The Name of God

Don: We have discussed the significance of our names, and the changing of our names at the End of the Age. But there is one name that never changes; that is, the name of god. The first instance in scripture where god divulges his name was to Moses, at a time when Moses was tending sheep for his father-in-law following a failed attempt to free the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Exodus 3:1-15:

Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb [the place where god would eventually deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses], the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.

Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”

Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.

Does anything about the burning bush help us to understand the name of god? Note first of all that it was what first drew Moses’ attention. We know from the Hebrew translation that the bush was a bush of thorns. In Acts 7:30, Stephen confirms this:

“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.”

Jesus also referred to it as a “thorn bush” in the Book of Luke.

Second, note that the fire does not consume the bush. In Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 god is referred to as a “consuming fire.” Yet the bush before Moses, containing god “in the flame”, did not consume. And unlike all other fire, this one is evidently not dependent on a fuel.

In Genesis 3:17-19, god told Adam:

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

Thorn makes another appearance in scripture in the story of the tabernacle in the wilderness. In Exodus 8:25 God told the Israelites to build a “sanctuary for Me”—a  tabernacle—as well as the Ark of the Covenant, from the thorny but hard and durable acacia tree:

‘Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it. They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high.’

The Ark was to be overlaid with gold, which may also be significant.

Thorn makes its final appearance in the form of the crown that was put mockingly on Jesus by Roman soldiers as they took him to his crucifixion. Matthew 27:27-29:

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Why does god pick the symbol of the thorn—the symbol of the Fall of Man, of sinfulness—to surround the mind of god? The skull of the Redeemer was surrounded by the thorns of sin at Golgotha, which means “the place of the skull.” Why does he choose the thorn as the vehicle through which to express his name? What is the significance all this? What is the significance of the name “I Am” in relation to the burning bush of thorns?

Robin: Could it be related to scriptural references about fire that refines and purifies?

Charles: Oftentimes in scripture, it seems as though the name of god is revealed rather than assigned by Man. The name “I Am” suggests an existence unto itself. The fire within the thorn bush yet not of it and not affecting it also suggests it exists unto itself. It suggests something other-worldly, something beyond human ken.

Michael: When I first read the “I Am” passage I read it as a thunderous statement of might and majesty. On second thoughts, it struck me as a self-effacing statement by a god who did not want to reveal himself. It evaded Moses’ question about his name. Now, I am thinking that perhaps it is a simple statement of existence—past, present, and future.

Don: It’s interesting that god can seem to go from mighty to meek; that “The Great I Am” can stoop to defer to the needs of weak and feckless humans, as he did with Moses after the Burning Bush incident, when Moses argued with god about how best to go about saving Israel. Got grew angry with Moses but in the end capitulated to Moses’ weakness and placated him by getting Moses’ brother Aaron to go and help him as a spokesperson.

Kiran: In a way we are like a crown of thorns around god’s skull.

Charles: The Burning Bush was a demonstration that god’s power is something that is far beyond the power of human understanding; yet it is also a metaphor that he prevents his all-consuming power from consuming us. His power, his fire, could consume us in the blink of an eye, yet he continues to let us continue to sin, he continues to tolerate that we do things our way. Even when we are confronted, like Moses, with the obvious, we continue to act in accordance with our will, not with god’s. There is much depth to the story of the Burning Bush.

Don: What do the thorns represent?

Charles: They might represent everything from the trials and tribulations to sinners and sinfulness. I think of them as representing “badness”.

Alice: Isaiah 33:14 says:

Sinners in Zion are terrified;
Trembling has seized the godless.
“Who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with continual burning?”

Kiran: Psalms 18:8 makes a reference to consuming fire:

Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
And fire from His mouth devoured;
Coals were kindled by it.

Alice: The fact that the Burning Bush did not consume is a sign of hope, of god’s grace; that he will consume the evil in us but will not consume us ourselves.

Kiran: Perhaps we are “hard” like the acacia, but in the end will be covered by the righteousness of Jesus just as the Ark made of hard acacia was covered in gold. Jesus’ wearing of the painful thorny crown is a sign of his enduring love.

Robin: Two verses regarding John the Baptist are complementary:

Malachi 3:1-3: “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.

Matthew 3:11-12: “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Fire is used symbolically throughout the bible.

Kiran: We discussed last week how people are named after such things as their characteristics or their trade and so on, and therefore we can often glean something about a person based just on their name—their “label”. God was gently pointing out to Moses (and us) that he cannot be named on such a basis—he cannot be labeled—and we cannot hope to understand anything about him from a name. He was saying “Accept me as ‘I Am’ and let’s journey together to the Promised Land. That way, you will get to know something about me.”

Robin: It reminds me of when god said “Come let us reason together”. He sometimes delivers edicts, but he sometimes also encourages debate.

Kiran: He is saying that you have to journey with him in order to get to know him.

Michael: I would not mind seeing a thorn bush burn, because it’s not a very useful or attractive plant. But if it were, say, a beautiful jasmine shrub it would be a different matter!

Alice: One who simply exists continually doesn’t need to be fed with fuel like a fire. Such an one always is, was, and will be. He has no source, no fuel. He just Is.

Robin: God had to remove Adam and Eve from the Garden after the Fall because our mortal bodies would have been consumed by the fire of his presence.

Kiran: Why could he not have revealed himself to Moses as something else? As water, say; or as Michael suggested a more beautiful bush?

Michael: Fire naturally consumes, but I cannot believe that god would turn a flame-thrower on people.

Don: Perhaps that’s what the metaphor of a non-consuming fire in the Burning Bush means! I think it is indeed a metaphor for god’s graciousness. It is very good news for us who are filled with thorns that god’s graciousness will surround us and protect us from the fire. It starts the journey with Moses on a very promising note. The journey from Egypt to Canaan is a metaphor for the journey back to the Garden of Eden, and it begins with a display of god’s graciousness. A pillar of fire leads the children of Israel through the wilderness by night, and there is no record of its having been fueled—and precious little fuel to be had in a desert wilderness anyway.

Alice: It was also a message to Moses not to fear anything in the arduous journey that lay ahead of him; that he had miraculous power on his side. And indeed Moses did grow fearless.

Don: When god turned Moses’ rod into a snake, the snake did not harm him. When god gave him leprosy, he did not die. God was showing him that he could not be touched by fire, wild animals, or disease as long as he kept to the journey and his sight on the Promised Land.

Alice: Isaiah talked about walking in fire without being burned and being submerged in a river without drowning. We often take scripture at face value and don’t think deeply enough about what it means. In Arabic, “I Am” translates as “Yah wa” [ياه وا ?—DE] —like “Jehovah”. We say “I am” all the time, so we don’t really think about its meaning even when god says it’s his name.

David: Asking what “I Am” means seems to me to be crucial. To me, “I am” means “I exist” and therefore, to me, the message is simply that god exists, period. It is a clear, simple, and unambiguous message. What else can “I Am” possibly mean? Jesus’ “I am” statements are also clear and unambiguous, but the Burning Bush and other Old Testament stories are easy to interpret in contradictory ways. The Bush has been interpreted today as showing that god does not let his flame consume wicked old us—that he protects us with his grace—but prima facie it could also be interpreted that god is powerless to consume wicked old us.

Michael: Descartes also meant “I exist” in his dictum “I think, therefore I am.”

Don: We will discuss Jesus’ use of the “I am” theme next week, and we will also examine the Hebrew tetragrammaton “YHWH” [יהוה], commonly pronounced “Yahweh”.

* * *