Names of God: YHVH, part 1.

Title: Names of God: YHVH, part 1.

 

Names of God.

 

This is a great and lifelong doctrine. This is not a doctrine you take a course on or get a PHD in. This is a lifelong pursuit. I am starting this because of Satan’s false god Baal. Satan gave a name to a shadow, a vapor, and while our study in Judges has us involved very often in the idolatry of Israel, I want to look into God’s name and the reality of the Trinity.

 

Pentecost signified the end of the age of Israel for a time, in fact for a summer (the intercalation), and the beginning of the church age.

    

DEU 16:9 "You shall count seven weeks for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.

 

DEU 16:10 Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord  your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give just as the Lord  your God blesses you;

 

DEU 16:11 and you shall rejoice before the Lord  your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is in your town, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst, in the place where the Lord  your God chooses to establish His name.

 

DEU 16:12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

 

Praise and rejoicing are associated with the name YHVH since this name is more often related to His salvation, grace, mercy, and love.  

   

PSA 89:13 Thou hast a strong arm;

Thy hand is mighty, Thy right hand is exalted.

 

PSA 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Thy throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before Thee.

 

PSA 89:15 How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!

O Lord, they walk in the light of Thy countenance.

 

PSA 89:16 In Thy name they rejoice all the day,

And by Thy righteousness they are exalted.

 

PSA 89:17 For Thou art the glory of their strength,

And by Thy favor our horn is exalted.

 

PSA 89:18 For our shield belongs to the Lord,

And our king to the Holy One of Israel.

 

YHVH (Jehovah, Yaweh, Yavah pronunciations) - used where relationships of God and man are involved, especially in man's redemption. Used 6,823 times in the OT. In the NASB and KJV it is all in caps: Lord.

 

While El and Elohim can be used for false gods as the general word for god, and Adonai can be used for men under the definition of master, YHVH is only used of the one true God. El and Elohim are used of Him thousands of times and they generally are used in connection with His sovereignty and power. “In the beginning, Elohim created the heaven and the earth.”

 

All divine attributes that share in redemption are given with YHVH - holiness, justice, and love for the sinner. The covenants are largely given under this name.

 

The name was revealed to man from the beginning. When Eve gave birth to Cain she said, “I have gotten a boy with the help of Yavah.”

 

Therefore, this name was known in Israel as God referred to Himself by this name to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.

 

God's revelation of His name to Moses.

 

The people had made their golden calf. Moses prayed for them and they were not destroyed. They were disciplined and then God sent them on to the Promise Land, but stated that He would not go with them, lest He destroy them on the way. Moses spoke with God in the tent of meeting and entreated God to go with them.

 

We must first set the scene and then we will return to look at this precious revelation in more detail.

 

EXO 33:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, "Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your descendants I will give it.'

 

EXO 33:2 "And I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.

 

EXO 33:3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, lest I destroy you on the way."

 

EXO 33:4 When the people heard this sad word, they went into mourning, and none of them put on his ornaments.

 

EXO 33:5 For the Lord had said to Moses, "Say to the sons of Israel, 'You are an obstinate people; should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you. Now therefore, put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what I will do with you.'"

 

EXO 33:6 So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward.

 

EXO 33:7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about, that everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp.

 

EXO 33:8 And it came about, whenever Moses went out to the tent, that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent.

 

EXO 33:9 And it came about, whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent; and the Lord would speak with Moses.

 

EXO 33:10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent.

 

EXO 33:11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

 

Now we see Moses speak to Yavah as a friend. It is Moses who wrote the Torah and so he is writing first hand of this particular meeting and conversation.

 

Moses shows that appealing to the unchangeable God of all mercies, the God of forgiveness, that he is appealing to Yavah, the name bearing such attributes.

 

(forgive me for rewriting the KJ pronouns and their associate verbs)

 

EXO 33:12 Then Moses said to the Lord, "See, You do say to me, 'Bring up this people!' But You Yourself have not let me know whom You wilt send with me. Moreover, You have said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.'

 

EXO 33:13 "Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways, that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people."

 

Do you think God had not considered this until now?

 

Do you see how God, in His infinite grace, allows us to talk to Him in a manner that is actually quite ridiculous when speaking to omniscience, and actually responding to us in revelation, in solutions, in answers to our so very finite minds?

 

Although prayer is not our subject, I never like to miss an opportunity to expound upon an important principle that we come across in our studies. If you were out walking the beach looking for shells, would you not stop at piece of beautiful sea-glass that you happened upon and pick it up and look at it?

 

ROM 8:26 And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;

 

ROM 8:27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 

EXO 33:12 Then Moses said to the Lord, "See, You do say to me, 'Bring up this people!' But You Yourself have not let me know whom You wilt send with me. Moreover, You have said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.'

 

EXO 33:13 "Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways, that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people."

 

EXO 33:14 And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest."

 

EXO 33:15 Then he said to Him, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.

 

“If you don’t go there is no point in us going.” This is not the conversation of a peon to a tyrant god as is in all pagan religions, but the conversation of a real, thinking, feeling, willful man to His gracious, loving, personal Lord. Yavah is the God of all mercies and comforts. He is the God of redemption, forgiveness, kindness, love, and yes justice. Justice falls upon all who reject Him - it must, but everlasting lovingkindness to all who call upon His name. This is the force behind the name, Yavah!

 

EXO 33:15 Then he said to Him, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.

 

EXO 33:16 For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?"

 

EXO 33:17 And the Lord said to Moses, "I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight, and I have known you by name."

 

EXO 33:18 Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Your glory!"

 

We will return to the answer to this all important question. In a nutshell, Yavah’s gracious answer is that He will not judge men’s sins until they are judged in Himself at Calvary many years later, and so not one man will be judged because of his personal sin, but only in that he rejects the free gift of Yavah’s salvation. As far as I can see at this point, this is the meaning of only showing His back to Moses and not His face.

 

Although this is chronologically out of order, we will first see God define His title of Yavah and then go back years earlier to His meeting with Moses in the form of a burning bush.

 

God imparts Moses with the meaning of the title.  

 

EXO 34:1 Now the Lord said to Moses, "Cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered.

 

EXO 34:2 So be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain.

 

EXO 34:3 And no man is to come up with you, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain."

 

EXO 34:4 So he cut out two stone tablets like the former ones, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and he took two stone tablets in his hand.

 

EXO 34:5 And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord.

 

EXO 34:6 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;

 

YHVH YHVH El - la hwhy hwhy

In their later history, the reverence for the name caused the Jews not to pronounce it, saying Adonai to themselves while reading YHVH.

 

(for Hebrew you read right to left)

 

The impact of the name comes out immediately. God begins with a double proclamation, Yavah Yavah and then El - El speaking of His sovereignty, power, and authority.

 

The meaning and significance of these names carry great importance for us.

 

The pronunciation is really unknown. So while some prefer Yaweh and others Jehovah and still others Yavah. Around the sixth century A.D., in order to protect people from not taking the Lord's name in vain, though an improper application of that command, the Jewish scholars substituted the vowel points for Adonai under the letters YHVH. This is where the Jehovah pronunciation comes from, and so actually that pronunciation must be incorrect. Ancient Hebrew had no vowel markings.

 

Yet that issue leads us to an important application to this doctrine.

 

Is it a problem that we don’t know the pronunciation? It is not since knowing God's name is actually a call to know Him in His essence. Language is for conveying ideas and principles. Even the grammar and syntax of language is only important in that an idea is not misconstrued or misunderstood. Language is about meaning and not technique. In God's revelation of Himself, in His name, it is His essence and attributes that are important to us.

 

The proper pronunciation is not important. The name of God as revelation of God’s essence is. Once God's revelation of Himself is understood, life takes on great meaning.

 

DEU 28:58 "If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God [YHVH Elohim],"

 

It’s not so much that I know how to say it in the original Hebrew, but that I see His name as honored and awesome. The name for Lord in the NT is Kurios. Whether I say Kurios or Lord or Yavah or Jehovah or Yaweh means nothing. What does Satan call Him for that matter? Knowing what His name/names mean as for as His essence and His relationship with me is what is of vital importance.

 

"honored" - kabed = glorious (honor your father and mother)

"awesome" - yare = to be afraid, to be in awe, revere

 

Honor is a word that refers to the chief of one’s conscience. It’s a word that can’t be stated when it is not a reality within. What we honor is what we revere and hold as our top priority. If one honors God then one reveres God. Fear is involved in the word “yare” but not fear of judgment. It is a fear of not understanding, not knowing, not seeing, not hearing, not walking in way of God. I hope you can see the difference between that and the fear of punishment or judgment. We should fear being carnal, not because of punishment, but because it involves wasting the wonderful privilege and opportunity that has been graciously given to us.

 

Hence, when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham feared not obeying, and not because God would punish him in some way, which is the way of the pagan gods and their religion, but because not doing so would be against all that he had come to know about God over so many long years. To Abraham at the time it would have been foolish and faithless not to obey and Abraham feared being foolish and faithless after discovering that that was what he was called to be.  

 

Yare was used of Abraham when he offered his son to God. God said,

 

GEN 22:12

for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

 

DEU 28:58 "If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God [YHVH Elohim],"

 

Since Yavah is most often used in association with God’s dealings with man in salvation, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and love then Yavah causes honor and reverence of Him to grow within us.

 

After God gives His name, Yavah Yavah El, He quickly follows with attributes.

 

EXO 34:6 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;

 

EXO 34:7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."

 

YHVH - compassion, grace, patient, merciful (slow to anger), abounding in steadfast love, abounding in truth, not discriminating (to thousands), forgiving, and justice.

 

EXO 34:8 And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.