The Name of God

The divine name יהוה (conventionally transliterated YHWH, the four consonants of the Hebrew tetragrammaton) appears approximately 6,828 times in the Hebrew Bible, by far the most common divine name. It is first revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14–15) but appears as early as Genesis 2:4 in the creation narrative.

Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM (ehyeh asher ehyeh, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה).' And he said, 'Say this to the people of Israel: I AM (ehyeh, אֶהְיֶה) has sent me to you.'" Verse 15 adds: "Say this to the people of Israel: 'YHWH, the 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 thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."

The etymology of YHWH is contested. The dominant view connects it to the Hebrew root hayah (הָיָה, to be, to exist) in a Hiphil form: "he who causes to be," "he who brings into existence", consistent with YHWH as creator. But the Exodus 3 account suggests the name itself is its own definition: ehyeh asher ehyeh, "I am what I am," or "I will be what I will be." The name does not yield to analysis; it asserts absolute, underived existence.

The pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was lost when Second Temple Jews began substituting Adonai (my Lord) in reading to avoid profaning the name. The Masoretes added the vowel points of Adonai to the consonants of YHWH, producing "Jehovah" in later Christian usage, a hybrid that does not represent the original pronunciation. "Yahweh" is the scholarly reconstruction based on patristic transliterations and linguistic evidence.

The generic Semitic word for deity is El (אֵל), which Hebrew shares with Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Aramaic. El appears in theophoric names (Israel = "He who strives with God" or "God strives"; Bethel = "house of God"; Peniel = "face of God") and in compound divine names:

El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי): "God Almighty" (traditional translation), appears in the patriarchal narratives. Exodus 6:3 notes: "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name the LORD (YHWH) I did not make myself known to them." The patriarchs knew YHWH as their God, but the covenant-name YHWH was not revealed in its full significance until the Exodus. The etymology of Shaddai is contested: connected by some to the Akkadian shadu (mountain), "God of the Mountain"; by others to the Hebrew shadayim (breasts), "God who nourishes/is sufficient."

Elohim (אֱלֹהִים): the plural form of Eloah (אֱלוֹהַּ), used overwhelmingly for the one God of Israel despite its grammatical plural. The plural has been explained as a "plural of majesty" or "intensive plural", not a numerical plural but an intensification of the word's force. Elohim is used for YHWH, for pagan gods (Exodus 12:12), for human judges (Psalm 82:6, cited by Jesus in John 10:34), and for Moses (Exodus 7:1). The word is the most semantically flexible divine name in Hebrew.

El Elyon (אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, God Most High): first appears in Melchizedek's blessing of Abraham (Genesis 14:19–20). Used in Psalm 78:35 as a covenant name. In Daniel, the Aramaic form 'Illaya appears in the speeches of the Babylonian kings as they acknowledge YHWH's supremacy.

El Olam (אֵל עוֹלָם, God Everlasting): Genesis 21:33, where Abraham plants a tamarisk tree and calls on El Olam at Beer-sheba. The name appears in Isaiah 40:28: "The LORD is the everlasting God (Elohei olam), the Creator of the ends of the earth."

After the golden calf incident, Moses asks to see YHWH's glory. YHWH responds by hiding Moses in the cleft of the rock and passing before him, proclaiming his name:

"YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious (El rachum ve-channun), slow to anger (erekh apayim, literally 'long of nose', the burning anger was thought to flare from the nostrils), and abounding in steadfast love (chesed) and faithfulness (emet), keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation" (34:6–7).

This is the most quoted text within the Hebrew Bible itself. The "thirteen attributes of mercy" (in the rabbinic count) derived from this passage appear in Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nahum 1:3, and Micah 7:18. The character of YHWH's name is not abstract, it is historical: mercy, grace, patience, chesed, truth, forgiveness, justice. The name is not a metaphysical category but a covenant character revealed in action.

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9–11).

The passage applies Isaiah 45:23, a passage explicitly about YHWH, to Jesus: "By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.'" The "name that is above every name" is the divine name. When Jesus is declared Kyrios (κύριος, Lord), the Greek word used in the Septuagint to translate YHWH, the identification is not merely honorific, it is a claim about Jesus's divine identity.

In John's Gospel, Jesus uses the absolute ego eimi (ἐγώ εἰμι, "I am") seven times in his "I am" statements and once absolutely in John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I am." The crowd understands the claim and takes up stones. The "I am" of Jesus echoes the ehyeh of Exodus 3:14: the name is the person, and the person is YHWH.

The Sanctum is built around the knowledge of the Name, not the correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton but the covenant character that Exodus 34:6–7 proclaims. Merciful, gracious, patient, loyal, faithful, forgiving, just. The Spiritborn are people who have been called into the Name of Jesus, who pray in that name, who bear witness to the character of the one whose name they carry.