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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Biblical Hebrew
  • Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:58:20 -0500

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




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