In verse 6, the God who reveals himself to Moses is described as the same God who revealed himself to the Patriarchs. One of the gaps in the story of Moses relates to his religious experience before his overwhelming confrontation with God which we have just been considering. During his earlier life in Egypt he could not have avoided knowledge of Egyptian religion with its many gods. He must also have heard of the God of his Israelite ancestors, although we have no evidence as to how the Israelites in Egypt worshipped. After the description which God gives of himself as the God of Moses' ancestors, God gives his reason for revealing himself to Moses. God is about to rescue his people from Egypt and take them to a fertile land, and the man whom God has chosen to lead the rescue is Moses. When Moses protests that he is incapable of this terrifying task- 'I am nobody' -the divine response does not deny what Moses has realized; the true rescuer of Israel is God, not Moses. God will act through Moses and will do what seems humanly impossible, and a sign that this will happen is promised to Moses. When the rescue is accomplished, Moses will lead his people back to the mountain of God. Moses accepts his task and asks that he may know the personal name of God. The important significance of this request is that if God shares his personal name with Moses and his people, this is a sign of a personal relationship with them.

In many traditional societies, including those of Africa, great significance is attached to personal names because they were understood to express essential character. We are familiar with the widespread custom in Africa of giving a new name at an important stage of life, such as the time of initiation into adulthood, to express the new character which the person was believed to have acquired. There are many customs in African society about the correct use of personal names which are not considered just as useful 'labels' but as signifying the status and character of a person.

The divine reply to Moses' question was enigmatic and profound: 'I am who I am. This is what you must say to them: "The one who is called I AM has sent me to you" (verse 14). "Tell the Israelites that I, the Loan, the God oftheir ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sent you to them. This is my name for ever; this is what all future 'generations are to call me" (verse 15).'

The Hebrew original of this is difficult to translate into another language. In the Old Testament period Hebrew was written without vowels, using only consonants. The first sentence of verse 14 could equally well be translated as 'I will be what I will be'. In English Bibles, the divine name given in verse 15 and written in Hebrew as the equivalent of the four consonants YHWH, is usually printed in capital letters and presented as 'the LORD'. It occurs 6700 times in the Old Testament. Verse 14 is the only passage in the Old Testament which offers anything like an explanation of the divine name and from it we may reach the following conclusions:

YHWH may be the third person singular of the verb to be, and is clearly to be connected with the ftrst person singular, I AM, of verse 14. When we try to make sense of the connection of the divine name with the verb to be, it seems to refer to the mystery of being, in an active, living sense. The first sentence of verse 14 upholds the mystery of God's being and God's activity, but in the next sentence we find that this mysterious God who cannot be explained in human terms is actively involved in human experience. As we move into verse 15, we find that this God has already established a personal relationship with his people through their ancestors, the Patriarchs. This relationship will be further developed as his people learn more of their God through the events that are about to take place, and in which Moses is commissioned to take a leading part.

Note:

It is now believed that the pronunciation of YHWH was 'Yahweh', sometimes spelt 'Jahweh'. After the Babylonian Exile, the divine name ceased to be spoken in ordinary language out of great reverence for its holy character, and a substitute Hebrew word, 'Adonai' (translated 'Lord' in English), became used instead.