What's in a name?
“I am that I am”—God’s response when Moses asks for his name is famous for both its simplicity and its mystery (Exod 3:14 LEB). What exactly does it mean? In Hebrew, God says ehyeh asher ehyeh (“I am that I am”). The verb form for “I am” is ehyeh. If you’ve studied a language, you know that verbs—action words—have grammatical person and number. With most languages, “number” refers to singular or plural; “person” refers to the subject of the verb. When I taught biblical languages, I would explain it this way: I am number one (first person). You are second fiddle (second person). Everyone else (he, she, or they) is a third party (third person). In this sentence, the name of God, ehyeh, is a first-person, singular form of the verb “to be” (hayah). It’s a statement of self-existence—and, therefore, a denial of being created by any higher power or force. Yet, the consonants used in ehyeh are not exactly the same as those found in the name of God in thousands of other places in the...