the Name
A question on an Old Testament test early in seminary was simply "God's behind" and the student's task was to make something of it.
Honestly, I don't recall how I did with that question, probably not well! IDK; but for me at this end of life, the value of any such question, and all such questions, is the impression that's still with me decades later: I remember. Cleverly worded test questions have assisted my recall all these years. In this case, God showed Himself physically to Moses.
Every interpersonal relationship is special and different:
God and Abraham have been characterized as "old drinking buddies."
God loved David as a father loves a son.
The relationship between God and Moses was much more tentative, and it was strained at Times, not warm, friendly, loving, but more like business partners, even more like God the Boss and Moses the Agent. And there was no unquestioning mutual trust at first; in the case of "God's Behind," God went the extra mile to convince Moses that he, God, was trustworthy, God even showing God's physical self to Moses. The clipping above is art I found online, Michelangelo and Sistine Chapel, you can take it or leave it.
Below is our Old Testament reading for this morning, as our Lectionary carries us through Exodus, the story of God bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt under the leadership of Moses, out of Egypt and bound for the Promised Land.
Poor God, adopting this whiny Volk, and especially Poor Moses the Reluctant, giving up his peaceful life as a shepherd to answer God's call to lead them on a long journey through a wilderness of vipers and scorpions. Unfortunately for Moses, it was his destiny from the moment of his birth, and when his mama and sister put him in the basket for Pharaoh's daughter to find.
Like many of these good old Sunday school Bible stories, this is another of my favorites. And one of its features that I enjoy is God again telling Moses ha-Shem, the Name, that God's Name is יְהוָֹה which can be transliterated into something like y'VAH or y'hoVAH depending on where the originally nonexistent little vowel marks are placed, but which faithfully is read as Adonai or haShem or The Lord because of the tradition that God's name is not to be spoken aloud. I love this Bible passage, and, more than the part that someone rather irreverently called "the mooning of Moses," especially the little part about God's Name! If it's left to just its original form of all consonants, yhvh, there's really no telling how God originally meant for Moses to pronounce it.
Happy Sunday.
RSF&PTL
T88&c
Exodus 33:12-23
33:12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight. 13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people.”
14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
17 The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have asked, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you בְשֵׁ֛ם the name, יְהוָ֖ה ‘The Lord,’ and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” 21 And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23 then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
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YHVH or yhvh or YHWH or JHWH (which some reduce to Jehovah) : the proper name of the God of Israel
Original Word: יְהוָֹה but without the tiny marks over and under
Part of Speech: Proper Name
Transliteration: yhvh
Phonetic Spelling: (yeh-ho-vah’ or yeh-VAH or y'VAH or y'hoVAH, but surely not "Yahweh"!)
Definition: the proper name of the God of Israel