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What is God’s Name, and Why is it Important? Names are important because, for example, if you call out to a friend by the wrong name, someone else might answer. If you worship a deity by a name that is not the Creator’s name, are you worshipping the Creator, or something else? Do you want to take that kind of a chance? When Moses first encountered God on Mount Sinai at the site of the burning bush, God gave him certain instructions involving the liberation of Israel from Egyptian slavery. At one point, Moses asked God, “Who shall I say sent me.” In other words, “What is your name?” God answered in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” “I am” in Exodus 3:14 is the Hebrew word “hayah”, pronounced hah-yah. It’s often translated in the Old Testament as "to be" or "to become." It conveys the idea of existence, occurrence, or coming into being. Some would say that the meaning implies the unsearchableness of God rather than his mere existence. On the other hand, can existence ever be seen as “mere” when all existence is the product of God’s omnipotence? Here’s the interesting thing. When Moses went to tell Israel who it was that sent him, he didn’t say, “I AM (hayah) sent me to you.” He pronounced his name as “Yahweh” (the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters: YHWH), which, being translated from Hebrew literally means “the existing one”, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense. It’s like God saying, “I exist,” and Moses saying, “He exists.” “Hayah” and “Yahweh” both have the “Yah” in common, and “Yah” is often used in Scripture as an abbreviation for “Yahweh”. The implication is that “Yah” means “existing” or “existence”, as without God, nothing would exist. So that makes sense also. Using modern English as an example, if God told Moses, “I exist because I exist. Go tell the children of Israel that ‘I exist’ sent you.” Moses wouldn’t say “I exist” sent me, because that sounds like he is saying that he sent himself. He would translate what God had told him so that it makes sense to those listening. He said, “the existing one” sent me to you. God spoke to Moses in the first person. It is only fitting that Moses would translate what he said in the third person perspective. “The existing one” translates into Hebrew as “Yahweh”. Indeed, the name “Yahweh” appears 6,220 times in the Old Testament Hebrew, and several more times as “Yah” for short. For some reason, by the time the Jews returned to the nation of Judah after their Babylonian captivity, they got it into their heads to never use the name “Yahweh” again, either verbally or in writing. Their yearly calendar was also rearranged as well, where the seventh month according to Moses (our September) became the Jewish first month, and the first month according to Moses (our March) became the Jewish seventh month. Somehow, their traditions changed during their captivity, and I suppose the Babylonian culture had some influence. So, getting back to the name of God, in the first English translation, like the King James Version, the scribes, almost every time, wrongly translated God’s holy name from the Hebrew “Yahweh” into the English “the LORD”, which to this day has caused much confusion. In the New Testament Greek, even when quoting Old Testament Scripture where the name of “Yahweh” was used originally, the scribes translated it into the Greek “kuros”, and from there, into English as “Lord”. Little by little, translations get further and further removed from remembering the true name of God. So, the Greek “kuros” in our New Testament means “master, sir; the Lord”. It’s the same Greek word that is used in reference to the Lord Yeshua Messiah (the Lord Jesus Christ). So, for those studying Scripture in the first couple of hundred years A.D. reading from the Greek Septuagint, they were getting confused because when referencing God and his Son, the same Greek word “kuros” was used, to the point where they began to just assume that God and his Son were interchangeable. But as we see, there is a distinction:
Getting back to the Old Testament. At this juncture, let’s acknowledge the fact that there was a popular false god which many idolaters worshiped, which angered God, and they called that god “Baal” which means “lord”. Most religious Jews and Christians of many sects and religions have completely forgotten God’s name. It’s a real shame because this means that the general population doesn’t even know who God is anymore. This practice started around 550 B.C., the time of Judah’s captivity in Babylon. The idolatrous culture of Babylon started to influence Judah’s Mosaic religion. They began to use a different calendar than the one Moses used in the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, and then they used the Ten Commandment’s third commandment for the justification of eliminating God’s name from their speech and writings. This is the third commandment:
Does this commandment forbid the speaking and writing of God’s true name? No, it does not. Reminds me of the time the serpent was tempting Eve in the garden:
See what he did there? Of course, God did not say, “. . . you shall not eat of any tree . . .” He was specific to only one tree. Similarly, in Exodus 20:7, God did not forbid to ever use his name. He only forbade us to use it for a vain thing; that is, for any vain thing. He was not specific about vain things, so it could mean vain causes, justification for evil actions, or applying it to other gods that are not the one and only Creator, and so on. So long as you are speaking his name in an honest and legitimate way, you’re fine. Also, make sure you don’t use it in pretense, in an exploitative way. There are some groups, temples, religious sects, whatever you want to call them, particularly among our Jewish friends, for whom we mean no disrespect, that go over the top, and forbid their patrons from ever using God’s true name. Some are using “Hashem” as God’s name now. But that is not God’s name. What does “Hashem” mean? It’s a name they made up which is not biblical by any stretch, and it’s used to replace God’s true name “Yahweh”. “Hashem” simply means "the Name." That does not fly here on YahMyGod.com. That is the antithesis of what we’re all about. It is perfectly legal under the law of Moses to speak God’s name, to refer to God, so long as it is not done disrespectfully or with misleading intent. God wants his name known.
Unfortunately, the King James Version, and most other English translations render the above verse like this: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” God’s name is so important that Scripture often says that the goal of God, the prophets and Messiah himself is to make known the name of Yahweh. Here are some examples:
This next one is from the New Testament, and it is Yeshua Messiah of Nazareth praying to his Father Yahweh: So, in conclusion, the name of God, Yahweh, is important to know and to make known, otherwise the people may wind up worshipping something else. |
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