Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Doug,
> Thats good to hear ,I always like a decent answer,  my question , to all 
> believers of both the new and old testaments comes from  these two following 
> verses...
>
> Ps 54:1   "save me o god by your name"
> Joel 2:32 "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved" ,
>
> These two from the Old talk about being saved by the "name" of God, and of 
> course we have trouble defining what that name is , but the with the New T, 
> we have  statement that tells us that only one name can be used for 
> salvation. Surely it must be the same name that Acts 4:12 refers to ..
>
> Acts 4:12  "Nor is there salvation in any other for there is only one name 
> given under heaven by which men may be  saved"
>
> Do not the exclusive nature of there being only one name by which men may be 
> saved  demand that the name being suggested in Acts 4:12,  Jesus/Yeheshua , 
> is the same name in both salvation verses in the Old Testament.
>   

HH: The name of Jesus had not be revealed in the Old Testament era in 
connection with the person we know as Jesus, so it was assuredly not the 
name referred to in Psalm 54. In Hebrew a person's name represented his 
character as well as being an identifying tag. But the God of Israel had 
a name, Yahweh. But when the psalmist talks this way, he refers to all 
that God's name represents. God identified himself as Yahweh, the God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Most English Bibles translate Yahweh as LORD, 
but it was a name. He was the God who was so evident in the lives of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One thing God's name seems to have 
represented was his presence to aid his people. This is based in part on 
the meaning of the word Yahweh, which is something like "He is," or "He 
will be." and in part in the context in which God revealed it to Moses. 
God also spoke of himself as named "I am" or "I will be," apparently 
implying in part that he would be there for his people:

Ex 3:11 And Moses said to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and take the 
children of Israel out of Egypt? 12 And he said, Truly I will be with 
you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you 
have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to 
God on this mountain.
13  And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say 
to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, 
What is his name? what am I to say to them?
14 And God said to him, I AM WHAT I AM: and he said, Say to the children 
of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. 15 And God went on to say to Moses, 
Say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the 
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my 
name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.

HH: The English could be obscuring a bit what is happening in the text. 
The form of the verb is the same in several instances, and it is a form 
that can also mean "I will be." It occurs in verse 12: "Truly, I will be 
('ehyeh) with you. Then it occurs in verse 14: "I AM ('ehyeh) WHAT I AM 
('ehyeh)." "Say to the children of Israel, I AM ('ehyeh) has sent me to 
you." So one could translate "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." But the Hebrew 
could convey both the present or the future, and the translator felt 
that the present has some implications that the future does not (God 
does not only exist in the future).

Yours,
Harold