(Exodus 3:11-18)
11. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
12. And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
13. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
15. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
16. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:
17. And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
18. And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’
journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God. (Exodus 3:11-18)
This is a key passage in Scripture because it is basic to any understanding of God. Let us remember Otto Scott’s reaction during a great storm at sea during World War II: “God is no buttercup.” Men, however, want to define God in terms of their understanding, and they regularly pervert Scripture to do it. Thus, in 1 John 4:8, we read, “God is love.” The word translated as love is agape, which indeed is love, but love in the sense of grace. John is writing about the need for grace, forgiveness, and love in the Christian community, and he reminds believers that God’s being towards them is one of agape, love, mercy, and grace, and they must manifest this one to another. We cannot generalize this into a definition of God.
In Exodus 34:14, we read the commandment, “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” The Hebrew word ganna means jealous or angry; we can no more use this statement, that God’s name is Jealous, then that He is love, to define God. The same is true of statements that tell us that God is judgment, mercy, or anything else. These are all attributes of God, not definitions. Definitions are limitations; they give us the boundaries or fences around a concept or thing to help us understand it. But God is infinite and beyond all definition: He is the source of all definition. We define all things in terms of His law, His standard. Definitions are possible because there is a standard, a point of reference, God, who is the Creator and the definer of all things. When we deny the ultimacy of God and His infallible word, we then substitute ourselves and our word, and thus reduce meaning to anarchy. Every man becomes his own god and definer (Gen. 3:5).
This was Moses’ problem. God confronts Moses and commissions him: first, he is to go to Pharaoh (v. 10) and to order Pharaoh to set Israel free. Second, God declares that He will be with Moses in all of this (v. 12). Third, the token or proof that God is the source of Moses’
commission is this: “When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (v. 12). This is clearly a strange proof; God promises to be with Moses, and the proof will appear when Moses returns to Horeb or Sinai with all the Hebrew peoples. Moses must move ahead by faith.
Before this revelation, God, the God of Moses’ father Amram, was a strange God to Moses.
Moses had left Pharaoh’s palace by faith, and God had not appeared to support him. Now, many
years later, when Moses has no advantage, God appears to say, “Certainly I will be with thee” (v.
12). All this Moses could not understand. He answers by saying that “the children of Israel” will not understand either. When he tells them, “the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?”
Names in antiquity and well into the modern era have, in many cultures, been definitions. Thus, a man’s name could change as he changed. We do not know Abraham’s original name. When we meet him, he has been called, along with Terah his father, to leave Ur (Gen. 10:27-11:4), and he had been named Abram; it is hardly likely that his father would have named him “the father of many.” Later, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham (Gen. 17:5). It took faith for Abraham to carry such a name, for the extent of his fatherhood was very limited.
Thus, in asking for God’s Name, Moses asks God to define Himself. He does not understand God: His ways are strange and bewildering to Moses, and therefore certainly to the leaders of Israel. He asks God to explain and define Himself.
This God refuses to do. He declares Himself simply to be I AM THAT I AM; I am He who Is, the self-existent One, the eternal Being. Since God is the source of all definition, He cannot be defined: it is He alone who can truly define, because “All things were made by Him; and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). God says to Moses, simply tell the people, “I AM hath sent me unto you” (v. 14).
Then God adds, carry this message to the elders of Israel:
The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; and this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. (v. 15)
Here God says, first, that, while He cannot be defined, He can be known in His self-revelation.
He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who reveals Himself and who enters into a covenant with His people. For us, this means that we have the whole of Scripture as God’s
self-revelation, and we can know Him truly, though never exhaustively, in His word. God is the LORD, or Jehovah, or Yahweh, the self-existent one.
Second, God declares, this is My Name, my definition, to all generations: I can never be reduced to any attribute; I am God, the self-existent Being. I am the Definer. To know God as the I AM THAT I AM means to know Him as the Creator, the Definer, and the absolute Determiner and Lord of all history. After the Red Sea crossing, Israel joyfully sang the Song of Moses, which began:
1. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
2. The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3. The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. (Ex. 15:1-3)
The statement, “The LORD (or, Jehovah) is a man of war,” is again no more a definition than is the statement “God is love,” or, that His name “is Jealous:” it cites an attribute, i.e., that God wages war against covenant-breaking man. “The LORD (or, Jehovah) is his name,” i.e., He is the self-existent Creator who is the Determiner of all history.
Then, third, “this is my memorial (or, remembrance) to all generations.” In Hosea 12:5 we read,
“even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial,” or remembrance, or name.31
“‘Memorial’ is a synonym of ‘Name.’” God says that His self-revelation will suffice: He is He Who Is, or, “I will be what I will be.”32 Thus, God, in using a Name which states His being as beyond definition, at the same time makes clear that He is a person, the Person in terms of whom we are all persons.
Moses was a rejected man. Now he is told that the elders of Israel “shall hearken to thy voice”
(v. 18). This hearkening would be a faulty and sinning one, but, all the same, despite rebellions, Moses would be their leader under God.
To reconstitute Israel as a covenanted community, it was necessary for Israel to separate itself from Egypt and, by means of long-neglected sacrifices, renew the covenant with God. C.D.
Ginsburg made clear the reason why a three-day journey was necessary:
The necessity for withdrawing to so great a distance arose from that remarkable peculiarity in the Egyptian religion, the worship of animals. Cows, or at any rate, white cows, were sacred throughout the whole of Egypt, and to kill them was regarded as a crime of the deepest dye. Sheep were sacred to the inhabitants of one nome or canton, goats to those of another (Herod. ii. 42). Unless the Hebrews retired to a place where there were no Egyptians, they would be unable to perform their sacred rites without danger of disturbance, and even bloodshed.33
Turning again to the “Name” of God, J. C. Connell called attention to the fact that “I AM THAT I AM” has an indefinite text and can mean equally, “I was,” “I am being,” and “I will be.” (This is echoed in Revelation 1:8, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”) Connell said further:
“I AM THAT I AM” signifies that He is self-existent, the only real being and the source of all reality; that He is self-sufficient; that He is eternal and unchangeable in His promises; that He is what He will be, all choice being according to His own will and pleasure. In addition, the name preserves much of His nature hidden from curious and presumptuous enquiry. We cannot by searching find Him out. See Proverbs 30:4. Compare His announcement of Himself in Rev. 1:4, 8 etc.34
Some years ago, a prominent film actress declared, after her acclaimed “conversion,” “God is a living doll.” Such a statement Moses could never have made: he was known of God, and thus knew God.