In the Hebrew the question, “What is his name?”, is not asking if his name is Yahweh, or Baal, or Ra or Isis. The Hebrew word mah translated “what?” is looking for information concerning the meaning of the name and the power that god has. In other words, “What can this God do for us in this situation?” Remember, Egypt was full of gods that included:
- Ra the Sun god,
- Hathor the music god,
- Sekhmet the god of destruction,
- Nut the sky god,
- Geb the god of the earth,
- Osiris the god of the dead,
- Seth the desert god,
- Horus god of pharaoh,
- Isis the god of magic,
- Thoth god of wisdom,
- Anubis the god of embalming,
- Ma’at the god of justice,
- Amun the god of creation,
- Bastet the cat god
- …plus, a hundred more.
What did this God of Moses bring to the game in Egypt, a land that was already swamped with gods of every kind of power, for every type of being and from every realm? What is the power, the authority, the realm this God Yahweh controls and operates in? Will he be able to help us against the god Atum who created everything including himself? Will Moses' God be able to compete with the god Shu who separated the earth from the sky and creates the cool, dry air? Would the gods Khnum and Hapi, the gods of the Nile, be too much for Yahweh? Or, the fertility gods Hapi and Heqt, who are depicted as frogs, be more than Yahweh could handle. What about the gods of health and healing? Sekhmet, Serapis and Imhotep could strike the Israelites with diseases if Yahweh made these gods who controlled epidemics and healing angry.
Yahweh answered Moses question: “I am who I am!” Moses was to tell the nation of Abraham’s descendents, “ ‘I am’ has sent me to you.”
“I am” will rock these minor league gods. “I am” doesn’t merely have power over the power of the sun. “I am” doesn’t simply use the resources in the desert. Nor is “I am” a cat, or a bird, or a frog. “I am” is the eternal self-existing God who is the source of all thought, wisdom, life, creation, power, light…everything, including these rebel spirits posing as deities. Moses is to tell Israel, “Yahweh has this.” They are not to worry. |
|
 |
