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14 God replied to Moses: I am who I am.[a] Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.

15 God spoke further to Moses: This is what you will say to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever;(A)
    this is my title for all generations.

16 Go and gather the elders of the Israelites, and tell them, The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have observed you and what is being done to you in Egypt;

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Footnotes

  1. 3:14 I am who I am: Moses asks in v. 13 for the name of the One speaking to him, but God responds with a wordplay which preserves the utterly mysterious character of the divine being even as it appears to suggest something of the inner meaning of God’s name: ‘ehyeh “I am” or “I will be(come)” for “Yhwh,” the personal name of the God of Israel. While the phrase “I am who I am” resists unraveling, it nevertheless suggests an etymological linking between the name “Yhwh” and an earlier form of the Hebrew verbal root h-y-h “to be.” On that basis many have interpreted the name “Yhwh” as a third-person form of the verb meaning “He causes to be, creates,” itself perhaps a shortened form of a longer liturgical name such as “(God who) creates (the heavenly armies).” Note in this connection the invocation of Israel’s God as “Lord (Yhwh) of Hosts” (e.g., 1 Sm 17:45). In any case, out of reverence for God’s proper name, the term Adonai, “my Lord,” was later used as a substitute. The word Lord (in small capital letters) indicates that the Hebrew text has the sacred name (Yhwh), the tetragrammaton. The word “Jehovah” arose from a false reading of this name as it is written in the current Hebrew text. The Septuagint has egō eimi ho ōn, “I am the One who is” (ōn being the participle of the verb “to be”). This can be taken as an assertion of God’s aseity or self-existence, and has been understood as such by the Church, since the time of the Fathers, as a true expression of God’s being, even though it is not precisely the meaning of the Hebrew.

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am(A) has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[b] the God of your fathers(B)—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob(C)—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name(D) forever,
    the name you shall call me
    from generation to generation.(E)

16 “Go, assemble the elders(F) of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob(G)—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen(H) what has been done to you in Egypt.

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Footnotes

  1. Exodus 3:14 Or I will be what I will be
  2. Exodus 3:15 The Hebrew for Lord sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for I am in verse 14.