I AM WHO I AM
Exodus 3:12-15
He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”
Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”
God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the 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; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation."
Matthew Henry Commentary:
(Excerpt)
God, having spoken to Moses, allows him also a liberty of speech, which he here improves. He objects his own insufficiency for the service he was called to: Who am I? He thinks himself unworthy of the honor, and not equal to the task. He thinks he wants courage, and therefore cannot go to Pharaoh, to make a demand which might cost the demandant his head: he thinks he wants skill, and therefore cannot bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt; they are unarmed, undisciplined, quite dispirited, utterly unable to help themselves; it is morally impossible to bring them out.
Moses was incomparably the fittest of any man living for this work, eminent for learning, wisdom, experience, valour, faith, holiness; and yet he says, Who am I? The more fit any person is for service commonly the less opinion he has of himself.
The difficulties of the work were indeed very great, enough to startle the courage and stagger the faith of Moses himself. Moses had formerly been very courageous when he slew the Egyptian, but now his heart failed him; for good men are not always alike bold and zealous. Yet Moses is the man that does it at last; for God gives grace to the lowly. Modest beginnings are very good presages.
God answers this objection. He promises him his presence: Certainly I will be with thee, and that is enough. Note, Those that are weak in themselves may yet do wonders, being strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; and those that are most diffident of themselves may be most confident in God. God’s presence puts an honour upon the worthless, wisdom and strength into the weak and foolish, makes the greatest difficulties dwindle to nothing, and is enough to answer all objections.
He assures him of success, and that the Israelites should serve God upon this mountain. Note Those deliverances are most valuable which open to us a door of liberty to serve God. If God gives us opportunity and a heart to serve him, it is a happy and encouraging earnest of further favours designed us.
He begs instructions for the executing of his commission, and has them, thoroughly to furnish him. He desires to know by what name God would at this time make himself known. He supposes the children of Israel would ask him, What is his name? This they would ask either. To perplex Moses: he foresaw difficulty, not only in dealing with Pharaoh, to make him willing to part with them, but in dealing with them, to make them willing to remove. They would be scrupulous and apt to cavil, would bid him produce his commission, and probably this would be the trial:
"Does he know the name of God? Has he the watch-word?’’ Once he was asked, Who made thee a judge? Then he had not his answer ready, and he would not be nonplussed so again, but would be able to tell in whose name he came. Or For their own information. It is to be feared that they had grown very ignorant in Egypt, by reason of their hard bondage, want of teachers, and loss of the sabbath, so that they needed to be told the first principles of the oracles of God. Or this question, What is his name? amounted to an enquiry into the nature of the dispensation they were now to expect: "How will God in it be known to us, and what may we depend upon from him?’’
He desires instructions what answer to give them: "What shall I say to them? What name shall I vouch to them for the proof of my authority? I must have something great and extraordinary to say to them; what must it be? If I must go, let me have full instructions, that I may not run in vain.’’ God readily gives him full instructions in this matter. Two names God would now be known by:
A name that denotes what He is in himself: I am that I am. This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies: That he is self-existent; he has his being of himself, and has no dependence upon any other.
The greatest and best man in the world must say, By the grace of God I am what I am; but God says absolutely—and it is more than any creature, man or angel, can say—I am that I am. Being self-existent, he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and bliss.
That He is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, today, and for ever; He will be what He will be.
Image: Moses Speaks to Pharaoh
He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”
Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”
God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the 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; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation."
Matthew Henry Commentary:
(Excerpt)
God, having spoken to Moses, allows him also a liberty of speech, which he here improves. He objects his own insufficiency for the service he was called to: Who am I? He thinks himself unworthy of the honor, and not equal to the task. He thinks he wants courage, and therefore cannot go to Pharaoh, to make a demand which might cost the demandant his head: he thinks he wants skill, and therefore cannot bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt; they are unarmed, undisciplined, quite dispirited, utterly unable to help themselves; it is morally impossible to bring them out.
Moses was incomparably the fittest of any man living for this work, eminent for learning, wisdom, experience, valour, faith, holiness; and yet he says, Who am I? The more fit any person is for service commonly the less opinion he has of himself.
The difficulties of the work were indeed very great, enough to startle the courage and stagger the faith of Moses himself. Moses had formerly been very courageous when he slew the Egyptian, but now his heart failed him; for good men are not always alike bold and zealous. Yet Moses is the man that does it at last; for God gives grace to the lowly. Modest beginnings are very good presages.
God answers this objection. He promises him his presence: Certainly I will be with thee, and that is enough. Note, Those that are weak in themselves may yet do wonders, being strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; and those that are most diffident of themselves may be most confident in God. God’s presence puts an honour upon the worthless, wisdom and strength into the weak and foolish, makes the greatest difficulties dwindle to nothing, and is enough to answer all objections.
He assures him of success, and that the Israelites should serve God upon this mountain. Note Those deliverances are most valuable which open to us a door of liberty to serve God. If God gives us opportunity and a heart to serve him, it is a happy and encouraging earnest of further favours designed us.
He begs instructions for the executing of his commission, and has them, thoroughly to furnish him. He desires to know by what name God would at this time make himself known. He supposes the children of Israel would ask him, What is his name? This they would ask either. To perplex Moses: he foresaw difficulty, not only in dealing with Pharaoh, to make him willing to part with them, but in dealing with them, to make them willing to remove. They would be scrupulous and apt to cavil, would bid him produce his commission, and probably this would be the trial:
"Does he know the name of God? Has he the watch-word?’’ Once he was asked, Who made thee a judge? Then he had not his answer ready, and he would not be nonplussed so again, but would be able to tell in whose name he came. Or For their own information. It is to be feared that they had grown very ignorant in Egypt, by reason of their hard bondage, want of teachers, and loss of the sabbath, so that they needed to be told the first principles of the oracles of God. Or this question, What is his name? amounted to an enquiry into the nature of the dispensation they were now to expect: "How will God in it be known to us, and what may we depend upon from him?’’
He desires instructions what answer to give them: "What shall I say to them? What name shall I vouch to them for the proof of my authority? I must have something great and extraordinary to say to them; what must it be? If I must go, let me have full instructions, that I may not run in vain.’’ God readily gives him full instructions in this matter. Two names God would now be known by:
A name that denotes what He is in himself: I am that I am. This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies: That he is self-existent; he has his being of himself, and has no dependence upon any other.
The greatest and best man in the world must say, By the grace of God I am what I am; but God says absolutely—and it is more than any creature, man or angel, can say—I am that I am. Being self-existent, he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and bliss.
That He is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, today, and for ever; He will be what He will be.
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Artist: James Tissot