HaShem – The Name!

In my last post, I gave you the technical aspects of the most formal name of God, Jehovah or Yahweh. Now I want to turn to the context in which God spoke it to Moses and then look at some practical applications. 


The name Jehovah (I AM) was revealed to Moses in Exodus 3 during the “burning bush” incident. This is the place where Moses received God’s call on his life – the call to lead the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery. Recall that Moses had ran away from his home with the Pharaoh because he had murdered an Egyptian soldier who was mistreating a Hebrew. So it was during this “hiding out” time when Moses received his commission from God in the wilderness.


Moses immediately began questioning Jehovah about how this huge task could be accomplished. The first question (v. 11) was this: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” This question totally makes me grin! I can’t tell you how many times I have asked that very same question concerning my own ministry. Shelly, who do you think you are to assume you can equip other Sunday School teachers? Shelly, who are you to be speaking to women about how to study their Bibles or anything else for that matter? The Accuser of our souls (Satan) will always cause self doubt that can knock us to the ground unless we are confident in our calling. Romans 11:29 tells us “for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable”. I have to quote that right back to the Accuser when he rises up against me with that self doubt. 


Perhaps another reason Moses asked this question, “who am I”, was because a few Hebrews had already questioned him about his authority years before. In Exodus 2, Moses was trying to break up a fight between two Hebrews. They asked Moses, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us?” When you were little, did you ever ask another kid “who made you the boss of me?” That is exactly what I think of when I read this part of the story.  Of course, Moses’ “slow speech” (Ex. 4:10) probably also had something to do with his questioning of “who am I”. 


Bottom line to this question is that it does not matter who we are! Who God is and the fact that He told Moses “certainly I will be with you” in Ex. 3:12 is all anyone needs to know! If we will do what God has equipped and called us to do, He will do the part that we cannot!


Moses’ second question goes something like this in v. 13: When I go to the Hebrews and tell them that the God of their fathers has sent me to lead them out of bondage, what should I say if they ask me what Your name is? What a question! It just makes me wonder why God’s own people might ask this. It is very possible that they had lived in bondage for so many years (430 years according to Ex. 12:40) that they had truly forgotten who their God was. Had they been around the pantheon of Egyptian gods and goddesses so long that they forgot who the real God was? Our culture can do the same thing to us if we are not careful. There are so many things around us that can take our focus off of Jehovah. We must remember that He is God and there is NONE beside Him (Isaiah 45:5).


Well God had a doozy of an answer for this question in v. 14: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” This I AM statement is where the name Jehovah/Yahweh is derived. It is such a revered name that devout Jews will not speak it for fear of mispronouncing it or using it in vain somehow unknowingly – so they just say HaShem, which means, the Name! I love the fact that God didn’t go into a great explanation of that name – He just declared it – “I AM”! 


I take away two really big ideas from this passage. Number one, when God calls us to do something, it doesn’t matter who we are because God will surely be with us and He will equip us to do it. Number two, it DOES matter who God is because without His power and presence on our call, we will fail in our fleshly attempts.


Lastly, remember that we are still serving the SAME God the Hebrews served. Our society has obviously forgotten the Name of our great God or they would not be flippantly using it completely out of the context of honoring HaShem. “OMG” has become a common catch phrase. Oh we need to be careful – God’s name is anything but common!