Before approaching the subject of this chapter, we will first consider
the words of Moses, “And they shall say unto me, What is His name? what
shall I say unto them?” (Exod. iii. 13). How far was this question,
anticipated by Moses, appropriate, and how far was he justified in
seeking to be prepared with the answer? Moses was correct in declaring,
“But, behold, they will not believe me, for they will say, The Lord
hath not appeared unto thee” (ib. iv. 1); for any man claiming the
authority of a prophet must expect to meet with such an objection so
long as he has not given a proof of his mission. Again, if the
question, as appears at first sight, referred only to the name, as a
mere utterance of the lips, the following dilemma would present itself:
either the Israelites knew the name, or they had never heard it; if the
name was known to them, they would perceive in it no argument in favour
of the mission of Moses, his knowledge and their knowledge of the
divine name being the same. If, on the other hand, they had never heard
it mentioned, and if the knowledge of it was to prove the mission of
Moses, what evidence would they have that this was really the name of
God? Moreover, after God had made known that name to Moses, and had
told him, “Go and gather the elders of Israel, ... and they shall
hearken to thy voice” (ib. xvi. 18), he replied, “Behold, they will not
believe me nor hearken unto my voice,” although God had told him, “And
they will hearken to thy voice”; whereupon God answered, “What is that
in thine hand?” and he said, “A rod” (ib. iv. 2). In order to obviate
this dilemma, you must understand what I am about to tell you. You know
how widespread were in those days the opinions of the Sabeans; all men,
except a few individuals, were idolaters, that is to say, they believed
in spirits, in man’s power to direct the influences of the heavenly
bodies, and in the effect of talismans. Any one who in those days laid
claim to authority, based it either, like Abraham, on the fact that, by
reasoning and by proof he had been convinced of the existence of a
Being who rules the whole Universe, or that some spiritual power was
conferred upon him by a star, by an angel, or by a similar agency; but
no one could establish his claim on prophecy, that is to say, on the
fact that God had spoken to him, or had entrusted a mission to him;
before the days of Moses no such assertion had ever been made. You must
not be misled by the statements that God spoke to the Patriarchs, or
that He had appeared to them. For you do not find any mention of a
prophecy which appealed to others, or which directed them. Abraham,
Isaac, or Jacob, or any other person before them did not tell the
people, “God said unto me, you shall do this thing, or you shall not do
that thing,” or “God has sent me to you.” Far from it! for God spoke to
them on nothing but of what especially concerned them, i.e., He
communicated to them things relating to their perfection, directed them
in what they should do, and foretold them what the condition of their
descendants would be; nothing beyond this. They guided their fellow-men
by means of argument and instruction, as is implied, according to the
interpretation generally received amongst us, in the words “and the
souls that they had gotten in Haran” (Gen. xii. 5). When God appeared
to our Teacher Moses, and commanded him to address the people and to
bring them the message, Moses replied that he might first be asked to
prove the existence of God in the Universe, and that only after doing
so he would be able to announce to them that God had sent him. For all
men, with few exceptions, were ignorant of the existence of God; their
highest thoughts did not extend beyond the heavenly sphere, its forms
or its influences. They could not yet emancipate themselves from
sensation, and had not yet attained to any intellectual perfection.
Then God taught Moses how to teach them, and how to establish amongst
them the belief in the existence of Himself, namely, by saying Ehyeh
asher Ehyeh, a name derived from the verb hayah in the sense of
“existing,” for the verb hayah denotes “to be,” and in Hebrew no
difference is made between the verbs “to be” and “to exist.” The
principal point in this phrase is that the same word which denotes
“existence,” is repeated as an attribute. The word asher, “that,”
corresponds to the Arabic illadi and illati, and is an incomplete noun
that must be completed by another noun; it may be considered as the
subject of the predicate which follows. The first noun which is to be
described is ehyeh; the second, by which the first is described, is
likewise ehyeh, the identical word, as if to show that the object which
is to be described and the attribute by which it is described are in
this case necessarily identical. This is, therefore, the expression of
the idea that God exists, but not in the ordinary sense of the term;
or, in other words, He is “the existing Being which is the existing
Being,” that is to say, the Being whose existence is absolute. The
proof which he was to give consisted in demonstrating that there is a
Being of absolute existence, that has never been and never will be
without existence. This I will clearly prove (II. Introd. Prop. 20 and
chap. i.).
God thus showed Moses the proofs by which His existence would be firmly
established among the wise men of His people. Therefore the explanation
of the name is followed by the words, “Go, gather the elders of
Israel,” and by the assurance that the elders would understand what God
had shown to him, and would accept it, as is stated in the words, “And
they will hearken to thy voice.” Then Moses replied as follows: They
will accept the doctrine that God exists convinced by these
intelligible proofs. But, said Moses, by what means shall I be able to
show that this existing God has sent me? Thereupon God gave him the
sign. We have thus shown that the question, “What is His name?” means
“Who is that Being, which according to thy belief has sent thee?” The
sentence, “What is his name” (instead of, Who is He), has here been
used as a tribute of praise and homage, as though it had been said,
Nobody can be ignorant of Thy essence and of Thy real existence; if,
nevertheless, I ask what is Thy name, I mean, What idea is to be
expressed by the name? (Moses considered it inappropriate to say to God
that any person was ignorant of God’s existence, and therefore
described the Israelites as ignorant of God’s name, not as ignorant of
Him who was called by that name.)—The name Jah likewise implies eternal
existence. Shadday, however, is derived from day, “enough”; comp. “for
the stuff they had was sufficient” (dayyam, Exod. xxxvi. 7); the shin
is equal to asher, “which,” as in she-kebar, “which already” (Eccles.
ii. 16). The name Shadday, therefore, signifies “he who is sufficient”;
that is to say, He does not require any other being for effecting the
existence of what He created, or its conservation: His existence is
sufficient for that. In a similar manner the name ḥasin implies
“strength”; comp. “he was strong (ḥason) as the oaks” (Amos ii. 9). The
same is the case with “rock,” which is a homonym, as we have explained
(chap. xvi.). It is, therefore, clear that all these names of God are
appellatives, or are applied to God by way of homonymy, like ẓur and
others, the only exception being the tetragrammaton, the Shem
ha-meforash (the nomen proprium of God), which is not an appellative;
it does not denote any attribute of God, nor does it imply anything
except His existence. Absolute existence includes the idea of eternity,
i.e., the necessity of existence. Note well the result at which we have
arrived in this chapter.