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The moment you give God a name you give him limits. This is true for Elohim and this is true for YHWH as it is for any word you can think of be because words and their meanings are finite and with limits where God is infinite and limitless.
YHWH is not Yahweh which is a meaningless Hebrew word. All hebrew words have meaning including names, it's not like modern culture where names are abstract and we just pick them because they sound good. "Name" is also not an abstract identifier that we call out, in Hebrew it is "Shem" and it means the unique character or what they are known for. it's not like Bob or Frank that although have a historical meaning somewhere down the line in modern use is meaningless.
YHWH is the third person singular of Hayah or I AM. Notice I AM is in the first person so God taking to Moses in Ex 3:14 makes sense for God to refer to himself in the first person calling himself I AM WHO I AM. Then in vs 15 God says to Moses "say to the Israelites, ‘YHWH, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you."
YHWH is Yihweh and it mean "He is" Of course Moses wouldn't say to the Israelites "I am the God of your fathers..." Because they would think Moses is referring to himself and calling himself God so he must change the grammar to say "HE IS the God of the your fathers...". This is correct Hebrew albeit a rare form but I believe it is a rare form because of the obsession with YHWH so a general adverstion to using these forms considered perhaps taboo or sacred.
But I AM/HE IS is also not the name of God in an abstract sense, it is a declaration of eternal state that also must include "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you" which at the end of v15 affirms this saying "This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation". What's that name? The big long statement prior to, not an individual word.
But still, it's not just something we call out or some word with innate power. It is the state of God and who he is. If we turn it into a proper name we reduce God to the limits of the name while at the same time elevate the name like an incantation and a word with innate power. The word has no power so let's be clear about that, only God himself (not the language we use to identify him) has power. It's not an issue to refer to God differently provided it is consistent with biblical teaching and has a purpose to give him glory and we should feel a sense of creativity in our worship when we address God. But don't reduce him to a single qualifier, he is so much more.
What is consistent with biblical teachings is to do what the Almighty told us to do. He gave us the name to use at the burning bush with Moses.
YHWH. That name is used almost 7000 times in the Bible. It was used by prophets, kings, and ordinary people.
At no time are we ever told there is any problem with that name or that it is OK to use other names.
We can use titles. For example Adonai, which is in the Bible.
But those titles are never considered to be his name.
In fact, we are commanded in the 10 Commandments not to bring his name to naught.
When we call him something that he never called himself, and when we ignore the name he actually gave us, we are bringing his name to naught.
You are free to have the last word on this if you want it. I will not respond. To me the matter of YHWH’s name is just too obvious. Why should you see what I say here in my posts if you don’t see what I believe is clearly in the Bible?
I see by your handle that you were apparently a Muslim. Muslims don’t even take the Bible as inerrant. Based on their prophet they believe that the Bible has been corrupted.
But that’s not what the data shows. The dead sea scrolls, which are over 2000 years old, were found in 1947. They contained at least a portion of, and in the case of Isaiah, the entire scroll, all books of the Old Testament.
The scrolls are easily examined online. Examination of the scrolls showed that they were virtually identical to what was in the synagogues and, the churches in modern times. We are also constantly finding more and more archaeological proof for the Bible through things like names, places, and events, it is amazing what has been found.
So through archaeology, also through history, we can be confident that the old Testament has certainly not been changed. If you don’t take all of that seriously, then you will feel free to put your own interpretation on what it says. But I’m not going to do that.
