pastor steve: Yahweh, Psalm 9:10

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Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon, May 24 2009

Last week, we considered the common name of God, Elohim. Today, our focus will be on God’s proper, his personal name Yahweh. One has said that Elohim is God’s creational name, and Yahweh is God’s relational name.”[1] With Elohim, we understand that he is the uncaused being who was before the creation and who created the universe out of nothing. With Elohim, we understand God is greater, bigger than the universe he created out of nothing. With Elohim, we understand properly how insignificantly smaller than the smallest we are to God, Elohim, our Creator.

While Elohim occurs over two thousand times in the Old Testament, Yahweh occurs most frequently as the name of God at over 6800 times. With Yahweh, we can understand he exists, he is holy, and as relational God, he is pained by our sins, and he redeems us.

1. About the name Yahweh

Called the Tetragrammaton, tetra meaing “four” and grammatos “letter.” You may wonder in reading your Bible perhaps in various translations, you have not come across Yahweh, God’s name. You are right. You will not come across Yahweh in your reading of the Bible. But, what you do come across is, “the LORD,” all in capital letters. NIV and other English translations have decided to translate Yahweh with the capitalized “LORD.” The LORD is not a proper, personal name of Yahweh and thereby obscures the meaning of Yahweh. But, it’s been used that way because Jewish people have been very cautious about following the rules and commands. God told the Israelites Exodus 20:7, “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD [Yahweh] your God [Elohim], for the LORD [Yahweh] will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

So being cautious, in reading the scripture they have used another Hebrew word like Adonai, which means “my Lord” for Yahweh. So, instead of reading, “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh,” the Jewish people would read it, “You shall not misuse the name of Adonai.” But, being even more abundantly cautious, many Jews would not even use Adonai for Yahweh, instead they would use other terms like HaShem which means, “The Name.”[2]

Some may accuse the Jews for being legalistic and stickler when it comes to enforcing rules and commands. But, Christians often take the name of God so causally without thinking and misuse it to express their feelings about something or worse as expletives. We don’t want to become legalistic, but we need to take God seriously when he says he doesn’t want you and me to misuse his name.

You may have heard Jehovah instead of Yahweh. This is an older attempt to pronounce Yahweh and has been debunked inaccurate. The most well educated consensus is that the personal name God, Elohim revealed to us is pronounced Yahweh.

Isaiah 42:8 reads, “I am the LORD [Yahweh]; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” And, Psalm 9:10 reads, “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD [Yahweh], have never forsaken those who seek you.” My prayer is that you and I learn to cherish and know Yahweh who never forsakes us as we seek him.

2. Yahweh exits.

Nathan Stone says that Yahweh is “One who will always be: personal, continuous, absolute existence.”[3] The best clue to understanding the meaning of God’s personal name comes from Exodus.

Exodus 3:13-15, “Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God [Elohim] of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is your name? Then what shall I tell them?” God [Elohim] said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” This is what you are to say to the Israelites; ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

I like what NIV Study Bible has to say about how God’s self disclosure as “I AM WHO I AM” relates to his name Yahweh. The Hebrew verb, to be, hayah (hyh) is used in the first person form here twice. When God refers to himself, he is, “I AM.” But, when we refer to him, he wants us to call him not as “I AM” but as “He is,” which is what Yahweh means “He is” or “He will be.” Grammatically speaking Yahweh is the third person form of the Hebrew verb translated as “I AM” or also as “I WILL BE” in Exodus 3:12 and 14. The difference we see here is that when God speaks of himself he says, “I AM.” When we speak of him, we say, “He is” that is Yahweh.[4]

What’s the implication that Yahweh means, “He is” or “He will be” that Yahweh exists?

Yahweh first appeared in Genesis 2:4 along with Elohim God, and Yahweh was first called upon in Genesis 4:26; “At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD [Yahweh].” But, it was not until later time in Exodus that God clearly revealed himself as Yahweh, Exodus 6:2-3 says, “… I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.” Walter Kaiser said,

Yahweh is the God who would personally, dynamically, and faithfully be present to fulfill the covenant he had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The patriarchs had only the promises, not the things promised.[5]

Yahweh who exists was present with the generations of patriarchs, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yahweh gave them the promises, but they didn’t yet experience the fulfillment of God’s promises. It was in Exodus that Yahweh who was present with the Moses generation allowed them to experience the fulfillment to his promises to the generations of the patriarchs.

The implication is that Yahweh who exits is God who was, is and will be with and for us at all times and places faithfully. Yahweh who exits means God doesn’t act arbitrarily, capriciously or randomly but can be counted on to be who he is. [6] For it says in Psalm 102:27, “… you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

Yahweh who exists was present with the generations of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua… And, today, Yahweh who exists is with us. We now encounter Yahweh in Jesus Christ who spoke of himself as “I am.” The Hebrew name for Jesus is Yehoshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‎), Joshua as known in English and it means Yahweh saves. When an angel showed up to Joseph he said in Matthew 1:21, “… you are to call him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Jesus said about himself in John 8:58, “before Abraham was born, I am!” And, the Jews responded in verse 59, “At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.” They tried to stone Jesus because he was using God’s self revealed name for himself. In John, you find many “I am” statements from Jesus.

I am the bread of life. (John 6:35)
I am the light of the world. John 8:12; 9:5
I am the door. John 10:7
I am the good shepherd. John 10:11, 14
I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6
I am the resurrection and the life. John 11:25
I am the true vine. John 15:1

Yahweh who exits was with the Israelites in the history, and today Yahweh is still with us.

3. Yahweh is pained/grieved by our sins.

Yahweh who exits is holy. Psalm 11:7, “For the LORD [Yahweh] is righteous, he loves justices; upright men will see his face.” Leviticus 19:2, “Be holy because I, the LORD [Yahweh] your God [Elohim], am holy.” Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD [Yahweh] Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Habakkuk 1:13, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.”

What we see in the Bible is that Yahweh who is holy is pained/grieved by our sins.

Consider the account of the fall. Yahweh in Genesis 2:16, “And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Later in the account of Satan tempting Eve and Adam in silence abdicating his leadership, neither Satan nor Eve mentions God by his personal name, Yahweh, but only as God Elohim.[7] Satan asked, “Did God [Elohim] really say…” And, Eve answered, “God [Elohim] did say…” And, Satan lied, “You will not surely die… For God [Elohim] knows that when you eat of it your eyes will opened, and you will be like God [Elohim].” By refusing to recognize the name of God, Yahweh who put them under moral obligation, they were ignoring and rejecting God’s holy character.

Consider the flood… Genesis 6:5-7, “The LORD [Yahweh] saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth has become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD [Yahweh] was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain…”

Consider the time of when Jephthah was the judge over Isreal. Judges 10:6 says that Israelites did evil in the eyes of Yahweh. And, verse 7, Yahweh became angry with them and taking his protective hands from them thereby allowing them to be enslaved into the hands of Philistines and the Ammonites. But, when they turned to God and asked him to rescue them in Judges 10:16, it says, “he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.”

Consider the time after the Exodus. Yahweh, “the great God [Elohim], the great King above all gods,” (Psalm 95:3) said in Psalm 95:10-11, “For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest.”

Consider Isaiah 63:9-10, “In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.”

Consider Jesus on the up to Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37 He too was grieved by the stubborn refusal by the Israelites to welcome him as their Messiah, their Savior, “O Jerusalem… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

4. Yahweh redeems us from our sins into righteousness.

Andrew Jukes wrote, “His righteousness is not fully declared until He makes His creatures righteous with His own righteousness.”[8] Jeremiah 23:6 speaks to this desire of Yahweh, “This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD [Yahweh] Our Righteousness.” In Yahweh, what we see God who is moved in compassion as it says in Hosea 11:8, “My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.”

Consider these passages where we see Yahweh moved by compassion to rescue his people.

Exodus 3:7-8, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and hone- the home of the Canaanites…. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

Exodus 6:6, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you… I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgments. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God… I will bring you to the land I swore… to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.”

Zechariah 13:9 speaks about God putting through the Israelites a refining process, “This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD [Yahweh] is our God.”

Psalm 81:10-11, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with hone from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Exodus 33:18, “Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” Exodus 34:5- 7, “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD [Yahweh]. And, he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, [Yahweh, Yahweh] the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

5. Yahweh allows us to draw to him by making sacrifice for us.

In Genesis 3:8-9, we see the portrait of Yahweh seeking out Adam and Eve as they were hiding from him in shame, “… they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” Yahweh already knew the choice Adam and Eve made. But, we see him still seeking after them.

Later in Genesis 3:21 we see Yahweh at work, “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” This is the first account of sacrifice being made and here it was made by Yahweh Elohim himself. To make garments of skin required sacrifice of animals. Adam and Eve even to draw near to Yahweh required sacrifice.

Consider Noah’s account. Yahweh said to Noah to take with him seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, while to take only two of every kind of unclean animal, also of seven of every kind of bird, male and female (Genesis 7:1-3). And, when the flood was over, we see Noah building an altar to the LORD and taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds sacrificing burnt offering on it (Genesis 8:21), which the LORD smelled the please aroma and made a promise to never to destroy all living creatures, never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth (Genesis 9:11). Noah took more of the clean animals to survive in the ark and also to make sacrifices to God post flooding.

Some likens to Noah’s entrance into the ark as entrance into the tabernacle. And, Leviticus 1:3 informs us that at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, that is another Tabernacle, the Israelites were to present a burnt offering. And, when the tabernacle was completed (Exodus 39:43), and was readied and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38), people could draw near only by offering animal that was unblemished.[9]

And, going back to Genesis 3:15, the LORD said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Yahweh not only promised to deal with our sins, he also promised to victory over sins, the power of the devil.

All this was accomplished by Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53:5-6 says, “he [Jesus Christ] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD [Yahweh] has laid on him [Jesus Christ] the iniquity of us all.

6. Conclusion

Yahweh who exits, who is holy, who is grieved and pained by our sins, who must punish our sins, but laid all our iniquity upon Jesus, to be pierced and crushed for our sins, so that in peace we can draw near to Yahweh… May he allow us to know him deeper this week!

[1] Keith Ekberg, The Names of God in the Old Testament, P. 5.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#theophoric_names

[3] http://ldolphin.org/nathanstone/

[7] http://ldolphin.org/nathanstone/

[8] Andrew Jukes, The Names of God in Holy Scripture. London: Longmans Gree, and Co, 1889. p. 53.