There is good reason to doubt, however, that the writer
of this Exodus passage was engaging in modern philosophical reflections about
the existence and nature of God. God has already answered that he is the God of
the patriarchs, and this answer has to do with “the name” of the God Moses is
to tell his listeners has sent him. While we cannot be certain, it would appear
that Yahweh is the abbreviated form of this very Hebrew phrase. The verb היה means
“to be” or “to live,” so it is possible that the meaning is “tell them I am the
living one, the living God, of YHWH for short.” This would comport well with
the polemic found elsewhere in the OT, including in the Pentateuch, about the
other so-called gods being non-gods, or non-entities. As was later said of Jesus,
what may be meant here is “in him was life.” This would then place Exod. 3 into
a clearer relationship with other statements about the character of God we are
discussing by examining several key passages, as well as as with the character
as revealed in numerous other places in the OT not currently under discussion.
All other things being equal, the explanation of Exod. 3 that has the best
potential to explain and relate to other character statements about God is
probably the right explanation, which is to say the earlier of these two
mentioned is likely the correct one. (Ben Witherington III, Biblical
Theology: The Convergence of the Canon [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2019], 26-27)
This section option is that
the “I am” sayings without a qualifier (e.g., “before
Abraham was, I am,” Jn. 8.58) seem to presuppose the present-tense meaning of the
phrase. (Ibid., 26)
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