Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The LORD, 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, and this is My memorial-name to all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15)

A nation was being born; the usual protocol was for the people to chose a god. But breaking historical precedent, God, the creator of the universe, was not chosen by the Jews. He chose them. While Abraham was the “father” of the Jewish people, Moses was the man under whom the Jewish people became a nation. It all began at the burning bush incident in the Sinai wilderness. Moses—who had fled Egypt toward the end of the 400 years of slavery of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—was tapped by God to lead them all out of Egypt and into the promised land of Canaan, which Jacob an­­d his 12 sons had earlier left during a famine.

After being in exile from Egypt and away from his Jewish kinsmen, Moses had one key question he anticipated they would ask (essentially): “What God told you to be our leader? What is his name?” It would take more than a mere man to lead them out of slavery in Egypt. Moses was convinced of the presence of deity, but how could he convince the Jews who had not seen Him for 40 years?

In accommodating Moses’ concern, God graced him with the revelation that stands at the pinnacle of uniqueness of Jewish monotheism. This God was different from all the other gods of the nations in the ancient world. As the story plays out, of course, it is revealed that this is the one and only true God: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me” (Is 44:6). And this one true God became the absolute center of Jewish existence. The battle cry, or what Jews today call, the Shema, was this: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:4–5).

So what does His name, LORD, mean? What does God mean when He tells Moses, “’I AM WHO I AM’; and when He says, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you’ ”?

Lord, help me discover more intimately who You are; so that I might love You with all my heart and with all my soul and and with all my might.”