Yahweh - Here I Am - Burning Bush - Exodus 3

God responds with a long explication of the divine name, “I AM WHO I AM” (3:14). Perhaps a better translation of the name from the Hebrew (ehyeh asher ehyeh) is “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” This divine name is built on the Hebrew verb “to be” and is related to the divine name used frequently throughout the Old Testament, “Yahweh,” or YHWH (the transliterated Hebrew consonants without the vowels). In the Jewish tradition, this special name of God is considered so holy that it is not to be pronounced in prayer or worship (hence, the absence of vowels). The NRSV translation represents this special divine name with the circumlocution “the LORD.” This is the convention used by the ancient Greek and the Septuagint translation of the original Hebrew. As with the burning bush, this special divine name serves both to reveal and to hide. The mysterious name invites us, as readers, to read on and discern how a series of God’s self-declarations of God’s own name (“I am the LORD/YHWH…”) at key points in the Exodus story explicate and fill out the character and identity of Israel’s God.