In this series we’re talking about the ancient Jewish prayer called the Shema, found in Deut 6. This has been prayed by Jewish believers for centuries every morning / evening. It demonstrates the character of God, and shows us how to respond to him.
Last week: talked about “Hear” or “Listen” - the Hebrew word Shema. The very next phrase talks about God, who he is and what he is like. The heart of this prayer is: “Love the Lord your God…” But to love him, to declare allegiance to him, we need to know who this God is.
“The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” Those eight words in English (four in Hebrew) contain a wealth of truth. The word “Lord” there is “Yahweh”. It’s related to the Hebrew word “to be”. It means that God is eternal and self-existent. He has always been God and always will be. This is revealed in Exod 3, where God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. He told Moses that his job was to bring Israel out of Egypt, where they were slaves. Moses was thinking about how Israel would respond when he showed up with that message.
God identifies himself a “I AM WHO I AM” or simply “I AM”. That name means “the one who is”. This is the name God uses to relate to his people. By the way, older Bible translations refer to God as “Jehovah.” The name Yahweh would never have been spoken by Jewish people, because it was considered too holy. Whenever the name occurred in the Old Testament, Jews would substitute the word “adonai”, which means “Lord”. So English Bible translators took the consonants from Yahweh and combined them with the vowels from adonai, to come up with “Jehovah”.
The name communicates that God is ETERNAL. There was never a time when he did not exist. He is simply “I AM” - eternally in the present tense. To make it even more clear, there was never a time when he did not exist AS GOD. He has always been everything it means to be God, from eternity past. The New Testament reveals the same concept.
The name Yahweh also communicates that God is SELF-EXISTENT. If God is simply “I AM”, then he’s not dependent on any other being or force for his existence. We are not self-existent. We would have NO existence if God had not created. We require God to continually sustain us.
God’s timeless nature makes us reflect on the limited span of human life. We’re dry grass: here today, gone tomorrow. God is like the mountains: seemingly there forever.
That’s just the first word in this phrase: “Yahweh”. Let’s look at two more words.
In Deuteronomy, Israel is about to enter Promised Land. The people of that land - and the land of...
