Name of Power

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.

Grammar was always one of my most difficult subjects in school.  It did not matter that English was my native tongue, all those terms: predicate nominatives, stative and transitive verbs, subjunctive, present participle, past perfect progressive, dangling modifiers - it might as well have been a foreign language to me.  And the verbs of being: there were so many!  Am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being, shall be, will have been, and on and on and on.  After yet another homework assignment ended in tears, my mother finally told me, "Look, forget the terms.  You know this already.  You have been raised to speak proper English.  Just write down what sounds right and you will get it correct."

She was right!  From then on, I had no more difficulties with answering the problems.  Although to this day I still cannot explain the difference between transitive, intransitive and ditransitive verbs, I can use them correctly in a sentence!  (And I ended up giving the same advice to my children: "Just be glad you are not learning English as a second language.  I have taught you correct usage.  Just write down what sounds right and you will be correct.")

Grammar is simply the rules any language has regarding how that language is to be correctly used.  When the languages were changed at the tower of Babel, they retained certain similarities of sentence construction and word categories.  Each new language had words for Deity, their family members, tools, foods, cattle, region, etc.  All languages still have nouns and verbs to show action and state of being.   Certain types of words are necessary in order to communicate.  Over the millennia, the sounds and eventually the spelling of words have changed, but the basic communication structure has remained.

"Names" fall under the category of nouns.  In fact, the word "noun" means "name."  Everything has a name, whether it is a person, a thing or an emotion.  Without names, it is not possible to communicate.  Sometimes other words can function as a name.  For example, Mother, Father, Aunt, Grandfather, etc. are all titles that serve as names. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with using titles to apply to Yahuwah.  He used titles Himself to designate what He is: He is Elohim, the Almighty.  Titles have limitations, however.  Titles may explain that Yahuwah is the Almighty Creator, but a title does not reveal Who He is.  Knowledge of the meaning of His personal name is necessary for that.  Thus, it is truly unfortunate that the personal name of the Creator was not transliterated in the Bible.  The true significance of the name is found in its meaning because the definition of the name reveals Who Yahuwah is. 

The definition of Yahuwah is difficult to translate into English.  The word has much more meaning than can be summed up in a single English word.  The phrase generally used to translate the meaning of Yahuwah is Ayah Asher Ayah.  The most common translation of this descriptive phrase is I AM THAT I AM although other sources also translate it as:

• I WILL BE WHAT I WILL TO BE
• I AM WHAT I AM
• I AM WHO I AM

The name of the Almighty Creator, unlike all other names, is not a noun but a verb of being.  No parents name their baby boy Is, or their little girl Was!  For Yahuwah to choose a verb of being for His personal name communicates an important message: He is the only One Who Is, Who Was, and Who Is to come.  He is self-existent, meaning He did not get life from some other source.  He is Himself the source of all life, including His own.  He is ever-present, all-knowing and all-powerful.  The only way to express the qualities of infinity is to use a verb of being and call Himself "AM."  He could just as easily have called Himself Is, or Was, or Shall Be.  All verbs of being are correct and true when applied to the source of all life.  "AM" shows the continual nearness of His immediate presence.

To human ears, this sounds awkward.  "Am" is a word that is commonly used in every day speech.  However, I AM THAT I AM/I WILL BE WHAT I WILL TO BE is as close as human language can come to express the all-encompassing, infinite nature of the Almighty Creator, Yahuwah.  Invoking the name He has given Himself in prayer directs that prayer to the all-powerful Creator: the Elohim above all false elohim.

The significance and the vast power of the divine name is revealed in the story of Moses' commission to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.  The story, as told in Exodus 3, states that the Creator identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush as "the Elohim of your father, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob."  (See Exodus 3:6.) 

Moses had spent many years in the court of Egypt.  He understood the significance which the Egyptians and, through Egyptian influence, the Israelites placed upon the name of a god.  It is in this context that Moses asked an intriguing question.  He said, "When I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The Elohim of your fathers has sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, 'What is his name?'  what shall I say unto them?"  (See Exodus 3:13.)

What a question!  Most scholars are of the opinion that Moses wrote the book of Genesis during the 40 years he spent in Midian.  Both "Elohim" and "Yahuwah" are used in Genesis.  And yet, here Moses is asking, "What is your name?"

As translated into English by the King James Version of the Bible, the answer given Moses was:

"I AM THAT I AM.  Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

"And . . . [He] said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, . . . [Yahuwah] hath sent me unto you: this is My name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."  Exodus 3:15, KJV

Before repeating the name that Moses already knew, Yahuwah explained His name by using the same verb of being in a different form - a form that revealed the power within His name!  The phrase translated as I AM THAT I AM comes from the Hebrew word: Hâyâh.  It means to be.  When Moses asked, "Who shall I say sent me?" the answer was BE!  BE!

Hâyâh is a very powerful word.  "The use of Hâyâh in such passages declares the actual release of power, so that the accomplishment is assured."  (#410, The New Strong's Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words.)

This is the answer the Almighty gave when a weak mortal, Moses, asked "What is Your name?"  The answer, BE! contained the power that brought the universe into existence!  Scripture clearly states that the very words of Yahuwah, breathed by His Holy Breath (Spirit) contain the power to do what He commands.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith . . . [Yahuwah].  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it [My word] shall not return unto Me void, but it [My word] shall accomplish that which I please, and it [My word] shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.  (Isaiah 55:8-11, KJV)

Words express thoughts.  This is the very essence of communication.  Words also contain power, as they exert influence upon another's emotions, beliefs or behaviors.  However, only the omnipotent Creator has words that contain power within themselves!

If I am in a dark room, I can say, "Light, BE!" all I want and the room will stay dark.  In order to get light, I have to turn on the light switch.  Not so with the Creator!  All He has to do is to say the word and what was not, now is.

The divine name, Yahuwah, is the assurance of infinite power.  Thus Yahuwah encouraged Moses to undertake what, to all rights, should have been a suicide mission.  When the actual word is inserted into the passage, when Moses asked "What's Your name?" Yahuwah replied:

"BE!  BE!  Thus you shall say unto the children of Israel, BE! has sent me unto you."  And Elohim further said to Moses, "Thus you shall say unto the children of Israel, Yahuwah, the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me unto you: this is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.  (See Exodus 3:14, 15.)

The promise of power contained within the divine name "became reality through Moses, to whom . . . [Elohim] explained that He was not only the '. . . [Elohim] who exists' but the '. . . [Elohim] who effects His will."  (#3068, Yahuwah, The New Strong's Expanded Dictionary.")

The promise of power in the divine name is still there for all who, through faith in the merits of the blood of the Saviour, will only claim it.  Yahuwah is the Elohim Who Was and Who Is and Who Is to come.  He assures everyone, "I AM Yahuwah, I change not!"  (See Malachi 3:6.)  The Creator, Himself the source of all life, has given Himself a name that is an assurance that He will be everything His people need.

Yahuwah, Thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
even from everlasting to everlasting,
Thou art Elohim.
(See Psalm 90:1, 2.)