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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Ex3:14
  • Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:35:38 +0300

What does everyone think of this translation:

"God said to Moses, 'Be it as it will.' He said, 'Thus you will say to
children of Israel, "I will be [As I live], he sent me to you."

Instead of telling the name, God offered Moses to take an oath before the
people.



Several reasons for not reading ehye asher ehye in Ex3:14 as the name:

- Moses asked for the name in order to tell it to Israelites. The
text nowhere implies that he told them the name. Possibly, this is because he
was not told the name.

- Ex3:14 employs hih root, rather than hwh word base used for the
name elsewhere.

- If Ex3:14 contains the name, it could only be "I will be that I
will be," a theologically odd notion that God is not currently present. The
translation "I am that I am" hinges on the wrong theory that Hebrew lacks
tenses. Even in that theory, reading grammatical future tense as present
tense is extremely unusual.

- Reading of the last phrase of Ex3:14 as "I am sent me to you"
ignores the comma after the phrase's first word.

- If the name is a verb, and exists both in "I am" and "He is" forms,
then the last phrase of Ex3:14 should have been "He is sent me to you," since
Moses speaks of God in the 3rd person.



Vadim Cherny




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