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Welcome back to Critical Thinking Aloud’s continuation of our study on What is the Bibles main character with another installment of The Visible Yahweh. This is another teaching in our foundational series on What is the Bible.
We believe that context is the key for properly understanding and given topic and the same is true with our teaching today. All of the content in this series is connected and builds off of each other. To understand todays teaching in its fullest capacity check out the other teaching in this series first.
If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet you can view that material by clicking here.
Our goal for this series is to equip others with a “portfolio” about the ancient Near Eastern biblical authors worldview that they can keep in the forefront of their minds to use while studying the scriptures. We do this in hopes that you will see and experience for yourselves the clarity that this practice of interpreting the scriptures in their ancient Near Eastern context can bring.
In this Installment we will continue our study on how the invisible Yahweh reveals Himself visibly to humanity in the form of a man via The Name.
How we are going to learn
In this teaching we will be looking at the topic of The Name theophany in the ancient Near Eastern biblical authors worldview. As I have done in the past with other teachings I want to quote from scholarly sources to make my point. I do this in hope that you will see this isn’t just my interpretation of the Scriptures but that this view is steeped in acadeemia.
We will be using two amazing sources which we highly recommend.
- Faithlife Study Bible: This is an amazing resource that is free if you download the app or use it online. To download the app or use this resource online visit their website here. This resource is also available in print which you can purchase here.
- The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: This is my favorite resource for gaining a better understanding for the ancient Near Eastern worldview of the Biblical authors. This is available in a multitude of variations all of which you can find on our resource page here.
Let’s get started
Our teachings on the Visible Yahweh centers around the ancient Near Eastern biblical authors description of the Invisible God revealing Himself Visibly to humanity through the theophany of a man. In the Old Testament this man theophany is describe in four ways.
Over the past weeks we have talked about two of these which were The Word, and The Angel of the Lord. This week we will be covering the third way the ancient Near Eastern biblical authors described this man theophany.
Theophany
Throughout this series we are have been looking at the ancient Near Eastern view of theophany and the role it plays in the pantheon of a nation. Theophany is a visible manifestation of a deity revealed to humanity.
Here is a quote from one of our recommended resources
“Since people cannot possibly process God’s nature as a disembodied, formless spirit, theophany allows God to make His presence known in a physical way that people can discern through their senses.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
In the Hebrew Bible there are many forms that God uses as a theophany to make His presence known to people. Whirl winds, smoke, fire are just a couple examples to name a few.
During the duration of the Visible Yahweh study we will be focusing especially on the ancient Near Eastern theophany of a man and its counterpart in the belief of the Godhead of the ancient Israelites found in the Old Testament.
Over the coarse of the last two installments we learned that the Invisible God appears to humanity Visibly in the form of The Word of the Lord, and The Angel of the Lord. If you haven’t yet gone over that content yet check it out here.
The Name
This week of Critical Thinking Aloud we are going to learn about how Yahweh appears to humans in the theophany of a man known in the Old Testament as The Name.
Identifying The Name of the Lord is going to be similar to the other two studies on this theophany that we have looked at thus far. This new outlook may come as a bit of a surprise to us due to the fact we most likely have already formed a certain understanding of these familiar texts.
I believe we will gain a deeper understanding of the Bible, as we look at the details while critically thinking aloud together.
Exodus
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.”
Exodus 23:20-23
In this passage we have some familiar characters. Yahweh is relating to Moses that He is going to send His Angel to lead them through the wilderness into the promise land. Remember that we learned in the second week of this Visible Yahweh study that The Angel of the Lord is Yahweh and Yahweh is the Angel of the Lord.
Who is The Name
Notice how this passage identifies the Angel of the Lord, and Yahweh as one and the same via The Name. “Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say…”
Here is a quote from the same resources with some insight to this conflation
“The OT writers at times deliberately make the Angel of Yahweh indistinguishable from Yahweh (e.g., Exod 3:1-14). For Instance, according to Exod 23, the Angel has Yahweh’s “Name” in Him (Exod 23:20-23). This passage gives a glimpse of the Hebrew Bible’s “Name theology,” in which reference to “the Name” actually refers to Yahweh Himself. Thus, in Exod 23, Yahweh indicates that He is in the Angel. And yet, in other passages, Yahweh and the Angel can be simultaneously- but separately- present (Judges 6).”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Old Testament Godhead Language
Name Theology
A name not only represent a being but can also be used to identify a being. Your name can be invoked to represent you while not present or identify you presence.
Think about Yahweh while the Israelites were in Babylon. Yahwehs presences was not with them but they knew and called on the name of the Lord.
Here is a quote from our other trusted recommended resource
” …ancient Egyptians believed in a close relationship between the name of a deity and the deity itself-
The NIV Culture Backgrounds Study Bible- Article on God’s Name pg 112
i.e., the name of god could reveal part of the essential nature of that god.”
The Ancient Near Eastern biblical authors shared this same concept with their belief in Yahweh. The Hebrews lived in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years. These authors ancient Near Eastern worldview was heavily influenced by Egyptian thought and their practices were similar to all Near Eastern people.
Here is an example.
“May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. 3 May he remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. 4 May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
Psalms 20:2-7
The Name of God is God and God is The Name
Isaiah
“See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.”
Isaiah 30:27
There is a correlation between the Visible Yahweh and The Name made in this passage out of The Book of Isaiah. The Name of the Lord comes in an anthropomorphic form. This is clearly not the disembodied formless Yahweh for The Name in this passage has lips, and a tongue.
In this theophany The Name is God’s invisible presence’s made visible to humans in the form of a man.
Gods Presence
Deuteronomy 4:35-37
“35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. 37 Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.”
The Name can be understood as Yahwehs physical presence. Let’s think about this for a bit.
- Who was it that told Abraham that His lineage (those whom had yet to be born) would be mistreated and enslaved in a strange country for 400 years but after which would be brought out with great possessions? -The Visible Yahweh as The Word. Genesis 15
- Who was in the burning bush when Yahweh commissioned Moses to lead His enslaved and mistreated people out of Egypt? -The Visible Yahweh as The Angel of the Lord. Exodus 3
- Who Killed the first born sons of Egypt and led the Hebrews to safety? -The Visible Yahweh as The Angel of the Lord
- Who led the Hebrews to the promise land in the fire by night and the smoke by day? The invisible Yahweh’s Visible presence via The Angel of the Lord. Exodus 23, and Duet 4
The Invisible God presences appears visibly in the theophany of a man throughout the Old Testament as The Word, The angel of the Lord and The Name.
His Name to Dwell
Before the nation of Israel is completely established in the promise land the Hebrew people would sacrifice to Yahweh in many different places. Once they are established in the promise land they are commanded to only sacrifice in the place that Yahweh chooses for His Name to dwell.
“4 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. 5 But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; 6 there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks…
Deuteronomy 12:4-6,11
11 Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord.
Many of us have probably assumed that Yahweh is talking about His verbal name but I am proposing to you today that this is not the case. The place He chooses is not for His verbal Name but His presence to dwell in.
Another way of talking about this place which He chose for a dwelling of His presence is the Tabernacle/ the Temple.
The Tabernacle and the Temple both housed the Ark of the covenant which is where the presence of God dwelled with His people. We can be assured that we are not talking about the verbal name of God here but His presences.
Choosing a place for His Name to dwell is referring to the place where the temple complex is later erected and its precisely there the presence of God dwelled throughout a large portion of the Hebrew Bible.
The Ark is His Presence which is His Name
One of my favorite examples of this is in the book of 2nd Samuel.
“David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. 2 He and all his men went to Baalah in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark.“
2 Samuel 6:1-2
The ark was well known to the Israelites by the epithet the Lords footstool, since this is the “hot spot” for the invisible Yahwehs presence. Those who touched the ark or looked inside without permission were destroyed by the Lord on the spot.
The ancient Israelites called the ark of the Lord, The Name. How the ark became to be know as the Name is in my opinion one of the more interesting examples of The Name being applied to the man theophany in the OT. This is believed to have been derived from what would transpire in the temple on the Hebrew Festival, The Day of Atonement.
While Yahweh disembodied presence was always on top of the ark, once every year on The Day of Atonement the High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies where the ark of the Lord resided. On this day on top of the Mercy Seat between the cherubim the presences of the Lord appeared in the form of a man.
Since each year on the ark of the Lord is where Yahweh appeared visibly in the form of a man, the ark and their conception of The Name were conflated to mean the same thing, The place where Yahwehs visible presence dwells. The ark is where the presence of the Lord is and The Name is Yahwehs presences on the ark.
God Chose to Appear to Us
The Trinity that we have come to know as Christians is rooted in this Old Testament theology. Ever since the beginning the Invisible God has chosen to make Himself known to humans through His visible manifestation in the form of a Man.
Before His incarnation, Jesus, the Visible Yahweh, was known in the Old Testament as the second person of the trinity by four different descriptions.
I want to leave you with this last quote.
“Theophanies set the precedent for Jesus. They help make sense of why and how God chose to appear in human form.”
Faithlife Study Bible: in the Article: Theophany in the Old Testament.
In the three weeks this study on the visible Yahweh in the Old Testament we have discussed three out of the four of Yahweh’s man theophany motifs. The Word, The Angel of the Lord, and The Name are all use in the Old Testament to describe the Invisible God appearing in a visible form to humans as a man.
Next week we will learn the fourth, .
Peace and Blessing!
Check out this short video series on Spiritual beings by our friends over at The Bible Project by clicking here. They are amazing and super helpful to better grasp what we will be covering in this series.
Citations:
Faithlife Study Bible. J. D. Barry et al. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible Grand Rapids, Michigan USA Zondervan 2016
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