Liberation Thematic Study #5 Exodus 6:1-12

Historical-Cultural Context:

Existence, Naming and the Importance of Yahweh

As has been already discussed the passage emphasises Yahweh and His actions. The repetition of Yahweh and His declaration that the purpose of the liberation is to know he is Yahweh  (6:7) drive us to discover more about the effect this name and declaration would have had on the ancient audience.

Translated in our modern Bibles as LORD, Yahweh loses some of its significance. Yahweh signals the importance by explicitly using this name in 3:14-15 and, in our passage, in 6:3:

“I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

This, as many scholars believe, is not a suggestion that God never used this name prior to Exodus 3 (which would then indicate that later additions were made, such as in Genesis 13:4) but rather that He had mainly been known as God Almighty (Bible Knowledge Commentary, 116). The re-emphasis of the name Yahweh, and the statement in 6:3 serves to, as Rabbi Rashi explains, announce that, “I did not make Myself known, I did not allow My real character to be recognized.” (Bible Reader’s Companion, 57)

Yet what exactly was this ‘character’ that was being revealed? One commentary describes it as revealing that Yahweh was, “he was revealing himself as Yahweh, the eternal, self-existing, self-consistent God^.” (Old Testament Survey Series) Yet this perhaps needs a little more exploration than listing dictionary definitions.

For Moses and the ancient audience, the name Yahweh would have had significant meaning. In the ancient Near East a deity existed, or took on an individual identity by, “being given a name, and being given function or jurisdiction in some area.” (Walton, 91-92) The ancient Egyptian text, Ritual of Amon, sums this up the start of creation as “...when no god had come into being and no name had been invented for anything.” (88) The Mesopotamian text Enuma Elish describes their ontology and theogony thus:

“When skies above were not named...nor earth below pronounced by name...when yet no gods were manifest, nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed...then gods were born...their names pronounced.” (Walton, 90, italics mine)

The naming of a deity gave it, in the eyes of the ancient world, existence and purpose. Yahweh, though clearly He had revealed Himself prior to the Exodus account and had not been created in the sense of the having an origin, was perhaps renewing His revelation to His people. By sharing this special name, and revealing His function as liberator, Yahweh was demonstrating His existence to the Israelites. Their long years of bondage in a land that worshipped other deities, had led to discouragement and a lack of faith that Yahweh could achieve anything-except perhaps make their oppression worse. Yahweh’s speech declared His existence and His direct involvement as the Israelites’ personal and powerful Deity.

It was not just the process of naming that was important to the ancient audience, but the name Yahweh itself had great significance. Walton makes an interesting case for defining Yahweh as, “a God who enters a relationship.” (93) In order to come to this conclusion, Walton believes that the usual definition of scholars of ‘to be’ leads to Yahweh being one who caused things to be, or one who ‘creates. Walton takes this a step further and likens this to the Akkadian verb, ‘banu’ that describes, “not so much a concept of birth as the initiating of a relationship.” This, Walton argues, would lay the basis for the covenantal relationship of Yahweh and the Israelites as well as signifying election rather than simply creation. In some ways, as Walton goes on to explain, this would be separating the Israelites out (another concept of creation), given a function and brought into existence as His people (93).

It may be worthwhile, before considering the idea of the covenant further, to take a short moment to consider the effect of this on the theme of liberation.

As has already been stated, the liberation in Exodus, was focused on revealing God’s power and exchanging ownership of the Israelites from the Egyptians to Yahweh. The significance of Yahweh’s naming and name itself reinforces this idea. Liberation served the purpose of revelation, and this revelation lead to a relationship with Yahweh Himself. This covenantal relationship, and its place in Exodus 6, will be examined further in the following blog post.