The Names of God in the Old Testament 7 min read Lesson 11 of 12

Ehyeh asher ehyeh at the bush, what the verb means, and why the Gospel of John is built on it

I AM: The Name That Is a Sentence

Moses asked for a name and was given a verb. I AM WHO I AM, or I will be what I will be: the Hebrew allows both, and the difference is the whole question of what God was telling him. The name Yahweh, the second lesson’s name, is the same verb in the third person. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus says the first person of it, and the people holding stones knew what they had heard.

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Lesson 11 of 12 · The name in the first person

At the bush, before he gives Moses the name Yahweh, God gives him a sentence: ehyeh asher ehyeh, three words made of one verb, to be. English Bibles print I AM WHO I AM; the Hebrew tense also allows I will be what I will be, and the same verb form was said to Moses two verses earlier as a promise, I will be with you. The name is not a definition of God’s essence, though it has been read that way since the Greek translators rendered it "the one who is." It is God declining to be pinned to a description, and promising to be present instead. Yahweh, the name of the second lesson, is this verb in the third person: he is, he will be. I AM is the name said by the one who bears it. In John’s Gospel Jesus says it of himself, without a predicate, and the crowd picked up stones, because they understood the grammar.

At the bush

Moses has been told to go to Pharaoh and has asked what to say when Israel asks who sent him.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” — Exodus 3:14 · WEB

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God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And he said, you shall tell the children of Israel this: I AM has sent me to you. The answer is odd as an answer, and it is meant to be. Moses has asked for a name in the way one asks for a credential, and what he gets is a sentence whose subject is its own verb. The next verse gives the name Yahweh and says it is the name forever; this verse says what the name is made of.

הָיָה hâyâh H1961

a primitive root (compare הָוָא); to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary); beacon, [idiom] altogether, be(-come), accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, [phrase] follow, happen, [idiom] have, last, pertain, quit (one-) self, require, [idiom] use.

To be, to become, to come to pass — the ordinary Hebrew verb for existing and happening, used thousands of times, and here in a form that is not ordinary at all. Ehyeh is the first person: I am, or I will be; Hebrew does not distinguish the two as English does. The same word is said to Moses in Exodus 3:12, I will be with you, which is why many readers hear the name as a promise of presence rather than a statement about being. The name Yahweh is the third-person form of the same verb: he is, or he causes to be. The two names are one verb in two persons. One is what God says of himself; the other is what Israel says of him.

Two readings

The sentence has been read in two ways, and both are honest.

The first is the Greek Old Testament’s: ego eimi ho on, I am the one who is, God as pure being, the one whose existence depends on nothing. Christian theology built on it for centuries, and it is not wrong; the verb does mean to be. The second is the one the Hebrew tense and the surrounding verses press toward: I will be what I will be, God as the one who will show what he is by what he does, and who will not be defined in advance. On this reading the name is a refusal and a promise together: you will not have me in a formula, and you will have me with you. The lessons of this series have leaned toward the second, because the Old Testament’s way of naming God is by what he does. But the reader should know that the first reading is old, serious and held by people who knew the Hebrew.

I am he

Isaiah picks the first person up and uses it as a formula.

““See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.” Deuteronomy 32:39 · WEB
See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me: the first person as a claim of sole deity, in the song of Moses.
““You are my witnesses,” says Yahweh, “With my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me.” Isaiah 43:10 · WEB
You are my witnesses, says Yahweh, that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: the sentence Israel is to bear witness to.
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.” Isaiah 43:25 · WEB
I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake: the same formula, attached to forgiveness.
““Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel my called: I am he. I am the first. I am also the last.” Isaiah 48:12 · WEB
I am he. I am the first. I am also the last: the first person and the claim to be before and after everything.

The Greek Old Testament rendered Isaiah’s ani hu, I am he, as ego eimi, I am, the same two words the bush had produced. Anyone reading Isaiah in Greek in the first century met the phrase over and over, and it meant Yahweh speaking.

Before Abraham was

That is the background against which the Gospel of John has to be read.

Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” — John 8:58 · WEB

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Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM. Not I was; the grammar is broken on purpose. Jesus has been asked whether he is greater than Abraham, and he answers with the first person of the bush, with no predicate, and the next verse says they took up stones to throw at him. In the garden, when he says the same two words to the soldiers, they go backward and fall to the ground (John 18:5-6). John’s Gospel has seven I AM sayings with predicates, bread, light, door, shepherd, and a handful without any, and the ones without any are the ones that get him stoned. The claim is the claim of Exodus 3:14, made by a man in Jerusalem, and this series marks it as what Christian readers hold and Jewish readers do not: that the one who said I AM at the bush said it again in the temple court.

What the name asks

It asks the reader to stop wanting a definition. Moses wanted a name he could carry to Pharaoh and to Israel, and what he was given was a sentence that would not sit still: I am, I will be, I will be what I will be, I will be with you. Every name in this series has been a name for what God did somewhere; this one is the name for the fact that he will keep doing it and will not be known in advance. The name asks for trust in a presence rather than a grasp of a nature, and it is the name God gave when he was asked directly.