Our church has some banners on the wall that feature many of the names of God. As we sing, I love to look at the names and meditate on what they mean to me.
The Lord our Righteousness
The Lord Our Provider
The Lord Who Sees Me
The Lord Our Salvation
These names led me to begin studying more about His name in the Bible. I wanted to know which names (and their meanings) applied to me and which might not. Could I be sure that He would always be my provider, for instance?
The word translated “LORD” in my KJV Bible was given to Moses at the burning bush.
“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (Exodus 3:14-15, KJV).
I was able to look at these verses in various translations online, and many of them had additional information in the footnotes.
- “The Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for I am in verse 14.” (New International Version)
- “To know the name of God is to witness the manifestation of those attributes and apprehend that character which the name denotes (Exodus 6:3; I Kings 8:33; Psalm 91:14; Isaiah 52:6; Isaiah 64:2; Jeremiah 16:21) (John D. Davis, A Dictionary of the Bible).
- God’s name is His self-revelation (Charles Ellicott, A Bible Commentary).
- The name signifies the active presence of the person in the fullness of the revealed character (J.D. Douglas et al., eds., The New Bible Dictionary).” (Amplified Bible)
- “Yahweh is a transliteration of the proper name YHWH that is sometimes rendered ‘Jehovah’; in this translation it is usually rendered ‘the Lord’ (note the use of small capitals).” (New Living Translation)
- “The word LORD, when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, ‘to be’ in verse 14.” (English Standard Version)
- Young’s Literal Translation translates “LORD” as “Jehovah.”
How did we ever get “LORD” from “I AM THAT I AM”? I felt as if I opened a treasure chest when I first began researching the answer to that question. God’s name is truly a deep treasure that continues to get more valuable the more I search!
I grew up learning that Jehovah was a name for God. Only recently did I learn that the J in Jehovah was originally pronounced with a Y sound. Through the centuries, the pronunciations of Hebrew words became “Latinized.”
Yerushalayim became Jerusalem
Yehoshua became Joshua
Yirmeyahu became Jeremiah
Yehud?ah became Judah
Yehoshua also became Jesus
Jehovah comes from a pronunciation of YHVH, which are four Hebrew consonants commonly called the “Tetragrammaton.” (You can click here for a good look and explanation.)
Strong’s #3068, Yehovah, the Name of the Creator
The Jewish people were very careful to obey God’s command not to take His name in vain, so much so that they stopped pronouncing His name verbally at all. They would say Adonai (“My Lord”) or HaShem (“The Name”) instead.
So our modern translation of “LORD” comes from centuries of tradition that forbid the utterance of the true name of God and replaced it with a term of utmost respect, Adonai, meaning “Lord and Master.”
I do believe that we should show great and utmost respect for the name of our God. But “Lord” or “Master” does not convey to me the meaning for His name that is given to Moses in Exodus 3.
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations’ ” (Exodus 3:14-15).
“Lord” doesn’t convey “I am that I am.”
“Lord” doesn’t explain His continual presence, His eternality, His character, or His revelation of Himself to mankind.
“This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”
When I call Him “Lord,” it certainly tells Him that I want to submit my life in obedience to Him, that I realize He is my master and that everything I have is His.
But He has revealed Himself to me as well.
And [Yeshua] said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36).
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Messiah, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together (Romans 8:14-17).
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Messiah (Galatians 4:6-7).
He is my Abba, my Father, and while He must also be my Lord, He has called me into a close and loving family relationship whereby He has made me a joint-hear with His own dear Son.
I am learning that He wants me to know His name because His name provides my salvation for me and all the benefits of my inheritance in Yeshua the Messiah.
If I study through the Old Testament, I will learn that God revealed Himself to Adam but that His revelation was obscured by sin. Adam could no longer walk and talk with God in the cool of the evening but rather, angels with flaming swords kept Adam from communion with his Father.
I learn that God revealed Himself to mankind in the stars and in His creation (Romans 1:20), but mankind rejected this revelation in favor of the foolish worship of the things He had created, the sun and the moon, beasts and rocks.
I learn that God revealed Himself to Abraham and gave him the promise of a coming redeemer, by whom all nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3). This redeemer is Yeshua the Messiah—and through Him I have also been grafted into Abraham’s family line (Romans 11, Ephesians 2).
The God of Abraham and the God of Moses is my God, too. He describes Himself as “I AM THAT I AM,” the God who never changes and is always present for me in my need.
“Yeshua the Messiah is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
So I’ve been pondering the banners on the wall at my church.
The Lord our Righteousness
The Lord Our Provider
The Lord Who Sees Me
The Lord Our Salvation
Yes, He is my “Lord,” but He is also my “I AM.”
I am your Righteousness
I am your Provider
I am the One Who Sees You
I am your Salvation
What a marvelous benefit is mine! As I read through my Bible and see “LORD” spelled with all capital letters, I know that I am seeing a promise revealed to me and to all generations, of a God who is my God, ever present with me, providing for me all I need by indwelling me with His own power.
Hallelujah! Praise Yehovah!
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