Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karen Spray" <karen.spray AT lineone.net>]

While we are on this subject, can I ask an associated question.  A few
months back, when I was just getting interested in learning Hebrew, I read a
book called 'A Rabbi's Bible' by someone (a Rabbi)  whose name escapes me.
It was a library book, so I can't refer back.

He said something along the lines that the construction 'I am/will be that I
am/will be' is elsewhere in the Bible used evasively - when someone does not
want to reply to the question 'where have you been?' they reply 'I have been
where I have been.'  (Similar to that famous teenage reply to 'where are you
going?' - 'Out.'<g>)  The implication being that the Lord was, in answering
Moses' question, actually making the point that in a sense it was
unanswerable - that this wasn't a name in the ordinary sense.

Now, I thought the example he quoted was David (or possibly Saul) replying
to someone, but I can't track it down.  I might be wrong about that.  As I
hadn't started learning Hebrew then, the actual words didn't stick even if
he quoted them.  Does anyone know what the reference might have been by any
chance?  Or have any comments on the theory?

Thanks,

Karen Spray