12th Sunday After Pentecost, August 31, 2014

The Hebrew Bible Reading: Exodus 3:1-15

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

But Moses said to God, “If I come 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 shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say 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, and this my title for all generations.

Reflections:  The name God gives to Moses is nothing like names we give. Scholars have tried to make sense if it: “I am who I am,” “I will be who I will be,” . . .  but that’s certainly not what we expect in a name, nor is it what Moses expects. Moses asks for God’s name much as we might ask someone’s name, expecting “Bob” or “Gertrude.” But that isn’t what he gets; God’s response is both confusing and mysterious.

Let’s deal the confusing part first. When we look closely at the text, we see that God seems to give two different answers; for that reason, scholars have detected different strands of the story, suggesting that it may have been told among multiple various audiences, and perhaps for different purposes. God’s first response to Moses’ question is simply enigmatic; we’ll come back to that one. In the second response, God self-identifies as the god of Moses’ ancestors. It’s a bit like introducing yourself to a child as her great-grandmother’s best friend—more a title or historical identity than a name. (and the story tells us that Moses already knows that, anyway). Much more interesting is God’s first answer.

God’s initial response to Moses is truly mysterious. In the Hebrew text, God’s name is spelled with all consonants, kind of like this: YHWH. Unlike our writing system, Hebrew and Arabic writing originally involved only consonants. Naturally, people pronounced vowels when they spoke—but there weren’t any vowel letters until much later. (Even now vowels are added as extra marks above or below the consonants.) The consequence of trying to read a name in all consonants? We don’t really know how to pronounce it.

Like many Hebrew names, God’s name has a meaning—much like the woman’s name “Faith” has a meaning. However, the vowels inserted into the Holy Name affect both the pronunciation and the meaning. Thus, YHWH is rendered into English in our Bible as “I am who I am” and “I will be who I will be.” (And what do you do with that?) Really, the name of God is not really reducible to any translation.

Is that a bad thing? The desire to pin down the name of God has led many leading Christian scholars to write and use the Holy Name as Yahweh—much like we might speak the name of our friend Bob. Alternatively, God’s name also appears in the story as I AM, although that seems more a proclamation than a go-by.

On the other hand, one can also take the Divine Name in all its mysteriousness and unpronounceability as a revelation of what that implies about God. In other words, the very obscurity of YHWH is itself revelation. This is the rationale behind the Jewish practice of reading YHWH as ha shem, “the Name.”