Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today we are going to be getting into kind of an information heavy episode. We're going to be talking about the names of God.
First, I would like to thank Gordon for suggesting this topic. It's taken me a little bit to get to it, but thank you, Gordon, for the idea. I think this is a really useful topic, and one that we kind of need to delve into if we're going to be really faithful students of the Bible.
Depending upon what culture we are in, a name is something different to each of us. Sometimes a name has deep meaning, and sometimes a name is [00:01:00] just what we're called. It's just what we were named when we were born, and that's what we're gonna use for the rest of our lives. Now, I've talked about the biblical idea of what a name is before, but just to briefly go over that again, names in the ancient world, the names that we see in the Bible, it's not just a label of address or a means of identification. But rather, a name is something that can encompass the essential nature of our character. It can kind of encompass who we are as individuals.
A lot of times, an ancient person would not have named their child for years. There are several reasons that people give for this, either because the life expectancy of people back then was drastically different, and many of our children would not have survived into even toddlerhood. But I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that a name meant [00:02:00] something. It describes you in a way that was unique to who you were. And when you're an infant, nobody knows who you are yet because you haven't done anything. You haven't expressed your personality. You haven't engaged in the world in a meaningful way to put your unique imprint upon that space.
Now, what's strange to us a little bit is how we can come to the Bible and have a hard time understanding what is a name of God and what is not a name of God in the Bible. Many of us who are familiar with studying the Bible, at least having a little bit of knowledge of the ancient languages, understand that God in the Old Testament and the New Testament as well, He has different names.
There are different words that are used to label God. Now, some of these aren't strictly names, so I want to acknowledge that. But at the same [00:03:00] time, I'm going to just simplify the conversation here, And I'm going to use the term name to encompass all of the designations of God. So whether it is strictly like a name, like we would think of a name being, or whether it's a title, or whether it's a descriptor that is unique to God, or that is describing something about Him, not all of those are in the category of name per se, but I'm just going to use the term name to kind of encompass all of these ideas because it's just, it's easier to talk that way, and it's just going to clarify and simplify our discussion here. But I do want to acknowledge that not everything I'm talking about is strictly a name. Sometimes it might be something other than a personal designation.
It might actually surprise us and seem strange how difficult it is to decide what's [00:04:00] a name, or a title, or a description, and what's not in the Bible? Because when I'm studying this topic and I'm looking at various resources and I'm looking at different lists that people have for, here's God's names, they're not all the same.
That means that not everyone agrees on what a name is and what it's not. Of course, people are going to agree on the vast majority of them. But some of these lists surprised me at either what they included, or what they didn't include. And we'll talk a little bit about that.
But part of the difficulty in this is for two main reasons, I think. The first reason is that there are actually a lot of designations for God in the Bible. Like, so many that there's no way I can cover them all in one episode. The second reason is, I think that in an ancient language, [00:05:00] you can't always tell what's a name, what's a title or a form of address or a designation versus something that is just a descriptor, right? Just describing who God is in some way. Part of that is just that we aren't in that context and we don't use the language natively, right? We're not fluent speakers of the language. We don't know the nuances of every little thing that the way people use language.
Now, the reason we want to talk about the names of God is because the names of God are part of how he has revealed himself. I want to read a really good quote. I came across from the international standard Bible encyclopedia. It says, quote, God himself is known where his name is made known. The initiative of revelation thus lies clearly with God. [00:06:00] The gift of knowledge of his name is an act of grace. It is appropriate, therefore, that the places where he makes his name known are places for worshiping response to his grace. Those who know God's grace through knowing his name are thereby led into a relationship of trust and confidence in him. End quote..
So we see this a lot in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, where we have place names that are named after an encounter with God. And we see places in the Old Testament that discuss how God has put his name in places where he is to be worshiped. This goes back to the idea of the biblical concept of name. Name being something more than just a word that you use to refer to something. A name is something that actually stands in for a person as far as who they are as [00:07:00] an individual and what their character is like. And so when people would encounter God in a personal way, they would see his character and that is described through his name.
Another reason it's important to understand and see how people described God is because through time we do experience God differently. And I want to point a little bit of that out as we go today. But first, a little bit of a road map for our discussion, because this is going to get into the weeds a little bit, and I want to give you a bit of a framework to start with.
I will introduce you to a few of the lists I have as far as how the names of God are categorized. And that's just helpful in our studies, because when we come across a name of God, we can kind of understand it a little bit better if we see that it fits within a category. Alright, so after that, I will get into the most common [00:08:00] designations for God in the Old Testament. And I'm pretty much sticking with the Old Testament because by the time of the New Testament, the Greek terms are a little bit more simplified. There's fewer of them. And I think that just understanding the names of God in the Old Testament is going to set us up really well to move into the New Testament at any time we want.
After we discuss the most common names for God, we will be talking about less common names. I want to talk about the names that are more descriptive terms, and the names that we don't see as often, because many of these words are only used a few places. This will not be exhaustive by any means, but I do want to talk about quite a few of them, and there are some that are really strange, like the fear of Isaac, for instance.
And while we're talking about the major designations of God in the Old Testament, I also want to touch on the Holy [00:09:00] Spirit in the Old Testament. He is harder to see as a person in the Old Testament. That doesn't mean he's impossible to see, but it does mean that you're not necessarily going to see the Holy Spirit as a person in the Old Testament strictly based on Old Testament revelation. But like I said, I think he is there, he is designated, so we'll to talk a little bit about that, and then after that, we will talk about descriptive names of God and less common names of God. There's a lot of these, and I don't want to get too deep into the conversation about each one of those. But, there are several that we want to be talking about and noticing that they play a very important part in the storyline of the Bible.
And some of them are just a little bit strange and unexpected. Like the fear of Isaac, for instance. What's up with that? So, we'll talk about those, and then after that, we will talk about [00:10:00] the name of Yahweh. We'll talk about the pronunciation a little bit, we'll talk about what's the deal with the pronunciation, we'll talk about why I still use the word Yahweh, and we'll ask the question why does Exodus 6 3 seem to say that they didn't know the name Yahweh even though we see it all over in the book of Genesis. And then we'll end the episode with the question of why Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 use different names for God, which that's a really cool conversation. So that's our roadmap for the episode today, and let's just get into it.
So the names of God are hard to designate a little bit because like I said, there's a lot of them and there are many types of names and again, you will see lists of names that are different from resource to resource.[00:11:00]
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia categorizes the names of God in five different categories. First, there is the general category. This includes names like El, Elohim, and Eloah. Then there are the El compounds. These are the compound names that include the name El. So we have here names like El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Olam, El Roi, and El Bethel. Then we have the Covenantal name in its own category. This is the name Yahweh. Separate from those categories is the term Adon or Adonai, which means Lord. And then after that we have all of the descriptive names for God. Names like Rock or Holy One or King.
Generally speaking, that's a pretty good way to [00:12:00] categorize the names of God. The only real problem with it is that some names kind of cross categories, and then what do you do with that?
Arthur Fruchtenbaum, in his commentary on Genesis, says that there are 13 names of God in Genesis. I would kind of quibble with that a little bit, but this is a pretty good list. His names are Elohim, Yahweh, so right off the bat I would quibble because the name we see in Genesis 2 isn't just Yahweh, it's Yahweh Elohim. But moving on, we have Elohim, Yahweh, El Elyon, ElRoi, El Shaddai, El Olam, Adonai Yahweh Yerei. This one is associated with the location. We have the God of Abraham. We have the God of Abraham and Isaac. We have the fear of Isaac. [00:13:00] We have El Elohe, Israel. Which means God, the God of Israel. We have El Bethel, and then we have the Mighty One of Jacob. And each of these names that we see in Genesis do tell us information that we didn't know before about God. And again, we'll get into a little bit of that here in a little bit.
The Handbook of Genesis, which is a resource for translators of the Bible, gives some different categories for the names of God in Genesis. It says that the general categories for the names are Yahweh, Elohim, El, Shaddai, and Adonai. And then after that you have compound names, Yahweh Elohim, El Shaddai, and Adonai Yahweh. Then you have place names or descriptors, names like El Bethel, El [00:14:00] Elyon, and El Olam. Then you have relational expressions. God of my father, God of Nahor, and we'll talk about that later, the fear of Isaac, the mighty one of Jacob, the rock of Israel, the shield of Abraham. And then you have names that indicate activity or occupation. These are El Roi and Roeh, or shepherd.
Okay, so already you can see that in different resources, we have different categories and even some different names that don't show up in all of the lists. Once you get out of the Book of Genesis and you get out of the Pentateuch, then you really open up some categories for names.
But let's talk about the name Elohim and the related name El. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time discussing this here in this episode because I have talked about it [00:15:00] before in previous episodes. But this episode couldn't be complete without a discussion on what the term Elohim means. So if you're new to this and you do not have a really firm grasp on the Hebrew term Elohim, I do recommend either contacting me or finding my Facebook group to have a look at this chart that I have made that relates to the word Elohim.
What my chart does is it describes the different falls of Genesis, Genesis three, Genesis six, and Genesis 11. And it helps kind of categorize the spiritual beings who are involved in each one of those because Hebrew categories can get really confusing to us as English speakers because the same Hebrew words can be used for different events, different spiritual beings, and it gets really confusing really fast.
So [00:16:00] if you're somebody who is still trying to wrap your mind around the terminology and the different falls, then come check out my chart because I think it's really helpful to see it visually. And it kind of lays out the different characters involved and the chronology of the falls. Now I literally say chronology with air quotes because I think we take Chronology a little bit too far into saying that it had to happen exactly in this order And I don't think that's necessarily the case, but the Bible does lay it out in a chronological order so I'm presenting that in my chart, and I just think it's helpful to visually wrap our minds around these terminologies and things that happen.
Elohim is the first name of God. But the problem with the name Elohim is that it's not only used as a designation for God. It is the most [00:17:00] common designation for God in the Old Testament, which might lead us to believe that the word Elohim is associated with a set of characteristics, right? Because I just said earlier about how names are something that describe the character of something, right?
So if you think, well, if Elohim is a name and it's a name of God, then Elohim necessarily must be wrapped up into certain characteristics of God. So if you're thinking that, and this is how you're tracking on the word Elohim. Then you're going to think that Elohim means a being that's uncreated, who is the Sovereign Creator, who is outside of time, who is all good, and all of these attributes that we have associated with God.
Unfortunately, we can't do that with the word Elohim, because the word Elohim in Hebrew, this is a Hebrew word, this word is [00:18:00] used for a variety of beings and characters in the Old Testament. It is used to designate the gods of the nations, and we don't think that they are uncreated. We don't think that they are sovereign.
So the term Elohim itself does not designate all of the characteristics of God. There is a name of God that does that, and we'll get to that at the end. But this term Elohim does not designate everything about God. And this is probably why it's important to understand that there are multiple, many names of God in the Old Testament. Each one of them can designate something about God that is unique, but not every name is going to encompass God's whole character.
There is only one name that actually does that. And that's why we say Yahweh is an actual name as opposed to a title or [00:19:00] some other form of designation that doesn't fully encompass the actual being of God. This is why Yahweh is a unique name. This is why Yahweh is very special. And it might be the only thing that we could actually call a proper name for God because these other terms do not actually encompass who God is. So I hope that kind of clarifies, because we're talking about names, and then we're also using the term name in a very loose way in this episode. And I don't want you to get confused and think that those are the exact same thing, because they're not.
And again, I don't want to spend too much time with the term Elohim, but the easiest way to understand what this term is, is that It is a place of residence term. A being can be called an Elohim if his natural residence is in the spiritual realm. [00:20:00] This means that God is an Elohim. This means that spiritual beings created by God are also Elohim. This means that people who have passed from this life and who belong in the spiritual realm, they can also be called Elohim, such as in 1 Sam 28.
So, Elohim is not a term that has a particular set of attributes, except for the fact that you can exist in that spiritual realm. So, when we see Genesis 1 and we see the term Elohim, We might be tempted to ascribe a whole bunch of attributes to that name, because what we see God doing in that chapter is creating. He is the sovereign creator. And we're like, well, he's called Elohim here, so Elohim has to mean sovereign creator. But it doesn't. That's not what Elohim means. You have to look at the whole usage of the word and how people understood it. But there is [00:21:00] a reason that Elohim is used in the first chapter of Genesis. And we'll get to that at the end of the episode.
So about the word El, this is also a confusing term because in Canaanite pantheons, El is an actual name for the highest deity. And so because you have El of the Canaanite pantheon, who is the head deity, and you see El used in the Bible for God, some people will come along and say, well, that means that God, El, in the Bible, and Canaanite El are the same being, and the Israelites originally believed in a pantheon of gods, and God was actually El, and there's a distinction between El and Yahweh. I'm here to say that there cannot be a distinction between El and Yahweh, that they are the same being, the same creator, and you can't separate them like that.
The Revelation of [00:22:00] Scripture does not allow that. So, anyone who comes and says, Look, in Deuteronomy 32, we see El is giving Yahweh a portion. And that's how Yahweh became the God of the Israelites. Well, I'm here to say that's not the case. El and Yahweh are the same being. They aren't separate beings. But those names can be used in parallel.
Now, what you don't see in the Bible is El used to describe any other deities. So, El is a particular designation for God. Of course, we all know that scholars love to look at the etymology of words. Etymology is just a fancy way of saying the origin of a word. So the etymology of El, it's a little bit obscured because it's a very old word. It probably means power or preeminence. The adjectival form, when you see it used as an [00:23:00] adjective, it means might or majesty. For instance, in Psalm 80, verse 10, it talks about the cedars of El. They're very majestic. In Genesis 31, 29, you see a phrase, in the El of one's hand, and that just means within one's power, or it is in my power.
So, the word El is associated with power and primacy. So, when you do see the word El, it probably is meant to refer to the highest, right, the highest level. That doesn't mean that the Israelites believed in a pantheon, but it does mean that there's God and then there's lower creation, right? I mean, that's not controversial. Of course, God is above all of his creation.
Sometimes, in Scripture, we see El in what they call the construct state. That means we [00:24:00] have El of something, like God of something. In Psalm 29 3, we see God of glory. In 1 Samuel 2 3, we see God of knowledge. In Isaiah 12 2, we see God of salvation.
We also see El show up in the theophoric names. A theophoric name is a name that includes the name of God, or the God that the people are worshiping. So your name is, in effect, honoring the deity. So names like Michael, Daniel, they kind of flow off the tongue in English, so you might not catch the fact that they have El at the end of them, but those are theophoric names.
A name we don't see often is El Gibbor, and Gibbor means mighty or heroic. We kind of associate that word with the giants, don't we? [00:25:00] Sometimes we see El Gibor with the word Haggadahl, or the greatest. In Deuteronomy 10, 17, and Jeremiah 32, 18, we see the great and mighty God. We also see this in Isaiah 9, 6, which is, of course, a prophecy of the Messiah.
And, of course, you see names that are combined. El Elohei Yisrael, in Genesis 33, 20. Is translated God, the God of Israel, or some translations might put it as El, the God of Israel. Now, is that proof that they're designating this special El as opposed to that El, or is it just an emphasis? These are the kinds of questions we ask and, you know, ultimately it doesn't really matter to us as Bible readers, I think. Sometimes we do tend to get a little bit lost in the weeds. And really the question is, how is the name used? How are we to see the name [00:26:00] and what effect does it have in Revelation?
There are several names that are associated with places. And we can think about that quote that I gave earlier about how the revelation of God should cause us to worship and designate spaces as these are the places where we have encountered God.
Some of us today, especially, have a bit of a hard time with designated sacred spaces. And I understand that because the body of Christ is now the temple of God. We are now where the Holy Spirit dwells. So, you know, we could say technically wherever the body of Christ gathers, that is sacred space. But I don't think that should necessitate us removing the idea of sacred space entirely out of our thought process. I mean, it's not like the Jews that were following Jesus stopped going to the [00:27:00] temple and synagogue because they didn't. They still honored sacred space. And so we can, too.
Two other names that are associated with locations is El Roi, which we see only in Genesis 16, 13. This is the story of Hagar and God's experience with dealing with her. El Roi means God of seeing. Another name that is associated with a location is El Olam. Olam means everlasting. But we only see this as an actual name in Genesis 21 33 at Beersheba. We see the concept of God as being everlasting in places like Isaiah 40 28 and Psalm 90 verse 2, but the only time we see the actual name show up is in this verse in Genesis.
But remember, it's not always about words and names. Sometimes it's about the concept. [00:28:00] Which is why we can loop in that verse from Isaiah and the verse from the Psalms. We also see Yahweh called the Living God in places like Joshua 3. 10 and Psalm 42, verse 2. The Hebrew word olam is usually defined as long duration, antiquity, or indefinite futurity. Like it's just going to keep going into the future forever. So this word speaks about not just existence, but also God's covenant promises and the Messiah's reign. So if you're looking into Genesis and you're trying to find the gospel in Genesis, This is the kind of thing we can look at. Yes, we see the Gospel in Genesis 3, as well as some other places, and I'll probably be doing a whole episode on the Gospel in Genesis, but this is one of those ways we can see the revelation of God. [00:29:00] This is not just a name that somebody called God once, although it kind of is that, but it's a name and a designation for God that we should expect to see the fulfillment of.
Okay, two more El compounds we're going to talk about. The first one is El Elyon, and this is the God of Melchizedek in Genesis 14, verses 18 through 22. We also see Elyon used with Elohim in the construct Elohim Elyon. We see that in Psalm 57 2 and Psalm 78 56. Then we see Elyon all by itself. We see that in Numbers 24 16. Psalm 83, 18, Isaiah 14, 14, as well as Daniel 4, 25.
Now we don't have time to go into who Melchizedek is and why he's a king of Salem [00:30:00] and how he was a priest of God Most High. There is suggestion that Melchizedek wasn't actually worshiping Yahweh, but another god. Of course, I think that doesn't really make a lot of sense because we do see this designation for God elsewhere in Scripture. So, to suggest that Melchizedek is worshipping another god just because this is the only place we see the term, it doesn't really make much sense to me.
We know that El and Elohim are parallel terms, at least when they're designating God, so there's no reason to think that Melchizedek was worshipping anyone except Yahweh, but he wasn't worshipping Yahweh in the name of Yahweh, or in the name of El Shaddai, which I will be talking about next. This doesn't threaten who God is. This doesn't threaten who Melchizedek is worshiping. Because again, like you can see, we have many designations for God. They aren't exclusive to one another, and they all [00:31:00] show something a little bit particular about who God is.
What I think this shows in the passage with Melchizedek is that he isn't just worshiping a local deity. He is worshiping the Sovereign Creator. How prevalent that was at the time, It's hard to say. We don't have a whole lot of information, but I think it shows that people can be worshiping Yahweh without even using the term Yahweh because that is a special revelation, which again, we'll talk about that in a little bit.
Now, as far as the term El Shaddai, this is one of those terms that we all want to know so much more about because it really shows up in a very prominent place here. But interestingly enough, we don't see it until Genesis 17 verse 1, and we only see El Shaddai used seven times. Now, when we talk about the comparison of this name with the name Yahweh later, we'll get a [00:32:00] little bit more into the exact context of how it shows up here in Genesis 17.
But it's very interesting that it's showing up with the renewing of the covenant and it is quite interesting that it shows up in the form El Shaddai exactly seven times. The term Shaddai without El is much more frequent. We see it in Job 30 times and there might actually be reason for that in the Book of Job because you know, Mike Chu and I have been talking about the Book of Job and we've discussed a little bit about the dating. So, Job may be an older book, or it may just be a book that is trying to reference the time of the patriarchs. And if the author of Job is trying to reference the patriarchs, then it makes a little bit of sense that he's going to use a name of Yahweh that is unique, but that shows up with the patriarchs. So, Shaddai would be quite a [00:33:00] good choice for that, especially with what we see in Exodus.
Now, the burning question for this name is, what does Shaddai mean? And this is a difficult question, and I think it's an unanswerable question, because there are multiple potential root meanings to this word. It can mean sufficient, it can mean lord, it can mean rain god, it can mean mountain god, it can mean all knowing or almighty, or all powerful.
Part of that is because of the way we see it used. After the patriarchs, it seems like there's quite a bit of connection to the act of destroying. We see this in the first chapter of Ruth. We see this in the book of Job. We see this in the book of Psalms, and Isaiah, and some of the prophets. The root Shaddai can mean breast, or [00:34:00] moisture, or mountain. So tell me that's not a really wide range of things, like, I mean, you can kind of maybe see a little bit of connection there. So maybe all of those are somewhat related.
But as important and interesting as etymology is, and can be, what we really need to see and understand is that the even more important thing is how the term is used. Usually, you do see Shaddai translated as Almighty. And no matter what the etymology is, that really seems to be what the usage actually is meaning in the text. So sorry I couldn't give a more definitive answer for where we got the name El Shaddai, but I'll be talking a little bit more about that in relation to Yahweh here in a bit.
All right, before we move on from the term El, I want to address an interesting question of the idea that [00:35:00] El is the designation for the Father. Like, if we look at the Trinity, and we're trying to see the Trinity in the Old Testament, some of us have asked, is El the Father? And maybe Yahweh is Jesus, and then we see the Holy Spirit in an other way. Yeah, I think that's probably trying to parse the text a little too finely and put a later understanding into an earlier understanding.
Now, I'm not saying that the Trinity isn't in the Old Testament, because I absolutely think it is. But that doesn't mean that we can take these terms that are Hebrew terms, that Hebrew authors were using, and we can say, well, El is referring only to the Father. I don't think we can split the text up that evenly, and that exactly.
Of course, a popular way of seeing the second person of the Trinity, or the Son, or Jesus, in the Old Testament, [00:36:00] is to see him in the figure of the angel of the Lord. This was Dr. Heiser's position and it was a position that helped me personally to kind of grasp the Trinity and to understand how somebody could read the Bible and read the Old Testament in particular and be a Jew of the first century and also believe in the Trinity.
That was something that I had a really hard time with when I came from my LDS background, because I wasn't going to believe in the Trinity if I couldn't see it in the context of the Bible. So, understanding the angel of the Lord in the context of this being the quote unquote visible Yahweh, and this being a manifestation of Jesus physically in the Old Testament, not in the incarnation, so it's not the same as the incarnation. This is a different kind of manifestation. This isn't Jesus being [00:37:00] born into humanity and living a human life. This is just Jesus manifesting himself physically as the angel of the Lord. And I've done entire episodes on stuff like this, so I can't get into the weeds here right now.
But there is a pretty solid way to see how the angel of the Lord is the second person of the Trinity, or the visible Yahweh. But I will also say, in my learning and my faith journey, I've also seen how it's possible that the angel of the Lord is not, in fact, the second person of the Trinity. I know, I know, it's hard to hear. It's hard to hear for some of you, but I think it is a possibility. I don't know how strong of a possibility that is. I don't know if I would land to that actual determination, but I do think it's a possibility.
In Exodus 23, verses 20 through 21, it says, Behold, I send [00:38:00] an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. End quote.
So, remember what we're talking about as far as names. Great. The name is God, but it's also not exactly God. Let me give another quote from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. It says, quote, that the name signified the personal presence of God, and yet was not in itself the whole of God, was used by Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic historical writers to express what a modern theologian would call the immanence and transcendence of God. God himself dwells in heaven and cannot be contained [00:39:00] by any place or any structure. See Deuteronomy 26. 15 and 1 Kings 8. 27. But, he condescends to choose a place where his name will be remembered. See Exodus 20, 24, where his name will dwell, Deuteronomy 12, 11, and 14, 23, and so on, and where his name will be set in Deuteronomy 12, 5, and 14, 24.
And this in parallel with the ancient Near Eastern idea that a messenger, and an angel is just a messenger, a messenger for the king should be treated exactly like the king, suggests that the angel of the Lord, even if he is not the Lord, means that he would be treated exactly like the Lord nonetheless, because he is his literal messenger, directly from the Lord.
Now, again, I'm not trying to place a [00:40:00] stake here. It's a little bit hard for me to let go of the idea of the angel of the Lord as the second person of the Trinity, because that really helped me get out of my thinking of how you understand God in the scriptures. That being said, this isn't, like, the only way you can see the Trinity. This isn't, like, the linchpin of the Trinity. And I understand that, so I'm able to be a little bit more flexible and say, okay, let's look at the possibilities. I don't know. It's possible. And in the end, at the moment, I'm not really going to land on any particular spot. I do still lean towards the Angel of the Lord being the second person of the Trinity, but I also can see an argument that says maybe we should look at that some more.
But regardless of whether or not the Angel of the Lord is a physical appearance of Jesus, We absolutely do have Jesus in the Old Testament, and we can [00:41:00] have a whole conversation about how you see that in the New Testament, talking about the Old Testament. But the first chapter of John makes it very clear that Jesus was at creation, that he is uncreated himself, and so I don't think you can not see Jesus in the Old Testament.
The harder thing is seeing the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, but of course we can do that. I think that Genesis 1, verse 2 is the Spirit, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. We can see the Spirit in Isaiah 61, 1, where it says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. We can see it in Ezekiel 37, verse 1. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones. This is, of course, the incident [00:42:00] with the resurrection of the bones. We can see the Spirit in Numbers 11 17. And I will come down and talk with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone. Numbers 27 18 says, So the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him. Psalm 51, 11. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. In Exodus 35, 31, it talks about the construction of the tabernacle and the man who is to create it. And God has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship. We see the Spirit related to prophecy in 1 Samuel 10, 6. [00:43:00] Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them, and be turned into another man.
Now, of course, I have talked in the past about how Spirit is not just an entity. It also can be an organizational principle. It's something that organizes and creates a structure. So some of these verses might be in relation to that. And this is why we can't be super dogmatic about seeing the Spirit in the form of a person in the Old Testament. Because every time you see the word Spirit, it doesn't have to designate an actual entity.
However, I think with all of the things combined, what we see is the action of a spiritual being with the will in the form of the Holy Spirit. You're just not going to see that immediately or necessarily without having the revelation [00:44:00] of the New Testament. But at the same time, let's look at the actual terms we saw.
Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of God, Holy Spirit. Spirit of the Lord God. Spirit of God in Genesis 1. Some of these terms just use the word spirit, but many of them are designating that spirit and who he actually is. Alright, this isn't a place for a full on argumentation for the Holy Spirit here, but I didn't want to leave him out because we are talking about the designations and terms for God in the Old Testament, and I think that this should absolutely be looped into our discussion here.
Now, what I found fascinating was that in all of these lists that I saw of the names of God in Genesis, none of them had the Word of the Lord. This shows up in Genesis 15, and let me go ahead and turn there and read some of this.[00:45:00] Starting in verse 1, it says, After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.
Okay, so we have the word of the Lord coming to Abram in what? A vision. Now, you might say that, you know, we can kind of conflate the idea of visions and auditory revelation, right? The word of the Lord came to Abram. That suggests it's an auditory thing, but he is seeing it. Well, and I've actually seen people say, just because it's a vision doesn't mean it's not just an auditory thing. You know, maybe the word vision is just describing Revelation in general. I mean, maybe. But other scholars have said that the Word of the Lord is a visible person. Like, not to [00:46:00] belabor the point here, but the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
So, I mean, I don't know about you, but that's really bringing up echoes of John chapter 1 to me. And so, it's fascinating to me that in all of these lists of the names of God in Genesis, the Word of the Lord is not there. And I kind of think it should be, personally. But let's keep looking at this chapter, because this is fascinating.
So, this is God's first covenant with Abram. This is where we have the weird situation with the heifer and the goat and the ram and the turtle dove and the young pigeon, and you have the smoking firepot and flaming torch passing between the pieces of the animals. This is one of those passages you stop and go, wait, what? What's going on there? But I just want to stop here for a moment and talk about this first part of this chapter.
So, you have the word of the Lord come to Abram in a vision, and Abram [00:47:00] addresses him as Lord God. Now, what's interesting is we will see Lord God in our English Bibles, and maybe not understand that there are actually two Hebrew phrases that can underlie this phrase. If you see the word Lord in capital letters in your translation, L O R D, that word is the word Yahweh. But here , we see the word God in capital letters. And that's not usual. So Lord God here is not Yahweh Elohim, but rather Adonai Yahweh. So, Abram is using the term Yahweh, and he's including the honorific of Lord, Adonai Yahweh, Lord Yahweh.
So, Abram is using God's covenantal name here. Move down to verse 4, it says, [00:48:00] And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And then after that, verse 5. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. Verse 7 And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. In verse 8, Abram again addresses God as Lord God. Adonai Yahweh. All right, we're going to leave this for now, but we're going to come back into this conversation when we talk about the name Yahweh.
Before we do that, we have some other terms for God that don't show up very often, but I don't want to leave them out of the loop. First, I want to talk about the name Creator, [00:49:00] because this is absolutely fascinating to me, because to us, to Christians today, we actually use this as a name for God all the time. All the time. God is the Sovereign Creator. And again, I know I'm looping in the terms name and title or function together into one thing here. But we do hear this word creator used as a name. It's a very important name to us Christians. Because for us, it's a very big feature that God is the actual creator of the cosmos.
And He is. He is the creator of the cosmos. But what is fascinating to me is that this just isn't a term that we see hardly at all in the Old Testament. And even where we see it, it might actually not be there as much as we think it is. The only really unambiguous place we see this is in the book of Ecclesiastes. [00:50:00] In Ecclesiastes 12 verse 1, it says, Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the evil days come, and the years draw near, of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them.
Okay, so this verse seems pretty straightforward. Who is your Creator? Your Creator is God. However, there are potentially textual issues with this, because it's really strange to see this word as a designation for God without any other words around it.
We might see it also in Isaiah 40 verse 28. But let's look at what that says. The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. So here we see the term creator being applied to God, but it's in parallel with Yahweh. We see it again in Isaiah 43, 15, where it says, [00:51:00] I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King. So that's not even talking about the creation in general, but the creation of the nation of Israel.
So, you see, it's an exceedingly rare thing to see in the Old Testament. We see it much more often in the New Testament. We see it in Romans 1. 25, where it talks about serving the creature rather than the Creator. We see it in Colossians 3. 10, where it talks about being after the image of its Creator. And we see it in some other places, so I just want to point out that this is a difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And this shouldn't shock us, this shouldn't surprise us, this shouldn't concern us, because it makes sense that one culture is going to think about God in terms differently than another culture. And when we're talking about the Old Testament to the New Testament, there's [00:52:00] absolutely different culture there.
And I say that this verse in Ecclesiastes is strange. And it is strange. The term your creator is plural. Now, that might be the plural of majesty, but Word Biblical Commentary says, quote, Many commentators regard the reference to Creator as unexpected and unlikely, and propose other readings, such as, your well, or your spring, or even your pit or grave, end quote.
Now, again, by challenging this, we're not challenging the fact that God is Creator. That is already obvious. But it seems to me that this wasn't a title or name or designation in the Old Testament. It's not that it's not true of God, but it shows the direct way of thinking of the people of the time.
There's a reason that the Israelites and the Jews [00:53:00] really didn't focus on the first chapters of Genesis nearly as much as we Christians do. We Christians zoom in on the days of creation and God is the ultimate creator of all things. Israel, on the other hand, focused on other attributes of God and God as the creator of Israel.
And I just wanted to point that out because I find it a fascinating difference because our emphasis and our stress is just placed on a different part of the text than they were thinking at the time of the Old Testament.
Another surprising thing is that God really isn't called Father in the Old Testament like we might expect. The concept is there, the metaphors are there, but again, it's not really a title. In Genesis, Father appears the most out of all books, the word Father appears, but it's always in relation to [00:54:00] humans. It's used in the sense of somebody who's responsible or through whom God has spoken. It's basically used as a term for the patriarchs.
There are some places in poetry where God is referred to as Father, but not in the sense of a name or a designation. It's more the concept and metaphor that we have going on. And again, it's just a difference in thinking. Once we get into the New Testament, we see Jesus himself using the name Father. And this was actually exceptionally surprising to the Jews. And that's something that we've kind of lost because we're very used to calling God Father.
Alright, so I'm not going to get into too many of the actual functions or descriptions for God. Things like Redeemer, Maker, King, Judge. Keeper. [00:55:00] We do have the designation of Ancient of Days in Daniel 7. Of course, we have the idea and name of Messiah. We have God called the Rock of Israel, God called the Holy One, God called a King. We see God as Shepherd. We see God called Jealous as God's name in Exodus 34, 14. For you shall not worship any other god. For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
God is the Mighty One of Israel. We see that in Genesis 49, 24, where we see it in parallel with Shepherd and Rock of Israel. We see Mighty One of Israel in Psalm 132, verse 2, in Isaiah 49, 26, and many other places. And of course, when you're looking at the term of Messiah, we have many descriptive names associated with the [00:56:00] idea of the Messiah. We have root. Branch. Star. Scepter. All of these things are both concepts and descriptors and in some form they are names. Because again, a name is something that is going to encompass the character and attributes of a person.
All right, one final thing before we get into the name of Yahweh. And that is the Fear of Isaac. This is one of those names that has us scratching our heads, doesn't it? It only shows up in Genesis 31. In Genesis 31, verse 42, it says, If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been with me, indeed now you would have sent me away empty handed.
We see it again in verse 53 that says, The God of Abraham and [00:57:00] the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judged between us. So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.
So, let's talk a little bit about this for a moment. The situation in Genesis 31 is Jacob fleeing from Laban. Verse 2, Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before, and he's told by God to return to the land of his father, and I will be with you.
Verse 4 and 5, it says, So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was. And said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me. And so they decide to leave with all of their flocks and everything they have, and Laben finds out that they left.
Of course, this is the situation with the household Gods and Rachel steals them, but Laben doesn't know that she [00:58:00] steals them, but eventually they make a little covenant between themselves and Laben lets Jacob go. Now, the question is, why does that happen? And why is God called the Fear of Isaac? Well, some scholars have suggested that fear isn't a good word there, that maybe there's a textual issue, and that it should say the Refuge of Isaac, or the Kinsmen of Isaac.
There are also some other suggestions that we won't go into, but let's look back at verse 24 of Genesis 31. It says, But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night, and said to him, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.
So Laban actually had a dream from God. So fast forward to what they're talking about here later in the chapter. [00:59:00] And Jacob evokes God. He evokes God by using three different terms. God of my father, the God of Abraham. And the fear of Isaac. Now, if you've listened to my conversations with Mike Chu about the book of Job, we've gotten into this idea of fear and what that means. And how if we kind of turn the idea of fear into only one of awe, we're kind of missing the point.
Like, there should be a healthy fear that we have of God. And why would Laban be fearful of God? Well, God actually came to Laban in a dream. So Laban sets up these pillars as proof that they're not going to cross boundaries. And Laban says, the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judged between us. So [01:00:00] Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.
So something we might not notice here is that it looks like the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor and the God of their father. It looks like those are parallel terms, but who is Nahor? Nahor is the brother of Abram. So here in chapter 31, you have Jacob and Laban. Well, Abraham is Jacob's grandfather. Nahor is Laban's grandfather. But, remember, Abraham is the one who followed Yahweh, not Nahor. Nahor didn't come and follow Yahweh. Also note here the context of the household gods. Household gods are not a thing you're supposed to have if you're worshiping Yahweh. So Laban is probably a pagan worshiper.
The god of Abraham and the god of Nahor are probably two [01:01:00] separate beings. And which one did Jacob swear by? It says, Jacob swore by, not the God of Abraham, but the fear of his father Isaac, which would recollect to Laban, Oh yeah, he appeared to me in a dream. I better not mess with that God. Laban's like, Okay, Jacob, you win. Your God is greater.
It's not real clear to us in this passage that that's what's going on. But if you see the context of Laban not being a worshiper of Yahweh, not following God like Jacob is. And there's a bit of a contest here, whose God is better? So the question is, is the fear of Isaac the one whom Isaac fears, or the one of Isaac who causes fear?
Like Jacob had to escape Laban by a devious route, right? He couldn't just leave. Laban [01:02:00] wasn't going to allow that. Laban was a threat to Jacob and his family. So in this contest and in this little situation of the covenant between Laban and Jacob, Jacob's like, You should really fear my God. And Laban realizes, oh, yeah, he did show up to me, actually, in a dream, so I should probably listen, and I should probably finally let you go.
And again, this is the only place we see this name of God, of the fear of Isaac. It's because it's a contextual situation, and Laban himself was fearing God, like, literally scared of God. And this is why Jacob was able to be let go. Laban wasn't going to bother him any longer because of the fear he had for God.
I just find that fascinating because it connects so well with what we were talking about with the Book of Job. So we [01:03:00] associate fear with something extremely negative, but there might actually be a reason to fear, and fear might be of help to us.
Alright, well, I told you that The names of God can't be contained in one episode. I was absolutely right. I even tried to shorten it and Still here we are at the end of the episode Normally, and I could continue on here and talk about the name Yahweh But if I push it off to next week, I will actually be able to provide even more information on the topic. So, I think that's what we're going to do for now.
I'm going to end it here, and I'm sorry that this week I didn't get into those questions I said I was going to end with here. I was expecting that I could, but there is just so much to say about this topic of the names of God. And I [01:04:00] don't want to short the topic. I don't want to talk less about it when it's such an important topic.
So, I hope you'll forgive me, and next week I will have the installation of the conversation that really delves into the name Yahweh. And I think that's going to be an awesome conversation, so I hope that you will join me for that.
Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope that it was a little bit helpful, a little bit interesting. As always, I really, really appreciate you guys for listening. I appreciate all of those of you who share the episodes, who tell people about the podcast, who come and interact with me in various ways. I love talking to all of you, and I really appreciate all of those things.
If you have any questions about the names of God, please feel free to share them, and I will toss them in the queue for an upcoming Q& A episode, or I might be able to get to them next week, if you are fast enough in asking me the question.
[01:05:00] For those of you who aren't aware, you can access my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, where you can email me, you can find blog posts, you can find my artwork, You can find ways to help financially support my podcast, and I really, really deeply appreciate those of you who are doing that. It is such an incredible blessing to me, and it really helps me to do what I'm doing, to provide resources, and just to keep doing what I'm doing.
It's a lot of work, and I appreciate all of you who are interacting with me, and helping me in the various ways that you do to support me. Thank you guys for that. Thank you guys for listening, and stay tuned for next week when I will be continuing this conversation about the names of God. I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
