The Names Of God Series: YHWH
So think about this today when you have some time to ponder such things. When asked to reveal His name, God responded by telling us that of all the things that He is and in consideration of all of His attributes and characteristics, the main thing that He wants you to be aware of when you call on Him is this: He is.
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YHWH
Those four letters are the most important letters you will ever read. Together they form the personal name of God which was spoken to Moses about 3500 years ago. If you are are like most people, right now you are thinking to yourself, “How do you pronounce that?”
Good question. The truth is that we don’t really know for sure. The keepers of the Old Testament didn’t use vowels when writing the Bible. For most words, that was not an issue but the name of God presents a special problem.
The Ten Commandments tell us to never take the name of God in vain. The Jews took this command so seriously that, over time, they refused to speak it even when reading it in the Bible. Whenever those four consonants appeared, they would say “Adonai” instead. When vowels were added to the text, they placed the vowels from Adonai into the consonants YHWH and the name Jehovah was created as a substitute for God’s actual name.
That’s all interesting, but we still haven’t determined what it means. Fortunately, Jesus gives us a clue. During a conversation with the Pharisees about the nature of the relationship between God and Himself, Jesus said something that deeply offended the Pharisees:
John 8:58
“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
The Jews were so offended that they picked up stones to kill Him for claiming to be God. You see, He actually spoke God’s name when He said “I am”. The Greek Bible records His words as “ego eimi”. That is significant because it is the exact same phrase that the Greek version of the Old Testament uses for YHWH. Jesus spoken God’s name. Roughly, then, God’s name means, “I am.” We can then translate YHWH as “I Am Who I Am.”
So think about this today when you have some time to ponder such things. When asked to reveal His name, God responded by telling us that of all the things that He is and in consideration of all of His attributes and characteristics, the main thing that He wants you to be aware of when you call on Him is this: He is.
Is there anything more comforting or fulfilling than knowing that God tells us that He is?
