JEHOVAH
The Covenant Name of God
"I will put enmity between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel...And behold, I Myself am bringing flood waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish My covenant with you." So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark...Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease." Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My Covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. And I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." Now the LORD said to Abram, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are--northward, southward, eastward and westward--for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer. You have given me no offspring; indeed, one born in my house is my heir!” And behold, the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be." And Abram believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. Then He said to him, “I AM the Lord, Who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.” And Abram said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I shall inherit it?” So He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, and three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. The He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.” When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come form you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you, and your descendants after you. Also, I give you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possessions. And I will be their God. As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout all their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her." And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” And God said, “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him." Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” The Lord appeared to Isaac the same night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for My servant Abraham’s sake.” And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth. You shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the North and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you.” And Joseph said to his brethren, “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Excerpts from the book of Genesis)
And for the next 430 years, that tiny band of 70+ souls that joined Joseph in Egypt steadily grew, until at the time the book of Exodus opens, we are told they “filled the land”! Just as God promised Abraham in Genesis 15, they became slaves in this foreign land of Egypt, and were oppressed for 400 years, (the 430 years was the total amount of time spent in Egypt--the first 30 years being the time before Joseph died); a period of time in which they forgot God, forgot His Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Misery and suffering and hardship have a way of doing that to us if we are not careful!
I quoted these Scriptures to you at the very beginning to show the importance of this Name, Jehovah, known as the Covenant Name of God. We usually turn to Exodus 3 to begin any teaching on this name, but God reveals His Name hundreds of years prior to this incident in the life of Moses: “Jehovah” appears in Genesis 1-2 in the creation account: the distinction is usually made that “Elohim” is used in the general creation account, and “Jehovah” or “Jehovah-Elohim”, is used in the specific creation account of Adam and Eve. Then, in Genesis 3, when the serpent comes to tempt Eve, and in their conversation together, only the name “Elohim” is used, but when God appears to them after the sin occurs, we find the combination of “Jehovah-Elohim”, the LORD GOD.
The Name “Jehovah” occurs approximately 7000 times throughout the Old Testament. This number is questionable for this reason: the name “JEHOVAH” was considered the most holy, most sacred, of all of His Names, so much so that when the scribes came to that Name, they would not even write out the full Name: instead, they would use only 4 letters: YHWH, (known as a tetragrammaton, or 4 lettered Name); or they would use an altogether different Name that also means Lord: Adonai. (Tradition has it that when the scribes came to this Name, they would get up and take a bath, put on clean clothes, and then get a pen that had never been used before just to copy “Jehovah”. Many orthodox Jews still believe today that there is no one who has ever been able to pronounce the Name “Jehovah” correctly, and that this will be one sure sign of the true Messiah because He will know the true pronunciation of this Name!) Therefore, it is very difficult to know exactly how many times “Jehovah” is actually used, or how many times it was substituted with “Adonai”.
Of the approximately 7000 times this Name occurs in Scripture, 700 of those occurrences are in the Psalms. In most translations today, it is translated as “LORD”, all caps. The American Standard Version actually uses “Jehovah”. Usually, when you see “Lord”, it is the Hebrew word “Adonai”.
It is also agreed that “Jehovah” is probably not the most accurate translation of this Name: Yahweh is probably closer to the real pronunciation. In many ancient rabbinical writings you won’t even find the Name-you will find expressions like “The Name”, “The Great and terrible Name”, “The Separate Name”, “The Unutterable Name”, “The Ineffable Name”, “The Holy Name”, “The Incommunicate Name”, etc.
The Name “Jehovah” is derived from a Hebrew verb, “Havah”, meaning “to be” or “being”. It is very close to the Hebrew word “Chavah”, meaning LIFE. “Havah” is almost the same Hebrew word as the personal pronoun, “HE”...how many times throughout Scripture do we find the expression:
“I AM HE”!
Not only is the actual pronunciation of this Name unknown, the actual meaning of this Name eludes us. I don’t believe it is because God doesn’t want to tell us the meaning: I believe it is because we will spend the rest of our lives finding out the beauty of this Name! But let’s turn to Exodus 3 and see what God has to say to Moses about Who He is.
Exodus 3:1-15
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land,a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people 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 thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."
“I AM WHO I AM”! When Moses asked the question, “Whom shall I say sent me?”, this was the answer he was given! Now what kind of answer is that? Was God deliberately being secretive or mysterious? No. He knew that Moses was not asking Him a silly question. There were hundreds of gods, “elohim”, throughout Egypt, and Moses was anticipating being asked to describe this God that he claimed to represent. Not to describe what he looked like, but WHO HE IS, HIS ESSENCE, HIS BEING, HIS CHARACTER. The Name God gives Moses speaks of self-existence, of unchangeableness of character.
“He always was what He is, He is what He was, He will always be what He was and is,
and with Him there is no variableness.”
(continued next week!)
