The Names of God – אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, I AM

Greetings Dear Reader,

As my dear friend Richard pointed out, one of the names that God gives himself is I AM THAT I AM.  Moses attempts to side step the requirement of God that he return to Egypt to assist in the deliverance of the people of Israel.

Exodus 3:13-14  Then Moses replied to God, "Suppose I go to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' What should I tell them?"  God answered Moses, "I Am Who I Am. This is what you must say to the people of Israel: 'I Am has sent me to you.'"  

Many consider that YHWH, or the Tetragrammaton derives from this statement.  In ancient Hebrew “ehyeh” is the first person singular of the verb “to be.”  In the Septuagint it is translated as “I am HE WHO IS (ho on): and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, HE WHO IS (ho on) hath sent me unto you.”

In this simple rendering we find both the eternal and immutable natures of God.  When learning Latin as a boy I remember memorizing the conjugation of the verb “to be.”  The Latin for “I am” is “sum”.  It is also interesting that in Latin this is the verb for complete. 

What all this means for me is that the God I follow is singular.  He is has always been and will always be.  Again he does not need introduction or verification.  He simple is.  He asks me to accept this on faith and I do.  I believe there is an aspect of mysticism to this that I cannot yet comprehend.

The thing that carries me in this thought is the fact that because God is eternal, immutable, and Omni-present there is not a moment in my future where he is not already standing waiting for me to arrive and find him in that moment.  Every moment, like Moses and the burning bush, is a singular moment of holy ground.  If I am to set apart a life to God then I must set it apart in moments.  Each step must be as if I am walking on holy ground and approaching he who IS.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."