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. (Genesis 6:2-3)

Hebrew language in the OT does not contain a word for the concept of self-existence, as many today like to think of “I AM.” That is more of a Greek philosophical concept. The Hebrew phrase means “to be actively present.” An in-depth study of the Divine Name shows that it means, “I am and will be present for you in whatever way you need Me to be.” God acts on behalf of His creation and His people. He is an ever-present active and ultimate force in the universe. To put it in grammatical terms, He is the subject that needs be no predicate. All things are qualified in some way, but God is ultimately without qualification. Theologians describe Him in terms of what He is not. For example, His power is without limit (or qualification). We attach qualifiers to relate this concept, such as “very powerful” or “more powerful than a hurricane.” But these are wholly inadequate for giving God His just due. His power is so great that He created all things that are powerful, and so He is without limit in His power.

The “I AM” is the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Rom 4:17). “For in Him we live and move and exist…” (Acts 17:28). Job recognized that in His “hand is the life of every living thing” (Job 12:10). “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). These all coalesce into the meaning of the name Yahweh.

God said to Moses that He was now going to show Himself in the characterization of His name. He was going to show Himself to be Yahweh, the One who acts on their behalf. All the pagan gods did not act, for they were not real, but simply stone or wood statutes. God did not allow Himself to be represented by any earthly images (see Exodus 20:4), because He is to be seen in what He does. And to Moses and the people of Israel, He was now going to deliver them from their Egyptian slavery.

While the name Yahweh does appear in Scripture before Moses’ time (e.g. Genesis 2:4, 4:26), something new was going on. God was now making Himself known more fully than He did to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. They knew Him primarily as “God Almighty” but their descendants would now begin to understand by His actions that He is “LORD” (Yahweh), the One who acts on their behalf to meet their needs. A new relationship was about to begin.

LORD, I am overwhelmed by the knowledge that You are the One who has committed to being there for me.