YHWH

Intro

"Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you."

Philip Zimbardo psychologist from Stanford, and famous for his Stanford Prison experiement

This experiment lasted a whopping six days because of the incredible terribleness that it showed in our propensity as humans to easily slide into evil when given the power and ability to

How we are lableled with names and nicknames has a large impact on us, and we have all seen the bullies push too far and it ends tragicly

Perhaps most infamously shown at Columbine on April 20, 1999 and the resulting cultural waves of school shootings since then

As a society, whether we admit it or not, names are serious business, and we do have some superstititions around them

We recently just saw two terrible hurricanes wreak havoc in the the SE of the US, particularly in Western North Carolina!

What are the names of those storms?

Milton and Helene

Normally storms go through the alphabet alternating female and male names and then are recycled every 6 years

Unless the storm is extremely deadly and/or damaging the name is removed off the list of tropical storms forever- like Helene that killed over 200 people so far, and with hundreds more missing in the rural mountains of NC

So I don’t think many of you if you were going to have a kid would be quick to sign the name papers as ‘Helene’!

While names are important whether we realize it or not, something that might show that we really do care, is nicknames

I’m sure we have all had nicknames we loved and nicknames we hated

Nicknames can be endearing to us when they are from peers and they are not demeaning to you, but they can equally be infuriating when you hate them

When I started Junior high, the biggest change came within gym class, we had to start changing before gym!

So for almost all the guys in my class it became the fashionable cool sporty thing to do was to call each other by our last names, and hope the PE teachers did the same

In fact, that stuck around, and one of my primary nicknames in High School became ‘Newbs’, a shortening of Newberry

Yet, they can be deflating and infuriating when it is not done in a healthy way

My 5th grade year I played baseball, and it was terrible because my team sucked on the feild and in the dugout, not to mention a number of my teammates were also in my 5th grade class

These were kids I didn’t get along with well, and so they gave me a nickname that year too, Dingleberry

Now I didn’t know until several years what a dingleberry is, and if you don’t know, I’ll let you look it up later lol, but what made me so mad was not the name meant (since I didn’t know what it meant!) but the fact that it robbed me of an identity

They refused to call me by my name! They would call me a name I didn’t want to be called over and over again, and even after baseball was over the name calling continued

Isn’t it interesting that a nickname can be both a sign of close relationship, or something that has the negative connotation of bullying in ‘name-calling’.

If we take it at face value, all nicknaming is name calling, but the people that do it and why they do it matter much more!

If we hold names highly in our society, even if we might not admit it, we should presume that other cultures do the same, and perhaps even actively do that

The Jews were certainly one of these cultures!

The Hebrews viewed names as the key to your very soul and being

In fact, the word for ‘name’ in Hebrew is found as the center of soul, showing the deep correlation that the Jews placed on names

The Jews were very purposeful at choosing names for places, people, and even things, as they felt that it was almost a prophecy of who that person would become

It goes so far that Jewish commentaries on Scripture came to believe that when we die and go before God for judgment, God will ask “What is Your Name” and “Did you live up to it?”!

Furthermore, the Jews understood that if they worshipped the creator God, then names are central to the substance of something

What this means is not that God created a platypus and named it ‘Platypus’, but that the name made the animal, tree, person ,etc.

A name is not simply a label of identification but a statement of its very being

So anytime something momentous happens in Scripture, we will often see a name change!

In Genesis 22, Abraham obeys God to sacrifice Isaac, and when God intervenes and they offer a ram, Abraham renames the mountain as “The Mountain of God’s Provision”

God also renames people or has his leaders rename them

Genesis 17 shows that God renames Sarai into Sarah

Sarai means ‘my princess’ but Sarah means ‘mother of nations’

He also renames Abram to Abraham

Abram means ‘exalted father’ but Abraham means ‘father of a nation’

We see Jacob renamed into Israel

That is deceiver into one who wrestled with God

Hoshea is renamed to Joshua by Moses

Hoshea means ‘Salvation’ but Joshua means “YHWH is salvation”

Naomi is renamed to Mara

Naomi is pleasent, but Mara is bitter after she losese everything

Yet, after God honors her with a grandson through Ruth, she receives back her name of Naomi by all the people of Bethlehem!

Simon is renamed to Peter

Simon means listening/hearing and Peter means ‘Stone/Rock’

So clearly names are important!

Even pagans believed that if you could figure out the true name of the god you served, you could somehow gain power over them in some way

Story of Eregon and Elvish language of magic and true names and inability to lie

With considering how important names are, it sets us up to consider why what God is about to do is so important!

You might be asking, well Kyle, are we not in a “Names of God” series, and you are right

Yet, these names are names that are more like ‘nicknames’ given to God for what he does, they are not his name

As I said, nicknames are not a bad thing by being a nickname

My Dad calls me ‘Ky’, Tabitha calls me ‘Hun’, and I call her “hun, or Tab’

These other names of God, are often nicknames people give to God when they see who he is and experience him, yet this name that we are talking about today is about God showing his name

So let’s dive into Exodus 3 and see this incredible story unfold with finding out God’s personal name: YHWH

YHWH & The Bush

Story Recap

When we jump into Exodus, Joseph and all the patriarch’s had died and a new Pharoah came up in Egypt that did not know Joseph or the great blessing he had given the people

God might of been silent to Isreal, but he still blessed them immesley, so much that Pharoah felt threatened by the vast number of them that existed

It was such a threat that Pharaoh went on a genocide of killing all the baby boys in Egypt

Within the wickedness, we see a boy escape, and the this boy is named Moses

He is sent down the river by his mother, and raised as a prince of Egypt in Pharaoh’s palace

The interesting thing is that in these first two chapters of Exodus, on the name of Elohim is used of God, that is the creator God, but again the general term for all supernatural beings

Now, Moses knew that he was a Hebrew, and so one day he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and intervened, and what ended up happening was he killed the Egyptian

Moses was put on the run, and ran all the way to a remote area called Midian

Moses is a wanted murderer on the run, and we would normally expect that is all we hear from him

40 years pass

Moses is now 80 years old, and a shepherd in Midian

These 40 years were not wasted by Moses or God, they were used to help how to survive in the desert, and what it was like to be a shepherd, both of animals and people

He is out shepherding, and he sees a bush on fire, yet it is not burning, something odd about this, uncanny and so it draws him in

Then God speaks to Moses

“Moses, Moses!”

Here I am Moses answers

I don’t know about you, but if I was walking in the wilderness with no one else around, and I heard a bush calling my name, I don’t know if I would go toward it!

However, for the time of Moses, this was a pattern, the twofold speaking of Moses’ name was a way of expressing endearment, friendship

So for Moses, he is hearing a call from the bush of one who cares and loves him and is concerned about him!

In preperation, God tells Moses this is holy ground, and to remove his sandels for this ground is holy and different

God doesn’t reveal his name first, he helps Moses know that he is no stranger to who they are, he says “I am the Elohim of your forefathers!

This was enough for Moses to hide his face out of fear of God, he dare not even look at the burning bush!

Now that God introduces himself as the god of his forefathers, God wants Moses to know that he sees his people’s struggle and oppression, and has come down to deliver them from Egypt and into the promised land!

Moses asks God, Who am I to go!

THis is not a rejection, but an acceptance, while understanding who he is

Moses is thinking, I”m old, I’m 80 years old!

I’m a murderer on the run!

I don’t think Moses ever expected to hear from God again

God might be saying, Moses you are the man I wan to use to deliver my people

But for Moses he is thinking I’ve blown it so badly I can’t deliver anything!

God would not hear it, for God was to make Moses his greatest deliverer until Jesus!

God wants Moses to know first, more than anything else, I will be with you!

The first answer God gives of who he is, is the God who is with them

In our modern world, I think we are mistaken on what is important about a God

We think philosophically, what is God like?

If you google ‘important questions about God’ you will come up with things like this

Does God exist?

How can we know God exists?

Does God have a nature or properties, and can we know about them?

For the Hebrews in Exodus, they lived in a totally different world

Everyone knew that gods existed, we talked about that, the idea of Elohim

THe Hebrews already knew about Elohim Ra or Hapi or Heqet, etc

What the Hebrews knew was that they had an Elohim that they followed, he was called ‘El Shaddai’ the Mighty God, or Adonai “Lord God” or names that are based on God’s power and actions to the people that follow him

They didn’t know the unique name of their Elohim, and the thing that Elohim wanted them to know before even knowing his name? He was with them

It is the first thing that God stakes his reputation on, that by my deliverance out of Israel you can trust me, they will worship God on that very mountain where God appeared to Moses

The reason this is extradinary, is that it is the promise our hearts desperately need

As you may of seen in the prayer request, my best friend Matt, who is not just a friend to me but is closer than a brother, we’ve been best friends for over 20 years at this point is going through the loss of his father-in-law

I was able to drop by and talk about all of it with Matt and Sara on Friday, and I cannot tell you the incredible honor it was to be able to be a minister of God’s word to my dearest friend and his wife

Sara’s father was a Christian, and a good, honest man, and he will be missed

Yet the greatest hope that I can offer them is not where Joe is now, although that helps. It is not theorizing why it happened the way it did or when it did, it is not giving empty platitudes of God is in control,

No the greatest hope I can offer them, and anyone, is to help them with the promise of presence

We might try to remove our hearts from the discussion when thinking about God and the philosophy behind it, but we can’t compartamentalize our lives that way

One of the greatest difficulties of every worldview is dealing with evil and injustice going unanswered.

There are plenty of philosophical answers in dealing with those concerns, but the one that God is most concerned with, when he is dealing with his people in the midst of great oppression: A God who is with you

When you are weeping and aching from the cold sting of death and loss of a dear family member or friend, philosophy means nothing, cognitive rationale does not soothe the bleeding heart within

No, but the God who is with us, that is something profound, a God who is with us, and suffers with us, the name of this God is YHWH

YHWH breaks down to a literal reading of “I AM who I AM” or “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE” or I CAUSE TO BE BECAUSE I CAUSE TO BE”

The God who simply is comes to the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and he comes to destroy those demonic elohim that would oppose him and setting his people free

Now just a quick important caveat about the name of God

You might have heard the name Jehovah, and that is the same name of God translated differently

In the Hebrew Bible, the Jews did not want to mispronounce the name of God, and so they stopped speaking it,

So in the Hebrew, they would place ‘Adonai’ next to it as the read name of God instead of his unique name given here to Moses

So fast forward to the 1500’s and a German translater took the letters “YHWH” and put in the vowels of Adonai because they were written like that in the copies he was studying

So then we get YaHoVaH or Jehovah from German since J and Y used to be the same in old English

However, since then, we have come to have a better understanding of things and more than likely the name of God is YHWH

So as we go forward in our study of God’s names, this is why you won’t find any Jehovah names, since YHWH is a much more accurate name of who God is

So YHWH appears to Moses and tells him who he is, who he will tell the people of Israel who he is and that he is to go and deliver the people of YHWH from the bondage of Pharaoh and the egyptian elohim

So how does this go?

Moses goes and is received well. In fact, what moves the Israelites to believe is not the signs of Moses and Aaron, but the fact that YHWH had seen their misery and paid attention to them! (4:31)

So when Moses approaches Pharaoh, as God promised, Pharoah mocks God and says, I don’t care what your God does, I don’t even know him

Then Pharaoh removes the straw supply from the brick making and makes the people also gather their own straw while also making the same supply of bricks

So the people quickly turn on Moses and said, YOU PROMISED RESCUE, BUT LOOK WHAT HAPPENED, IT’S WORSE THAN BEFORE YOU CAME!!!! THIS IS NO RESCUE!!

This is where chapter 6 enters, and YHWH speaks to Moses

He reminds him that he appeared to his forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but none of them knew him by his name, YHWH

God reiterates his promise of the promised land, and his promise to the patriarchs many years ago, and now renews this promise on his own personal name, YHWH

So much can be taken from this small excerpt

First the sheer insanity that the forefathers of Israel, and even Joseph, never knew God’s name YHWH

Now you will find YHWH before Exodus 3 in Genesis, but you have to remember it was Moses who was the author of those books!

What this tells us is that YHWH is slowly revealing more and more of himself to his people and the world!

As God reveals more of himself, and then will give the Law to the people on Mt Sinai, more becomes expected

Secondly, we should not fall into the trap that simply that because we have come to experience and know YHWH that our lives will magically get better

We are in enemy territory, Satan, his demons, the worldly culture, all want us to not take our faith seriously and follow YHWH

If we are honest, we have all acted like the Israelites, we meet YHWH and get excited about the great things that come from salvation

Then when things get hard, we start to be like “GOD IM FOLLOWING YOU! WHY IS IT HARDER!”

You know this is sometimes just little things

Suddenly your closest relationships start to be really disconnected and hard to live out

School goes from easy as a yawn to being unable to figure out stuff

Random things all start to break at once: your car, appliances, computers

Or even your health suddenly is perpetual sickness instead of health

Story of Moody and money going out the window like car, garage door, etc

It comes back to remembering that if God is who he says he is, then we can trust him, we can see in hindsight that God was faithful to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses and his generation too!

There is a cost to following YHWH, but it is worthwhile, and that is because of who YHWH reveals who he is in Ex. 34.

YHWH & His Glory

So we fast forward for a few months

They have been freed from Egypt via the 10 plagues, saw God save them by crossing the Red Sea and arrive at the promised mountain where God gives them the 10 commandments, and other parts of the Law

Yet, when Moses was on the mountain getting the law from YHWH, for 40 days and nights, the people slip back into the wickedness of idol worship, and worship another elohim, a golden calf

In a span of less than 100 days, in which YHWH was constantly with them by the cloud and the fire in the night showing that he was there, they stop using YHWH and return to some gold calf, and that calf is Baal more than likely

YHWH tells Moses exactly what is going on, and it causes a large loss of life, and great discipline for the people of Israel for the wickedness they had done, saying “This golden calf brought you out of Egypt!”

God wants to end the nation and restart with Moses, but because of his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, does not, because he is YHWH the God faithful to his covenants!

This brings us to the most important passage about YHWH in all the OT, Exodus 34:5-7

Exodus 34:5–7 CSB

5 The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, “the Lord.” 6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, 7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

This passage is so important about telling us the heart of YHWH, if you want to put this in perspective, it is the John 3:16 of the entire OT

It is quoted over a dozen times throughout the OT in pointing back to who YHWH is

It can not be understated how incredible this statement of who YHWH is in light of what is going on with Israel, they are in full blown pagan festivity worship, all over Moses being gone for 40 days!

Moses has to go and make new tablets, and so he and YHWH have a discussion about what to do with Israel, and God says he will go with these stubborn people, and Moses responds by saying it’s because I know your name that is good

Moses then boldly asks to see the glory of YHWH, the creator and sustainer of the universe!

Glory is an interesting idea, but perhaps it is best understood as the nature of God found in his special presence

In essence, Moses says, I trust you so far, let me see even more of who you are God!

So when YHWH gets ready to show Moses his glory, the very heart and nature of who YHWH is, what are the very first words out of his mouth?

If we were to make this in what we believe in our heart of hearts it would probably be like a Holy God full of wrath and pent up judgement for our sins

Yet, YHWH says, he is compassionate and gracious, those are the first things God wants us to think about when we think about him!

Additionally, YHWH is slow to anger but abounding in faithful love and truth!

As humans we are are emotional dams ready to burst, but God must be provoked to anger

However, what is God simply ready to lavish out? His Mercy, love, truth, grace, and compassion upon us

So God is not going to forsake those who deserve to be forsaken, and if you read the rest of Exodus, it is telling that God didn’t abandon Israel, because they deserved it

That’s why God does it to 1k generation, he’s not waiting for the 1k generation then to stop being full of faithful love, it’s a hyperbolic way of saying you won’t see the end of it

Yet, there is also harsh news, YHWH will punish the wicked for their iniquity to the 3rd and 4th generation!

There are varying ideas around this, but I think the natural reading is that there are generational sins that follow families

It’s not that kids are trying to be evil, but the way they were parented, or taught, or not taught, impacts them and they pass that on to their kids since they don’t know better

In essence, YHWH wants us to know that our sin will impact our grandkids, but God’s faithful love is so much greater that it swallows those sins up

What is 3-4 generations compared to a thousand!

If you are unsure of if this is who YHWH is, you just need to read the rest of the OT, and as his people get worse and worse, YHWH remains steadfast, and faithful to the unfaithful

YHWH & His Incarnation

Yet, ultimately, the biggest way in which we can see and understand YHWH’s name is by the person of Jesus

It is no accident that when Jesus comes, he utters three statements in Greek that are 1:1 of YHWH talking to Moses as “I AM who I AM”

John 6:19–20 CSB

19 After they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. He was coming near the boat, and they were afraid. 20 But he said to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

It might be obscure, but “IT IS I” is actually “I AM”

Jesus is walking on the water during a crazy storm, then they are transported instantly to their destination

Jesus calling himself YHWH is terrifying enough on top of the storm, he is doing something that only some sort of supernatural being could do, and then he says he is the greatest of all supernatural beings!

John 8:58 CSB

58 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”

When debating the Pharisees about the power Jesus has to perform miracles, the conversation gets very spicy and Jesus calls them sons of Satan!

When Jesus tells them of his authority, and claims to be God, they pick up stones to kill him for this blasphemous statement!

John 18:6–8 CSB

6 When Jesus told them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. 7 Then he asked them again, “Who is it that you’re seeking?” “Jesus of Nazareth,” they said. 8 “I told you I am he,” Jesus replied. “So if you’re looking for me, let these men go.”

Jesus is about to be arrested, and tried and killed, and when he claims “YHWH”, it causes the people to fall back to the ground because of the sheer incredulity of saying such a thing!

It is even in Jesus’ very name

Jesus is a derrivitive of Joshua, and so it means “YHWH saves”

Jesus’s prophetic name in Mt. 1:23 is quoting Isaiah where Jesus is also shown to be ‘Immanuel’ or God is with us

Once Jesus accomplished his earthly mission he returns to heaven to reign in power, yet, he tells us that He will always be with us until the end of the age

Just like YHWH is eternal I AM, Jesus is always with us until the end!

Just like YHWH is the powerful creator above all else, Jesus has all authority!

Application

Lies about who God is

Will we let YHWH be who YHWH is?

Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it. But of course the final proof of who God is cannot be found in Exodus but in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In Exodus 33–34 Moses cannot see God’s face and live, because it would incinerate him. But what if one day humans did see the face of God in a way that did not incinerate them?

God who is there for us, knows our suffering and pain and died for us to be reunited with him!

YHWH sees, hears, knows, and understands your plight better than any person can, even you!