What's In A Name?

What kind of thought do you give to your name? Does your name say anything about you? My wife and I gave a lot of thought to the names of our children. We didn't just pick names that sounded good together, or names that you couldn't make a silly nickname from, but we thought about the names we gave to each of our 4 children.

For example, our firstborn, Nathaniel, was given his name because Nathaniel means in Hebrew "Gift from God". We had been trying for nearly 3 years to get pregnant and it seemed impossible and then God gave us a gift. Our Son! Our 1st Daughter, Abigail, was name after Abigail the Carmelitess, King David's Wife. Scripture describes her as very beautiful and describes the great risk she took to save the life of her family. We have a son named Noah, Scripture says of Noah that he was the only righteous man on earth at the time. We have a 2nd daughter whose name is Rebekah, she is named for the wife of Isaac, Scripture describes here as very beautiful and describes her servants heart in Genesis 24.

I say all that to say there is value to our names. In the New Testament, the name of the Son of God was not left to chance. Mary was told to call Him Jesus because He would save people from their sins. I could go on.

This all leads me to our verse for today Psalm 9:10 says "And those who know your Name will put their trust in you; for you, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you."

Those who Know His name will trust in Him. Let me ask you this, do you know God's name? When people think of the names of God almost always we think of: Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, and a few others. But you know none of those are really the name OF God, they are merely names FOR God.

God gives us his name in Exodus 3:13-15 "Then Moses said to God, 'Indeed 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 shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the Children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. Moreover God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the Children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations."

We have a slight problem in our understanding here. You see God gives us His name here, but it is not translated into English. It is simply translated LORD. What God reveals to us here is His personal name.

You see the Hebrews felt this name far to holy to mention, so when God's name was written in Scripture they would pronounce the word Adonai, which means "My Lord" for fear that they would take God's name in vain somehow.

We have carried on this tradition. I believe we do ourselves a great disservice. You see God revealed His name to us for a purpose, because it reveals a great deal about Him. Let me retype this text again, this time using the Name God Gives Himself beginning in verse 14:

"And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM" And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. Moreover God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, YAHWEH, God of your Fathers.....This is My name forever..."

His name is Yahweh. I wish I could take time to reveal all that this means. Let me just say this. This is important because it is how God chose to reveal Himself. He has a name. He is not just a God, He is not Just God, He is Yahweh (I AM WHO I AM). This name is used more than 6800 times in the Old Testament, more than 3 times as often as the generic word of God Elohim.

This says very plainly to us that God wants to be known...not as a generic, run of the mill, deity, but as a specific person with a name that carries His unique character and mission.

So here is my challenge, when you find the word LORD in all capital letters in the Old Testament, use God's name and see if that doesn't change how you read that text.

There is so much value to a name. Let's not forget that God gave us His.


By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad