The Divine Name

In the ancient world, a name was not a label — it was a revelation of character. To know someone's name was to have a claim on their identity. When Moses stands before the burning bush and asks God for his name, he is asking the most fundamental theological question: who are you? God's answer — "I AM THAT I AM" — is simultaneously the most profound and the most mysterious self-disclosure in the history of religion. It is a name that reveals everything and conceals everything at once.

This name — rendered in Hebrew as the four consonants YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) — became the most sacred word in the vocabulary of Israel. It was spoken aloud only by the high priest, and only once a year, in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. The Jewish tradition of substituting "Adonai" (Lord) when reading Scripture reflects the reverence this name commanded. To misuse it was blasphemy; to invoke it was to invoke the presence of the living God.

Moses is tending sheep in the wilderness of Midian when he sees a bush that burns without being consumed. God speaks from the bush and commissions Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt. Moses, anticipating the people's question, asks: "What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" God's response is a statement so compact that theologians have spent three millennia unpacking it.

The Hebrew phrase 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh has been translated variously: "I AM THAT I AM," "I AM WHO I AM," "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." The root is the verb hayah — to be. The name is formed from the verb of existence itself, identifying God with being in a way that distinguishes Him from all created things.