Read: Exodus 3
Key text: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’ (Exodus 3:14)
Reflection: I feel sorry for Moses. Desperately trying to run from his past, hiding in the sparsely populated Midian desert, Moses had every reason to believe he had started over, even marrying into a new family. But a burning bush interrupts everything. (Perhaps God could be called, amongst other things, the Great Interrupter?) God’s mission for Moses is clear, and Moses’ intention to find an excuse to refuse his commission clearer still. Moses asks for a name he could give to the slave-bound Israelites – every god has a name after all. Egypt herself has Isis and Ra, to name just two.
God’s response is breathtaking. ‘I AM’ is the answer to Moses’ question. It is not so much a name as it is a primitive Hebrew word that is transliterated as ‘hayah’, which means ‘existed’ or ‘was’ or ‘I shall be that I shall be.’ God is beyond the capacity of a name to even begin to describe his divine character, nature and timelessness. God is wholly other.
The bible details many different names for God, each seeking to capture one or more of the infinite number of Divine attributes. The most common name in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) are Yahweh (6639 times, usually written as LORD) and Elohim (2750 times, written as god). Many Jewish believers to this day believe in the sacredness of God’s name such that they will not write it in full (often recording it as G_d). This tradition is traced back to the third of the Ten Commandments not to take or speak the name of God in vain (Exodus 20:7). Such reverence for the Name(s) of God stands in stark contrast with our irreverent culture that truncates God’s name into a SMS abbreviation ‘OMG!’
Question: What name do you use to address God most often in prayer (e.g. Father, Lord, Jesus etc.) Why?
Further Reading: An exercise in praying the names of God from Navigators: http://www.navigators.org/us/resources/items/Thirty%20Days%20of%20Praying%20the%20Names%20and%20Attributes%20of%20God
THANK YOU STU!
BLESSINGS
Posted by: Christie Collatz | February 28, 2012 at 10:14 AM