Yahweh NofG 1

As we begin our study of the names of God, there was one name so revered by the Jewish people that they stopped saying it for fear of breaking the third commandment.  Instead they would write it but only by removing the vowels and thus making it imposable to use or misuse. Do we hold God in such reverence that we would be unwilling to write or speak his name? The goal is to reveal Gods character through the study of his names given in the Old Testament. Most of the different names for God in Old Testament reveal a certain characteristic about him but this first name shows us God’s complete Holy nature. 

The name of God that we will begin the study with is Yahweh. The name Yahweh is used over 6000 times throughout the Old Testament. The first instance of this name appearing is in Genesis 2:4,^{" 4} These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,"

          The closest English word for Yahweh is lord, thus most of the time in our Bible that is how it is translated from the Hebrew. Now we are not sure of the exact spelling or pronunciation for this name of God do to the fact the Jewish people held God’s name and thus his character in such high regard that they would not say it out loud instead substituting Adonai which translates to Lord. Our spelling of Yahweh is simply the best guess at how it should be spelled due to the fact that the Jewish scribes ceased to write out the name. Instead they substituted what is called the Tetagrammaton which basically means they removed all the vowels from the word and only wrote the consonants, the y h w h. Yahweh is a name that stresses the independence of God, for God needs nothing from us but he does desire that we have a relationship with him.

        Now Yahweh is the name for Gods complete character from the time when God was creating the heavens and the earth right up until today as well as the future God was the same then and will be the same tomorrow. Our Lord Yahweh has made everything from the smallest bugs to the galaxies of stars in the heavens. I have just been struck with how much power God has, he spoke the world into existence took dust of the earth and breathed life into it and created man, if for no other reason than he made everything we should be calling him Lord and worshiping him to the best of our abilities. God is all powerful and can be everywhere at once as the name Yahweh shows us, but at the same time even though our God is all powerful and everywhere on earth at once he is also right here with you.

          This all sounds good but what is an example in scripture turning to Exodus 3 starting at verse 2. ^"2 The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of ^[b]a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. ³ So Moses said, “^[c]I must turn aside now and see this ^[d]marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” ⁴ 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.” ⁵ 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.” ⁶ 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.

⁷ 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. ⁸ So I have come down to deliver them from the ^[e]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. ⁹ 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."

          This is a short segment of scripture but this shows us that throughout that entire story of Moses being called back into Egypt to bring Gods people out Moses refers to God as Yahweh once again translated in out Bible as Lord. Would we have the faith like Moses’ to listen to God and do what he is calling us to do. Now I don’t know about you but I have never heard God speak out loud to me like that but God still communicates w us, he does this through his word and through our prayer time.

         

         I always want application when I’m learning anything so how do we apply this information about God’s names to our life. Since each of the names reveals something about Gods charter then they can help us to know God and also we can address him by the correct title for the situation. In this instance Yahweh is translated Lord but it really is the name for the full character of God so we call on it anytime we talk to God. So will we listen when out Lord speaks to us through his word or another person, are we willing to have a soft heart and hear the small voice of God. Could this listening to God and doing what he calls us to cause big changes in our life …yes. Then the next question becomes if we hear God speaking how do we respond to our Lord to Yahweh, personally I have a good application story about this, in the past I have volunteered for 3 summers at a Bible camp for kids who had one or both parents in prison. Before the 3^rd summer of being out there I wrestled w going, I was in college and had not been able to work during the year and was looking forward to the summer so that I could get a job and have money but I felt God leading me to volunteer at camp for the 3^rd summer I was not listening very well I went back and forth about going, I went as far as filling out the application to volunteer and putting the stamp on the envelope and left it sitting on my desk for a month. I felt uneasy after filling out the application and not mailing it, after a couple days of it sitting on my desk without being mailed I began to feel something tugging on my heart but I ignored it thinking that it was just stress from school but it just kept getting worse, so for a week and a half I was miserable nothing felt right everything seemed to going wrong until finally one day I had reached the end of my rope and just fell on my knees and prayed God what do you want me to do, it was such a deep spiritual prayer I was crying and 45 min later after just pouring myself out to God I looked over on my desk and saw that application for camp and knew that is what God wanted. About 5 min later I had mailed it in. My big testimony about submitting to what God wanted from me is not nearly as dramatic as Mosses freeing an entire group of people from slavery but it is one of the times were I submitted to the will of my Lord and have been blessed ever since because of that decision. Which is a lot like Moses because in the beginning of his story he kept coming up w reasons to not do what God wanted also such as when he informed God that he was not a good speaker. God worked in Moses as well as my life and we accomplished some wonderful things. It was because of this summer at camp I meet my wonderful wife and we came here to the Philippines. This was the greatest example in my life of when God spoke to me in such clear terms about what I was supposed to do and I responded yes Lord, and it has continued to impact my life. Our God is patient and he will wait for us to respond. If we have the correct attitude and he can use us to accomplish wonderful things.

        We need to keep God in his proper place as our Lord so that we can stay under his blessings and to show that we are his people. We need to have such reverence for God that we do not simply say his names without some serious thought about why we are doing and we need to keep a Biblical fear of Yahweh.

         To summarize Yahweh is the name of God that reveals his whole character and is translated as Lord. Moses called God Yahweh when he was called to return to Egypt to free the Jewish people and by doing that fulfilled God’s prophesy. The Jewish people have such a reverence for Yahweh that they do not speak it or write it. Us today can still call our God Yahweh to show his entire character as well as show that we are submitting to everything that God wants from us.