¹³ But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ ¹⁴God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” ’ ¹⁵God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”:

This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.

Exodus 3: 13-15 (NRSV)

Thinking about names

Up to this point in the Old Testament God has been given various names, which in Hebrew begin with El-. From here, God is usually referred to by the sacred Tetragrammaton YHVH (we translate this as Jehovah, or Jahweh. (JHVH is used in one instance in Genesis). ‘I am who I am’ or ‘I will be what I will be’.

Consider: what information does a name convey?

What sort of information might you deduce from these examples? (You might be misled though . . .)

• Peter Baker; Mark Taylor; Alice Cartwright;
• Marie Curie; Magnus Magnusson; Dmitri Mendeleev;
• David Evans; Catherine MacPherson; Mary O’Reilly;
• Catherine Bradford; David York; Colin Chester;
• William Rees-Mogg; Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook; Jane DeMontfort.