⁶ “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

The name of God was revealed to Moses in the burning bush story in Exodus 3:14, but He clarified shortly after:

God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them. (Ex 6:2–3)

The name “LORD” actually is used in Scripture before this, but God had not made Himself known by that name. What does that mean? It means God had not manifested His name; He had not yet shown Himself to be the kind of God as His name would indicate. So what does His name mean? According to the best research among biblical scholars, God’s name Yahweh (“LORD”) means, “I will be for you whatever your need is; I will act on your behalf in a real, tangible way.”

So we see from this point forward, when God speaks definitively to His people, He emphasizes His name. For example, when giving the commandments, God begins with, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:2-3). He is the One who acted on their behalf by bringing them out of their bondage. All through the giving of the Law of Moses, we see this phrase, “I am the Lord your God.”

Yahweh is unlike the false gods in many ways, primarily because He acts in real, tangible ways, whereas the false gods that are simply figments of man’s imagination can do nothing, because they don’t exist.

“I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images.” (Is 42:8)

“I, even I, am the Lord, And there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, ‘Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?’” (Is 43:11-13).

This is the Name that Jesus revealed while on the earth—and as we shall soon see, Jesus’ applying this name to Himself brought the wrath of the religious leaders, but the allegiance of His followers.

Lord God, help me to reverence Your name because of Who You are.