The Importance of God’s Name

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” Shakespeare tells us that it is the character of the rose which makes it sweet.  Whatever you call it, its character remains the same.

In the next handful of studies we will look into the character of who we call God and look at other descriptors of his character…his names. The point of this study is God’s name reveals that he is the all-powerful God whom we can completely trust.  

When Moses went to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt he needed to know who was sending him.  God revealed an important aspect of his nature through his name: I AM WHO I AM.  Perhaps we might paraphrase this as “the being who is be-ing,” as God is ever present from eternity in OUR past, and beyond eternity in OUR future.    

In today’s passage Moses has fled the palace of his adoptive mother, the daughter of the Pharoh, after he had killed an Egyptian that was mistreating a Hebrew for no good reason.  Moses left Egypt and made for Midian, roughly traveling the distance clear across Texas.  He found shelter among the tents of a Midianite priest Jethro.  Ironically it was Midianite slave traders that had taken Joseph to Egypt. And now it was Moses and his people who would bring Joseph’s bones back to the Midianites.

Moses traded the robes of royalty for the working clothes of a shepherd. One day, while working, Moses noticed something.

EXODUS 3:1-6

3 Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

“Here I am,” he answered.

5 “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he continued, “I am the God of your father,[c] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

So Moses is working with the Midianites in the lands of Midian.  Midian was a son of Abraham by Abraham’s concubine Keturah and was sent by Abraham to the east.  The wilderness in which Moses was working was not your “typical desert”, but rather a rocky wasteland of little rain that more like Mars than anything else.  This area was located south and east of what we know currently as Israel along the eastern reaches of the Red Sea.

Mt. Horeb was in the more southern part of the peninsula a good distance away from Midian where Jethro was living.  While in this volcanic field and wasteland Moses saw something most unusual – light in a bush that didn’t cause the bush to catch fire.  The shining light of fire was well known in that era.  Smelting fire was even known, but fire without smoke was NOT known.  So it was unusual for a bush to be lighted but for no smoke, or no consumption of the bush to occur. So Moses went to “check it out.”

Notice that while it was “the angel of the LORD” that caused the bush to be lighted, it was God that called out to Moses by repeating his name twice.  In Semitic culture of that time speaking someone’s name twice was a way of expressing friendship and affection.  Moses would have recognized it as being addressed by someone who was concerned about him.

Removing the sandals because of being on Holy ground was a cultural tradition that priests entering temples would do to prevent bring in of worldly impurities into the place of worship.  Also, an inferior being removed his sandals in the presence of a superior being.  God had taken a common place in the wilderness and turned it into holy ground because of the presence of God.  Moses needed to keep a proper distance and remove his sandals in acknowledgment that God was the superior being.

While God knew Moses’ name, Moses did not know God.  God first introduced himself as the “God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” over 400 years earlier.  For us it wouldn’t be like saying “I am the God of George Washington”, but rather “I am the God of Queen Elizabeth the First”, or maybe even “I am the God of William Shakespeare” as far as time frames go.

Can you imagine seeing a light source with no heat, or consuming of matter, calling you by name and who tells you that it is someone who your ancestors of over 400 years ago related to?  How would you react?  Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

God then gave Moses, and us, a message that he is aware of our needs.

Exodus 3:9-11

9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, 10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”  11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Whenever we think God is NOT aware of our situation, we should remember this response to Moses.  The desperate cries of his people had indeed been perceived by God. When the Israelites began to quit complaining and start praying God began to act to fulfill his promises to fulfill his promises to Abraham.  To relate this to our minds “I remember the promises that I made to Queen Elizabeth the first, and now I will act to deliver you from slavery to this foreign country.”  Could WE even relate to the language and customs of the 1500s?

God then tells Moses “go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”  Population grows over time.  For example the population of the territory that would become the USA held approximately 2 million people in the 1500s.  By 1776 that number had risen to 2.5 million.  By 1800 5.3 million, and by 1900 76 million.  Currently there are some 282 million and there are 2.5 million entering illegally each year.  We are probably at closer to 340 million now.  This is merely to demonstrate how fast a country can grow in just around 400 years.

One can almost read Mose’s mind.  “UM.  I am an outlaw.  I managed to escape from Egypt without looking my life.  There is undoubtedly an arrest warrant for my arrest and now you want ME to go BACK to the government that I am running FROM?!”  “Shucks, who am I to go to Pharaoh?!  Let someone else do it.”

When God presents us with a difficult task, we quickly ask “why me?!  There has GOT to be someone better suited.”  The answer to us is the same as the answer to Moses: It is not about US it is about GOD.  While it was true that Moses was inadequate for the task, GOD was fully capable to accomplish his purposes.  He just told Moses to be the messenger, the angel, and God would accomplish the tasks.  

God told him that “what will set you apart from all others will be that you will bring the people out of Egypt and you will worship God at this mountain. In other words, I said you will do it and you, and everyone else will know that you ARE the one when it happens.  Trust me.”

God saved the Israelites from slavery, but he also saved them to something – worship and witness, as he delivered them from their old way of life and prepared them for a cooling to worship him and live in community with him, and to be a witness in the world concerning the God of ALL.

It was at Mt. Horeb, from where the word horrible derives,  another name for Mount Sinai, or the mountain of Sinai, where God would descent in the presence o the Israelites and where God would deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses.  It was here that God laid down the principles by which godly people were to live.

God provided His Ten commandments to Moses c.1600 BC to 750 BC.  The oldest written human code of law during the time of Abraham 1792-1750 BC covered  economic provisions (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce), family law (marriage and divorce), as well as criminal law (assault, theft) and civil law (slavery, debt).  

Now God gave humanity a code of law in two recognizable sections, with a bridge linking them.

• Commandments 1-4 (worship God, make no idols, avoid false oaths, and keep the Sabbath) orient us to God. 

• Commandments 6-10 (do not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie in court, or covet) focus on human relationships and processes.

Where humanity had created rules related to economic, social, and criminal security, God gives rules relating to orienting us to himself, and keeping focus on God amongst the humans.

Next we learn of God’s names.

Exodus 3:13-15

13 Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” 14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Moses had another dilemma.  While God was know as “the God of your ancestors”, Moses didn’t really KNOW God.  He couldn’t go to the most powerful world leader and say “hey, Mr. President.  Moses says you should free all of the captive people and let them leave your country and quit working for you.”  The response would likely be “Moses who?!”

And if Moses was to go the Hebrew people under the authority of the “God of your ancestors” he needed to answer their questions about who God is.  The first would be “what is his name?”  The Egyptians had MANY named gods.  While humanity had given many names to many gods, God has life in himself.  God IS life.  So God told Moses to tell them “I AM who I am, I am has sent me unto you.”  This roughly equates to something like “I am the being who has always been the being.  The being one has sent me to you.”

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was known by various names that translate to God Most High, God Almighty and God sees me, to name just a few.  God’s response to Moses asking his name is not a name, a label, that makes God an object of definition or limitation.  Trying to define the character of the most powerful, potent, loving, and knowing being who is everywhere in the universe, is to limit that being.  You will ALWAYS overlook something.  It would be like “count to infinity”.  There is NO way to count to infinity because infinity “always is.”  There is no descriptive way to name God because God “always is.”  Hence I AM who I am. Is about a close a descriptor as we can get.

Yahweh was not a localized Egyptian god, but was the same deity that had revealed himself over 400 years earlier to their ancestors. God told Moses to REMIND the Israelites that they were to REMEMBER in their memory this creator God forever.  One of the consistent reasons that the Israelites strayed from their faith in God was that they failed to remember Him, their covenant with him and how he had faithfully provided for them and their ancestors.  instead, they strayed, placing their hopes in false gods that humans had created, thereby falling into idolatry – a limited substitute of the real thing.

God chose Israel because of his desire to use them to bless all the other nations, to reveal himself to the nations.  The Hebrew nation failed in this regard, but God still used the Hebrews to bring the Messiah, Jesus, into the world.  In doing so, the name of God would stand forever and it would affect every generation.

God was telling humanity “I AM the being that is being.  I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  You will remember that Yahweh is what you may call me forever. 

God’s name reveals he is the all-powerful, all existing God whom we can completely trust.