Teaching Series 1 - About the Bible

Part 6: What's In A Name?

he books of the Bible cover at least three thousand years of human history, which is an impressive chunk of time by any standard. Much of what is revealed to us as God's plan for our salvation is in the form of names. God tells us who He is by revealing His names and gives us examples of human behavior by the names given to the people of the Bible.

When we read an English translation of the Bible, we read names like "God" and the "LORD". The introductions written in many study bibles explain that these limited forms in English cannot show the several ways that God reveals Himself. We are encouraged to dig deeper in our studies to learn these revelations. Concordances and commentaries can help us discover the names of God.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen 1:1). "God" in this case shows us "Elohim", a plural word in Hebrew that tells us that this is the God who possesses all the characteristics that can be assigned to any god. In other words, this is "All The Gods". That God has more than one characteristic or power should not surprise us. Melchizedek, the king (priest) of Salem, in Genesis 14, refers to the God of Abram as "El-Elyon", "God Most High."

In Genesis 15, Abram is promised a son. Abram addresses God by the name "YHWH", which means, " I AM THAT I AM, I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE". This is the God of all time and beyond. This name tells us that God is forever and therefore controls forever. This is the Name that God uses when He names Himself, as in Exodus 3 when at the burning bush Moses asks how he is to name God when he addresses the people of Israel for the first time. This is the Name that we most often see translated as LORD, because the Jews are unwilling and unable to pronounce the Name out of reverence, and so they change the pronunciation clues to make the word mean "Adonai", "Lord". There are ultra-orthodox Jews who will not even say "Adonai". They change it to "Adoshem", which means "the Name of the Lord". You may read or hear scholars pronounce these four Hebrew letters as "Yahweh", but the fact is no one knows the true pronunciation. By the time the Jews had been exiled to Babylon, the pronunciation had been lost.

In Genesis 16, the Egyptian slave Hagar calls God the "God who sees"; "Elroi". In Genesis 17, God tells us that He is "El-Shaddai", the god who is totally sufficient, the "provider god". We can see in these Hebrew words the root word "El", literally "I Am." We see this root word often throughout the Old Testament, both as a prefix and as a suffix: "Emmanuel", "God with us"(Isaiah 7:14).

Many of the names of people tell us about the human relationship to God. But a name alone does not assure a truthful relationship. Jacob's name is changed to Israel after "he wrestles with God". Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, was renamed "Jedidiah" by the prophet Nathan. Jedidiah means "beloved of God". Solomon is a variation of shalom, which in this case means completeness because now the Lord loved him (2 Sam.12: 24-25). The later kings of the Divided Monarchies of Judah and Israel all used some form of the name of God in their own names. Look for the names that begin or end in "J" or "Y" or "iah." The prophet Joel has a prefix and a suffix combined to tell us that the "LORD is God". We need to understand the depth of the revelations of God's character by looking up the names in the Bible.

The revelation of our Savior in the New Testament and His relationship to the LORD God shows His relationship to God by the meaning of the words used to address Him. Jesus Christ, or Y'Hoshua Ha Messiah (literally, "The God Who is Salvation is The Anointed One of God) tells us to address the LORD God as "Abba"(Father). We are commanded in Philippians 2:9-11 that the Name of Jesus is holy for us as well.