Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT home.com>]

That 'ehyeh is a future aspect in Exodus 3 is made clear from the contextual
fact that Moses has not yet begun the task to which he is being commissioned
and for which the divine presence is being promised.  I do not argue simply
that 'ehyeh is a future FORM, but the equivalent of the English future is
the only contextual translation that makes sense in the passage simply
because what is being promised [from the perspective of the narrative] has
not yet occurred.  Whether we want to get embroiled in a tense vs aspect
argument or not, I cannot see how an English present tense I AM functions in
the story itself.  Why it was first perceived as an I AM is unclear to me,
as is the question of whether such a rendition is grinding a particular
theological axe or not.  But I AM does not work in the Hebrew text of
Exodus, while "I WILL BE [with you]" certainly does.

On a related issue, Greg Stafford asks:  "Maybe you can explain why such a
unique, otherwise unknown use of 'aSHER would be used instead of the more
common Hebrew verbless clause?"

This is a fair question, and I think there is a simple answer.  The phrase
'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh is an idem per idem construction implying essentially
that 'hyeh equals 'ehyeh, and this carries the sense that 'ehyeh can not be
defined by any outside reference but may be defined only in terms of itself.
Clearly 'ehyeh is an allomorph of yhwh in the context of Exodus 3, as the
parallel sentences indicate:

    'ehyeh shlahani in 3:14
    yhwh ... shlahani 3:15

In both of these sentences, regardless of what FORM is used, the FUNCTION of
the two allomorphs is nominal.
I have compiled much of the biblical evidence in a 1978 article, "The Divine
Name 'Ehyeh as a Symbol of Divine Presence in Israelite Traditions" [Hebrew
Annual Review, 101-118].

Shalom,
Charles David Isbell