(v. God)
(ESQUERDA BIFET, Juan, Dictionary of Evangelization, BAC, Madrid, 1998)
Source: Dictionary of Evangelization
Yahweh is the proper name of God revealed by himself to Moses (Ex 3,13-15). It is usually transcribed in various ways; corresponds to the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH. Its etymology is disputed; in the Exodus passage it is interpreted with the meaning of “he who is”, the transcendent, the one who cannot be defined, the absolute and effective being, the only one who is and the only one who acts, the immutable, always faithful. God is also designated by other names: El, the generic name of “the divinity”, which is used to form other proper names (Gabriel, Ezequiel, Ismael, etc.); it can go alone or accompanied by other appellations: El Sadday, of uncertain meaning, perhaps “God-mountain”, that is, refuge and sure support, which is usually translated as “the Omnipotent”; El-Elion, “Most High God”, indicating the transcendence of God. The most used is that of Elohim, also of uncertain meaning, and in the plural of majesty and intensity, that is, the only God who exhausts all the characteristics of the Divinity; The appellation Sebaot is frequent, added to Yahweh, which means “Yahweh of armies”, which refers to the glorious battles of Israel, to the stars, to the celestial powers, to all the cosmic forces that are subject to Yahweh. ->Jehovah.
MNE
FERNANDEZ RAMOS, Felipe (Dir.), Dictionary of Jesus of Nazareth, Editorial Monte Carmelo, Burbos, 2001
Source: Dictionary of Jesus of Nazareth
(-> God, Baal, monotheism). Yahweh, proper name of the biblical God of the Old Testament, is the protagonist and mystery of the Israelite Bible. His name has ended up being unpronounceable, so the Jews (and most Bible translations) have veiled it (writing only the first and last letters, as in Y**E or D**s) or have substituted, putting in its place an equivalent of the word Lord (Maran, Adonai, Kyrios). The New Testament attributes that name to Jesus (he calls him “the Lord”), so that God, instead of calling him Lord, will preferably call him Father, Father of Our Lord * Jesus Christ. On the origin and primitive meaning of Yahweh (which some Christian groups prefer to write Jehovah) many hypotheses have been drawn. It seems that it is a pre-Israelite name and God, who appears perhaps in Ebla and who may have been worshiped by Amorites or Kenites*, as early as the third millennium BC But the Israelites assumed it at a given moment as their own, in such a way who appeared from then on as Yahweh’s people. Linked to Yahweh, they rejected the worship of Baal* and Ashera, overcame idolatry, and built the most impressive religious buildings in the West. From a biblical perspective, which we now assume, the name and cult of Yahweh is linked to Moses and the sacred mountain of Sinai.
(1. Introduction. The burning bush. Yahweh, the Israelite God, is defined through the history of the liberation of the Hebrews, oppressed in Egypt, according to the first chapters of Exodus. The context is known. Moses *, a Hebrew of Egyptian culture, has had to go into exile in Midian, in the Sinai desert, where he shepherds the flock of Jethro, his priest-father-in-law. He has left his brothers captive in Egypt. Providence leads him to the mountain of God, Horeb (= Sinai), a sacred place for the surrounding tribes. Alone before God, in the great desert, he discovers a bush of fire that burns without being consumed. Many religions link God with fire: flame that burns, life that is incessantly renewed (Ex 3,2). The vision of Moses relates fire and bush (tree and flame), in a paradox where the cosmic fire and the bush (bush) of life penetrate each other. The oppressed Hebrews themselves are perhaps the bush, a fragile bush that can break and destroy itself at any moment, disappearing into the desert or mountain of the surrounding peoples, but they are a bush animated by the fire of God that is waiting for Moses in the mountain. “And Yahweh saw that he was coming to look, and Elohim called to him from the bush: Moses, Moses! And Moses answered: Here I am! And Yahweh said to him: Do not approach; take off your sandals from your feet, because the place you step on is holy ground. I am the Elohim of your father, of Abraham, of Isaac… Then Moses covered his face… And Yahweh said to him: I have seen the affliction of my people of Egypt and I have heard the cry that their oppressors make them cry out, for I know their sufferings and I have come down to free him from the power of Egypt and to bring him up from this land to a good and wide land, flowing with milk and honey, a country of the Canaanites, of the Hittites… Look: the cry of the children of Israel has reached me and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Therefore: Go away! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt” (Ex 3:4-10). The text identifies Yahweh, proper name of the Israelite God, with Elohim, the divine, common name of all gods, as if to say that there is no other divinity, more Elohim, than Yahweh. (2) Elements of the theophany. Moses has seen the bush and wants to know what is happening (Ex 3,3). This is how the story begins: he has come to the Mountain of God, willing to watch the show, as curious as he observes things from the outside. It is evident that God has to stop him: “And Yahweh saw that he was coming… and Elohim called to him from the bush” (Ex 3,4). In this way our text combines the two names: Yahweh looks from the bush, Elohim appears and calls (cf. Gn 22,11; 1 Sm 3,4; etc.). Moses has come to discover God on the holy mountain and God begins by expressing his presence as fire. He is the God of the cosmos, sign and principle of holiness of a world that is open to the divine. For this reason, Moses must take off his shoes and worship him on the sacred mountain, in order to link himself in this way to the experience of the peoples who have worshiped and continue to worship God in the phenomena of the cosmos. But specifying the meaning of it, the same Lord of the sacred land presents himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is, as the God of the past, God of the people. Thus we come from nature to history, from the burning bush to the promises of Abraham and the patriarchs (cf. Ex 2,25; 3,6 and 3,15). The bearers of the memory of God are now the parents, that is, the ancestors: this fidelity to the past of the people will define the vision of the Israelite God, always linked to the memory of the origins of the people (of the holy traditions). Well, this God of the mountain and of fire (nature), God of the ancestors and of promises (history), marks the distance from him: Don’t come near, take off your sandals! Feet bare before God, faces covered, men must walk before God. This barefoot Moses with the cloak over his eyes remains the most beautiful sign of the Israelite experience.
(3) Command of God. Sending of Moses (Ex 3,7-10). The text that follows can be divided into three parts, (a) God of the oppressed: “I have seen…!”. The God of nature and of history (mountain and ancestors) is the God who looks and listens to the captives in order to free them: he goes beyond the limits of a local and/or cosmic sacredness, coming to present himself as a redeemer for the ancient Hebrews and modern. For this reason, Moses has to leave the sacred fire of a cosmic sacality to get going and share from God the fate of the oppressed. This is the God who acts from the smallness and oppression of the excluded, the liberating God. He is more than holy fire from a holy land; he is friend and savior (future of life) of the slaves of Egypt. He was linked to the ancients (fathers). He now appears as father-mother for the oppressed children, opening for them a path of freedom that will be expressed in his main name: I am! I come to set you free! (b) God who acts: “I have come down!” He thus assumes the path of the oppressed and undertakes to liberate them. At the beginning of the religious experience of Israel (and of the vision of the Christian biblical God) is found this descent (I have descended), this incarnation (to liberate) and this ascent (to ascend) of the God who assumes the fate of men . The theological itinerary of the people is based on the deepest saving itinerary of God: God has descended (penetrates the conflict and pain of history), to liberate the oppressed, to break their jail in Egypt and to raise them to the true homeland , (c) This is the God who sends and thus says to Moses: Go! The God of freedom is the God of the path in history, the God of transcendence (of the sacred mountain, of the ancestors and of the freedom of the people) who comes to reveal himself through the liberating action of Moses.
(4) Yahweh, I am who I am. The Israelite Bible has discovered and expressed the meaning of the supreme Name (= Yahweh) in a vocational dialogue, through its call to Moses and the Israelites. He has not constructed a treatise on theology, he has not exposed a demonstration. He has done something deeper: he has woven a story. God and Moses speak. In his dialogue, from the God who acts as liberator, the mystery of his Name emerges: “Moses says: Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Elohim replies: “I will be . Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: I am.” He can only send the one who is present in the one he sends and in those sent, (c) Proper name: “Yahweh, Elohim of your fathers…, he has sent me to you” (3,15). The God of the fathers is fully revealed as the one who sustains and sends Moses, freeing the people from him. Only as soon as he calls and helps, assists and liberates, the God (Elohim) of the fathers becomes Yahweh, God present, (d) Definitive Name: “This is my name forever, it is my memory…” (3,15) . This experience made Name (I am present!) forever defines the being (action) of God and becomes the beginning and center of all the memories, commitments and hopes of the Israelites.
(6) Religious interpretations. The interpretations of this original word (Yahweh: I-Sov, I am Present, I am who I am) continue to define in some way the deepest visions of God in the West. We will remember the most important ones, to focus on the Christian one at the end, (a) The Jews have highlighted the value of this Name, condensing in it their experience of mystery. On the one hand, they have continued to link him to the people, as the Shema says (Listen, Israel, Yahweh, your God is one God…: Dt 6:4-9). On the other, they have made it sacred, in such a way that they try not to write it or pronounce it anymore, as a sign of religious respect. Yahweh (D ** s, YHWH) is God himself, in the absolute fullness and remoteness of him. Thus, by cutting off that Name and keeping it out of social and religious circulation, later Jews have had to find substitutes for it. That is why they have said and continue to say more or less equivalent words (but never the same) instead, such as Adonai, Kyrios, Dominus or Lord (the Lord), which want to somehow express the greatness of God, but without achieving it. These words no longer act like…