Exodus 3:14 and the "Name" of God - Fifty Years of Thinking About God Wrong: He's Just Saying He is Here WITH US, FOR US.

Fifty years of hearing and thinking about God's name wrong. If you are a Christian you have heard it repeatedly for years, decades: "God is the great I AM THAT I AM. That means that He is uncreated, the uncaused Cause, the Self-existent. He simply is, because He is - infinite, eternal, unchanging." And etc.

Beep. Not that He isn't, but that isn't what He said in Exodus 3:14. It has bugged me for nearly fifty years knowing that 'ehyeh, the Hebrew word God uses of Himself in Exodus 3:14, doesn't mean "I AM," it means "I WILL BE."

"I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE"?

"I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE"?

I did get long ago that hayah (Strong's 1961), the word ehyeh is from, involves TRANSITION. It's become. "And the earth was without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2 KJV)--the 'was' there is hayah, meaning that the earth BECAME without form and void.

Insight from the Stone Tanach: each of God's names represents the way in which God reveals Himself through His behavior toward the world. YHWH is used when He is being merciful. God is going to be merciful in bringing the Jews out of bondage, so He says, "I Shall Be (with them in this sorrow) As I Shall Be (with them in other sorrows)." GOD WASN'T TELLING MOSES THAT HE IS SELF-EXISTENT, HE WAS SAYING THAT HE IS MERCIFUL, AND THAT HE WAS WITH THE DESCENDENTS OF ISRAEL TO DELIVER THEM. God's very Name, He says, is "I shall mercifully be with you through this time of sorrow." And the form of 'ehyeh we are to remember Him by is its corollary from our perspective: "YHWH/He is." THIS is faith.

God manifests as Christ, the Messiah, as MULTITUDES--countless trillions of Himself, experiencing this world and all worlds. And to each of those worlds (and to each on those worlds) He is not just "The Great I AM," He is "I'm Here For You." He has got a way.