This is My Name Forever – Part One

 

Exodus 3:14-15

Was Moses still afraid or was he just curious?  Either way Moses asks a very logical question in Exodus 3:13. He asks God to tell him what he should say when the leaders of Israel ask for the name of the God who has sent him. At the time, Israel lived within the polytheistic culture of Egypt in which each god had a name and a specific domain in which to operate. I suspect this made it easy to know who to pray towards for whatever specific problem one might be having. Afterall, you didn’t want to inadvertently pray to the god of the Sun if what you really needed was rain.

So along with asking for direction on what he should say (and do), Moses was asking God to give him something that he could say to the people of Israel to help them distinguish Him form all the false gods of the land of Egypt. Most likely there were still some who taught and believed in the God of their fathers, but all of Israel had long been exposed to Egypt’s culture and religion. As a result, Moses’ success rested on Israel learning about this God who spoke from a burning bush and discovering what domain fell under His control. And so, Moses asks for a name and for an identity that he could give to the people so that they might know who it was that they should believe in.

For the record, I am not a Bible scholar and so I turned to a few different Bible commentaries to see what they had to say about God’s answer: “I Am That I Am.” (Exodus 3:14 KJV), which the New King James translates to “I Am Who I Am.” Several of the commentaries point to the fact that we really do not have the words to accurately translate what is said, with The Pulpit Commentary stating that, “I will be that I will be,” as a more literal translation.

I’ll write about what this statement likely means in my next post. Today, I just want to point out that God answered Moses’ prayer by revealing His glory: by revealing who He really is. The answer started with this somewhat cryptic answer but as we will see when we explore its meaning, the answer continued as God demonstrated His power through both the plagues and by delivering His people out of the oppression they were suffering at the hands of the Egyptians.

Moses needed to know God before he could fulfill his mission and the same is true for us today. I believe that if we earnestly pray, asking God to reveal Himself, He will certainly answer. It may take time to understand the answer, but in the end, I believe that we will be blown away by what we learn. Ask God to reveal Himself. He likely will need to do some work on your heart to prepare you for the answer, but once He does, you will have the opportunity to learn the truth about the one and only living God.