The old shepherd’s leather skin burns as he tends his sheep in the hot desert of the Sinai peninsula. Now reaching 80, he thinks back on his life. Born into the lap of luxury in the seat of power in imperial Egypt, he had to flee at the age of 40 because, in a fit of rage over the brutal treatment of his race, he killed an Egyptian. For the last 40 years, this has been his lot: tending sheep in the desert wilderness.
He looks in the distance and sees a brush fire. The fire is burning, but it doesn’t consume. The old shepherd creeps closer. His skin tingles when he hears a voice calling to him out of the fire.
“Moses. Moses.”
“Yes!” he gasps, “I’m here.”
“Take your shoes off. This is holy territory.”
The INCONCEIVABLE approaches. “FIRE” is the right metaphor–God is a roaring fire! Moses thinks, “What is going on? Who is this?”
What he hears next changes the course of history. It is the INCONCEIVABLE stooping to accommodate, descending to reveal himself.
“I AM the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
I have surely seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
I have heard their cries because of their slave drivers.
I am concerned about their suffering.
So, I have come down to rescue them and bring them into a good and spacious land, flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:7, 8).
The INCONCEIVABLE is not the god of the philosophers, a God “up there where people are not.” God is not an abstract concept. The INCONCEIVABLE identifies himself by his relationship with real people—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He calls us “my people,” and invites us to call him “my God.” The INCONCEIVABLE feels human suffering, sees misery, listens to cries, and is stirred with compassion. But more than that, he does something about it—he “comes down” to rescue, to alleviate suffering and injustice, to show us how to live flourishing lives.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME, GOD?
This God tells Moses that he is going to rescue the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and is going to use the 80-year-old shepherd as the “general” to lead them out. Are you kidding? Egypt is the superpower of the day, and Moses is old and frail (and even admits he can’t speak well). But God insists he go to Egypt and tell the Hebrews that this God is going to liberate them. And that is what Moses is most concerned about. There are over 2,000 gods in Egypt, all vying for power. So, Moses queries, “The Hebrews are going to ask which god you are. When they ask, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I tell them?” (Ex. 3:13) In ancient times, a name revealed someone’s character. So, Moses is asking, “What kind of god are you? What is your name?”
And here it comes. The moment where God tells us his name, tells us who he is. Ready? Here it is:
“I AM WHO I AM, AND I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. Tell them “I AM” sent you” (Ex. 3:14).
What in the world does this mean? We get more insight as God explains his name further when Moses went to Egypt and met with the Hebrews:
“I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as GOD ALMIGHTY (Hebrew, El Shaddai; in other words, ‘INCONCEIVABLE’), but by my name ‘I AM WHO I AM, I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE,’ I did not make myself known to them” (Ex. 6:3).
God pulls back the curtain, and we venture into this world of God’s character revealed by his name. What are we to make of this name, “I AM WHO I AM, AND I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE? (or in Hebrew, the four consonants YHWH)? What does this name mean?
First, God is beyond understanding and imagination and is in fact INCONCEIVABLE unless he reveals his nature. God is THE ONE WHO IS; everything is dependent on him. We cannot “imagine” or control him. HE IS!
The name is also a verb: God is a verb. We tend to think of God as some static thing, some idea, words on a page. But God is the Living God; God is an extrovert and constantly active. You’d better watch out—you might just meet him!
But most importantly the name means that God is present, here, “with us.” “The name of God is a promise of God’s presence and help. What the name denotes is the faithfulness of God.”[1] The name of God is a promise of the INCONCEIVABLE to be “with us,” to accompany us for our good during this life and forever. The name means I will be there with you.
Thomas Cahill sums up this powerful self-revelation of God: “This God of the fathers, now manifested as YHWH in the bush that burns but is not consumed, is more awesome than in any previous manifestations—not only because of the fireworks, but because of the symbolic nature of this epiphany, which suggests that this God, as dangerous, tempering, and purifying as fire, can burn in us without consuming.”[2]
THE SHEKINAH GLORY OF GOD
God did rescue the Hebrews from fear, slavery, and death in Egypt, and brought them out into a new future of possibilities and hope. That FIRE that burned in the bush accompanied them through the dark nights as they journeyed in the wilderness to the promised land. God created a “moving tent,” a tabernacle, where God would “dwell” (Hebrew mishkan) and be their traveling companion. God intensely desired to “dwell” with and journey with his people. The Hebrews called this dwelling or Presence of God with his people the “Shekinah” of God. Shekinah was associated with the FIRE that traveled with the Hebrews through the desert, the shining glory and presence of God “with” his people.
But as they travel through the desert wilderness, Moses and the people find that it is one thing to get out of fear and slavery, it is another thing to live life and not want to keep going back. If God acts in my life once or twice, will he keep acting? This is really a question of: how do I get through this life? Can I trust God to always be with me for my good?
In the wilderness, Moses pleads with God to reaffirm his promise to be with his people, and boldly he asks God, “Show me your glory” (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for glory is kabod, which means “heavy” or “weighty.” Moses is asking, “God, show me everything—I need to know for sure that you are faithful, that you will go with us, that you keep your promises, that we can trust your heart.”
Yahweh doesn’t object; he wants to reveal his glory. But remember, we are talking about the INCONCEIVABLE. So how does God reveal his glory? He adapts himself and places Moses in a crevice in the mountain—he makes a safe space to be with us. When God’s glory passed by, God covered Moses with his hand, and Moses was able to see “God’s back” as he passed by.
There is something in the essence of God that yearns for and finds a way to adapt to us, to communicate with us. God doesn’t just tell Moses about himself; he tells Moses about himself in a way that Moses experiences for himself. This is the “Shekinah” glory of God, the Presence (or Face) of God. This is God in your face. This is God in his own words relating to us so that we know and experience the essence of God.
As all the glory of God passes by, God reveals his essence, what he is really like:
“I AM WHO I AM, a God who is:
merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness (emet),
keeping steadfast love for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
but who by no means will clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.“
(Exod. 34:6,7)
FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH
God’s self-description has two powerful words that are used interchangeably throughout the Old Testament. The first, used to describe the steadfast love of God, is vibrant and beautiful, occurring nearly 250 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is the word hesed. Hesed cannot be adequately translated into English because of its depth and richness. This single word is often translated in the English Old Testament with multiple adjectives, such as “loving-kindness,” “steadfast love,” “unswerving loyalty,” “merciful love,” “enduring faithfulness.”[3] As Michael Card writes, “in the end hesed is as much a world as a word,” and it is the “key that can open a door into an entire world–the world of God’s own heart.”[4] We often call it today “unconditional love,” and the writers of the New Testament used the Greek word “agape” to describe it. Hesed is the true nature and quality of the God of the Bible. You could say that faithful, compassionate love is God’s baseline emotion.[5]
Hesed is often used together with another Hebrew word, emet, which means truth or faithfulness. But in Hebrew, truth is not some objective idea; it is always personal because God is personal. What God says is truthful, and you can depend upon that because God is utterly reliable and faithful. In God we find the truth about this universe, our lives, and how to live. And the purpose of all this truth is love! “In God essential truth equals essential love.”[6] God is hesed and emet, grace and truth. As Card writes:
The great surprise of the Hebrew Bible is not that God is awesome or holy. These characteristics we would expect from God. The great surprise is that he is kind, that he is a God of hesed. That is what fundamentally makes him unlike any other god, then or now.[7]
WHAT DOES YOUR NAME MEAN, GOD?
The name “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE” reveals what God is really like, as he is “with” humans, revealing himself, journeying with us. Yahweh invites us into relationship and trust. I think the best way to describe this dynamic, mysterious, beautiful name is to imagine God speaking these words to you:
You will come to know me as you let me know you, as you trust me to act in your life for your own good, as I journey with you and as we love each other.
You can read more about God’s Name in my book Meet God (Before You Die), available on Amazon and at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/meet-god-before-you-die.
[1] Christoph Barth, God With Us: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 71.
[2] Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels (New York: Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books, 1998), 110.
[3] Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 12.
[4] Id.
[5] John Mark Comer, God Has a Name, 125.
[6] Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 109.
[7] Card, Hesed, 43.