Holy Scriptures. However it has a much greater meaning in Hebrew. Basically it connotes fame, character, reputation, etc. So Moses wants to know Elohiym’s essential character. The “shem” Elohiym gives Moses in Exodus 3:14 is “hayah asher hayah”.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, the term “haya” in that phrase can be rendered as English future tense “I WILL BE” or English present tense “I AM”. Both are grammatically and syntactically valid.

We then come to the poor neglected term “asher” which is a kind of fill in by context term… it can be rendered as who, which, that, that which, etc.

In addition, earlier in the Exodus 3 (verses 1 through 12) The LORD GOD talks to Moses of his history with the people of Israel using the Hebrew perfect (similar to English past tense). Given the metaphoric language of Hebrew it seems that Elohiym told Moses that Moses was talking with The Lord God which created all in Genesis (the past), which is present at the moment of their talk and which is becoming the future. The poetic/metaphoric rendering might be:

I AM, WAS and SHALL BE that which IS, WAS and WILL BE.”

Thoughts?

With love,
Howard
 

Yeshua HaDerekh

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Your transliteration is present not in the Tanakh. Please post in the original Hebrew with prefix/suffix markers and vowel signs.

With love,
Howard


יְהֹוָה
 
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Howard Beale

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Your response avoids the issue of the Luke 3:14 of the Holy Scripture and G-d's responses to Moses when Moses asks... "and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" G-d does not respond יְהֹוָה G-d responds אֶֽהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶֽהְיֶה parse the Hebrew words for their meaning.
 
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Yeshua HaDerekh

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Your response avoids the issue of the Luke 3:14 of the Holy Scripture and G-d's responses to Moses when Moses asks... "and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" G-d does not respond יְהֹוָה G-d responds אֶֽהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶֽהְיֶה parse the Hebrew words for their meaning.

I know what they mean. You wrote "Ehyeh Aser Ehyeh"...which does not mean "Hayah Hoveh Yihyeh"
 
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Howard Beale

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I know what they mean. You wrote "Ehyeh Aser Ehyeh"...which does not mean "Hayah Hoveh Yihyeh"
Correct. Please tell me chapter and verse so I can locate the phrase you are citing.

Also parse the Hebrew in the original including vowel signs, suffixes and prefixes.
Hayah
Hoveh
Yihyeh
That would move the conversation along if you would like.
 
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Yeshua HaDerekh

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Correct. Please tell me chapter and verse so I can locate the phrase you are citing.

Also parse the Hebrew in the original including vowel signs, suffixes and prefixes.
Hayah
Hoveh
Yihyeh
That would move the conversation along if you would like.

What don't you understand??
 
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Howard Beale

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What don't you understand??
I don't understand what you are talking about so I ask you to please give me the citation (chapter and verse or page number of the writings you base your posts on) and to parse each of the three Hebrew terms you quote within that context.
 
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Yeshua HaDerekh

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I don't understand what you are talking about so I ask you to please give me the citation (chapter and verse or page number of the writings you base your posts on) and to parse each of the three Hebrew terms you quote within that context.

YHVH...
הָיָה Was...HaYaH
הוֹוֶה Is...HoVeH
יִהְיֶה Will be...YiHYeH
 
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straykat

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So Moses wants to know Elohiym’s essential character.

Yes.. consider the gods of the time. They were all aspects/representatives of one limited state or another (gods of fertility, gods of sun and moon, gods of war, etc). Moses, probably still slightly stuck in his Egyptian state of mind, might've still partly expected something like this. But our God is eternal and not limited to anything like these other fake deities. God's essential character is the creator and king of all that is.

Even more to the point though.. he continues, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, YHVH, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

So this awesome God is not so beyond us that he won't help. He's personal and cares about his deals and remembers the names of those who served him. So this is also his essential character as well. This is where Gnostics and other Neo-Platonists especially went wrong. They interpreted "I AM THAT I AM" through a Hellenistic lens - as some indicator of Platonic "Being" in it's purest form. So profound he couldn't be understood. So mysterious only an elite could have a chance of telling you about him. But that's not the God of scripture at all. He reveals himself as he wills and knows us personally and intervenes directly.
 
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Yeshua HaDerekh

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I don't want to be rude, but I don't think you have a good enough grasp of Hebrew to answer my questions.

With love,
Howard

Maybe I don't understand what you don't understand. What are you disagreeing with? I guess you have never heard or sang the song "Adon Olam"?
 
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Howard Beale

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Hi straykat and Yeshua HaDerekh,

We seem to be talking past each other. I am not questioning the Hebrew words posted by Yeshua HaDerekh, I am questioning what they have to do with the grammar and syntax of Exodus 3:14.

In my reading of the Holy Scriptures the only time the Creator tells anyone the Creator’s shem [שֵׁם] is when the Creator speaks to Moses in Exodus 3:13-14. If there is a place in Holy Scripture that I have missed, please let me know.

There is one verse other than Exodus 3:14 that is also of great import and that is Deuteronomy 6:4. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." These 2 verses give us insight and understanding (to the degree a human being can understand) regarding the existential nature if the Creator.

I have no interest in getting bogged down in denominational issues (Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, Elohiym, etc.) I am interested only in words, teachings, grammar and syntax.

The three Hebrew terms posted by Yeshua HaDerekh are basic. However there is an subtle implication that the three terms exist in juxtaposition with each other somewhere - in a verse that I am not aware of. I would like to know the verse. If there is no such verse, please be honest and simply let me know.

With love,
Howard
 
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straykat

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Hi straykat and Yeshua HaDerekh,

We seem to be talking past each other. I am not questioning the Hebrew words posted by Yeshua HaDerekh, I am questioning what they have to do with the grammar and syntax of Exodus 3:14.

In my reading of the Holy Scriptures the only time the Creator tells anyone the Creator’s shem [שֵׁם] is when the Creator speaks to Moses in Exodus 3:13-14. If there is a place in Holy Scripture that I have missed, please let me know.

There is one verse other than Exodus 3:14 that is also of great import and that is Deuteronomy 6:4. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." These 2 verses give us insight and understanding (to the degree a human being can understand) regarding the existential nature if the Creator.

I have no interest in getting bogged down in denominational issues (Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, Elohiym, etc.) I am interested only in words, teachings, grammar and syntax.

The three Hebrew terms posted by Yeshua HaDerekh are basic. However there is an subtle implication that the three terms exist in juxtaposition with each other somewhere - in a verse that I am not aware of. I would like to know the verse. If there is no such verse, please be honest and simply let me know.

With love,
Howard

Oh, I wasn't even disputing anything you said. In fact, I'm just reiterating it. As you said, Moses was asking God's essential character. For other deities, this "character" would have been an aspect or domain of something they control. The God that Moses encountered transcended all of that. That's his "character". Secondly, I just felt like adding the bit about his personal care - that he is also a God of covenant, and not remote.
 
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I have opened this thread because of a posting by Der Alter here: God's Name is I Am What I Am

This thread is to open a discussion about the meaning(s) of the Hebrew in Exodus 3, particularly 3:14.

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac was an 11th Century Talmudic Scholar known often simply as Rashi He is known for many writings and commentaries. With regard to the of G-d given to Moses in Exodus 3:14, Rashi (and others) offer “I am what I am becoming”, “I am what I will be” and similar as appropriate renderings of the Hebrew which they are.

Using his and other Jewish rabbis and Christian Scholars understandings I suggest the following as the fullest understanding of the name “shem” og G-d given to Moses.

The first piece is to understand the meaning of the Hebrew term “shem”. In Exodus 3:13 “Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his “name”?

The Hebrew term “shem” is the term translated as “name” in this verse. It is also often translated as “name” throughout the Holy Scriptures. However it has a much greater meaning in Hebrew. Basically it connotes fame, character, reputation, etc. So Moses wants to know Elohiym’s essential character. The “shem” Elohiym gives Moses in Exodus 3:14 is “hayah asher hayah”.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, the term “haya” in that phrase can be rendered as English future tense “I WILL BE” or English present tense “I AM”. Both are grammatically and syntactically valid.

We then come to the poor neglected term “asher” which is a kind of fill in by context term… it can be rendered as who, which, that, that which, etc.

In addition, earlier in the Exodus 3 (verses 1 through 12) The LORD GOD talks to Moses of his history with the people of Israel using the Hebrew perfect (similar to English past tense). Given the metaphoric language of Hebrew it seems that Elohiym told Moses that Moses was talking with The Lord God which created all in Genesis (the past), which is present at the moment of their talk and which is becoming the future. The poetic/metaphoric rendering might be:

I AM, WAS and SHALL BE that which IS, WAS and WILL BE.”

Thoughts?

With love,
Howard
Great thread.
I can give my views of "I AM" used in the NT

Strong's Concordance with Hebrew and Greek Lexicon

1961 hayah haw-yaw a primitive root (Compare 1933);
to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary):--beacon, X altogether, be(-come), accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit (one-)self, require, X use.

1473. ego eg-o' a primary pronoun of the first person I (only expressed when emphatic):--
I, me.
1510. eimi i-mee' the first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb;
I exist (used only when emphatic):--am, have been, X it is I, was. See also 1488, 1498, 1511, 1527, 2258, 2071, 2070, 2075, 2076, 2771, 2468, 5600.
1096. ginomai ghin'-om-ahee a prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb;
to cause to be ("gen"-erate), i.e. (reflexively) to become (come into being), used with great latitude (literal, figurative, intensive, etc.):
=======
I remember reading thru John 18 on the part where Judas brings a detachment of soldiers sent by the Chief Priest to arrest Him in the Garden.
[This occurs just after the Last Supper when Satan entered Judas and chapts 14-15 of Jesus' Garden discourse.]

Notice the reaction of those that came to arrest Him when He said "I AM" [the word He/Him is not in the text]....they drew back and fell on the ground!

I had read John18 hundreds of times and never really paid attention to verse 6 until I was studying on the "I AM" in the OT and NT and Revelation that I began looking at all the verses that had that exact phrase formed using the Greek words #1473 an #G1510".
Thoughts?

John 18:5
5 They answered Him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, I<ἐγώ 1473> AM<εἰμι 1510>.And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them.
6 Now when He said to them, “I AM He,they drew back and fell to the ground.
7 Then He asked them again, “Whom are you seeking?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Revelation Chapter 1 Verses

Genesis 1:1 (YLT)
Strong's Number H1961 matches the Hebrew הָיָה (hayah), which occurs 76 times in 72 verses in the Hebrew concordance
1961 hayah haw-yaw a primitive root (Compare 1933);
to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary)..............

1st used:

Genesis 1:2
and the Land she-became/01961 hayah waste/vain and empty/void, and darkness on surface of submerged-chaos/deep/t@howm, and a spirit of 'Elohiym brooding/rachaph over face of the waters

Exodus 3:
12 And He is saying: "That I Shall Be/01961 hayah with thee,...........
13 ........................
And they have said to me, 'What Name of Him'? What shall I say to them"?
14 And 'Elohiym is saying to Mosheh, "I-shall-be/01961 hayah who I-shall-be/01961 hayah".
And-He saying "Thus you shall say to sons of Yisra'el, 'I-shall-be/01961 hayah, He-sent-me unto-you'".
=============================

1096. ginomai ghin'-om-ahee a prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb; to cause to be ("gen"-erate), i.e. (reflexively) to become (come into being), used with great latitude (literal, figurative, intensive, etc.)

Greek New Testament - Parallel Greek New Testament by John Hurt

John 8:
58 Jesus said to them "Verily, verily, I am saying to ye, before Abraham's to be becoming/generated/genesqai <1096> --I Am;"
eipen autoiV o ihsouV amhn amhn legw umin prin abraam genesqai egw eimi

Jeremiah 17:10
I Yahweh, searching heart, examining the affections/kidneys/ 03629 kilyah
and giving to man Ways of him, as fruit of his doings. [Reve 2:23]

The great I AM!

Reve 2:23
And the offspring of her I shall be killing in death,
and shall be knowing all the Assemblies that I AM the ONE searching kidneys/nefrouV <3510> and hearts
and I shall be giving to Ye each according to the works of Ye. [Jeremiah 17:10]

kai ta tekna authV apoktenw en qanatw kai gnwsontai pasai ai ekklhsiai oti egw eimi o ereunwn nefrouV kai kardiaV kai dwsw umin ekastw kata ta erga umwn

Reve 16:17
and the seventh one pours out the bowl of him upon the air and came out a great Voice out of the Sanctuary from the Throne saying :it-has-become/gegonen <1096> (5754). [Revelation 21:6]

Revelation 21:6
And He said to me:" it-hath-become/gegonen <1096> (5754). [Reve 16:17]
I AM the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End.......

kai eipen moi gegonen egw eimi to a kai to w h arch kai to teloV egw tw diywnti dwsw ek thV phghV tou udatoV thV zwhV dwrean
 
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psalm911

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I have opened this thread because of a posting by Der Alter here: God's Name is I Am What I Am

This thread is to open a discussion about the meaning(s) of the Hebrew in Exodus 3, particularly 3:14.

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac was an 11th Century Talmudic Scholar known often simply as Rashi He is known for many writings and commentaries. With regard to the of G-d given to Moses in Exodus 3:14, Rashi (and others) offer “I am what I am becoming”, “I am what I will be” and similar as appropriate renderings of the Hebrew which they are.

Using his and other Jewish rabbis and Christian Scholars understandings I suggest the following as the fullest understanding of the name “shem” og G-d given to Moses.

The first piece is to understand the meaning of the Hebrew term “shem”. In Exodus 3:13 “Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his “name”?

The Hebrew term “shem” is the term translated as “name” in this verse. It is also often translated as “name” throughout the Holy Scriptures. However it has a much greater meaning in Hebrew. Basically it connotes fame, character, reputation, etc. So Moses wants to know Elohiym’s essential character. The “shem” Elohiym gives Moses in Exodus 3:14 is “hayah asher hayah”.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, the term “haya” in that phrase can be rendered as English future tense “I WILL BE” or English present tense “I AM”. Both are grammatically and syntactically valid.

We then come to the poor neglected term “asher” which is a kind of fill in by context term… it can be rendered as who, which, that, that which, etc.

In addition, earlier in the Exodus 3 (verses 1 through 12) The LORD GOD talks to Moses of his history with the people of Israel using the Hebrew perfect (similar to English past tense). Given the metaphoric language of Hebrew it seems that Elohiym told Moses that Moses was talking with The Lord God which created all in Genesis (the past), which is present at the moment of their talk and which is becoming the future. The poetic/metaphoric rendering might be:

I AM, WAS and SHALL BE that which IS, WAS and WILL BE.”

Thoughts?

With love,
Howard

"I am" was used prophetically by God.


Mark 14:61-62 King James Version (KJV)
61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
 
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Howard Beale

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"I am" was used prophetically by God.


Mark 14:61-62 King James Version (KJV)
61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Hi Psalm911,
Will you please clarify for me what you mean by "prophetically".
Thanks

With love,
Howard
 
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Howard Beale

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The I am is explained in the verse I provided.
Sorry if I was unclear. I understand the verse, I was asking about your use of the word "prophetically". I believe you are referring to the "Son of Man" words of Jesus but I always look to ask.
With love,
Howard
 
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