The Meaning of “LORD” in Hebrew

In this series we’re talking about the ancient Jewish prayer called the Shema, found in Deut 6. This has been prayed by Jewish believers for centuries every morning / evening. It demonstrates the character of God, and shows us how to respond to him.

• Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

Last week: talked about “Hear” or “Listen” – the Hebrew word Shema. The very next phrase talks about God, who he is and what he is like. The heart of this prayer is: “Love the Lord your God…” But to love him, to declare allegiance to him, we need to know who this God is. 

The God We Love Is Eternal

“The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” Just 8 words in English. 4 in Hebrew. 

The word “Lord” is “Yahweh”. It’s related to the Hebrew word “to be”. It means that God is eternal and self-existent. He has always been God and always will be. This is revealed in Exod 3, where God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. He told Moses that his job was to bring Israel out of Egypt, where they were slaves. Moses was thinking about how Israel would respond when he showed up with that message.

• Exodus 3:13-15 “They will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.”

God identifies himself a “I AM WHO I AM” or simply “I AM”. That name means “the one who is”. This is the name God uses to relate to his people. By the way, older Bible translations refer to God as “Jehovah.” The name Yahweh would never have been spoken by Jewish people, because it was considered too holy. Whenever the name occurred in the Old Testament, Jews would subsititute the word “adonai”, which means “Lord”. So English Bible translators took the consonants from Yahweh and combined them with the vowels from adonai, to come up with “Jehovah”. 

The name communicates that God is ETERNAL. There was never a time when he did not exist. He is simply “I AM” – eternally in the present tense. To make it even more clear, there was never a time when he did not exist AS GOD. He has always been everything it means to be God, from eternity past. The New Testament reveals the same concept.

• Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come – the Almighty One.”

The name Yahweh also communicates that God is SELF-EXISTENT. If God is simply “I AM”, then he’s not dependent on any other being or force for his existence. We are not self-existent. We would have NO existence if God had not created. We require God to continually sustain us. 

• Psalm 90:2,5,12 Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God…. (5) You sweep people away like dreams that disappear. They are like grass that springs up in the morning. In the morning it blooms and flourishes, but by evening it is dry and withered…. (12) Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.

God’s timeless nature makes us reflect on the limited span of human life. We’re dry grass: here today, gone tomorrow. God is like the mountains: seemingly there forever.

That’s just the first word in this phrase: “Yahweh”. Let’s look at two more words.

The God We Love Is the Only God There Is

In Deuteronomy, Israel is about to enter Promised Land. The people of that land – and the land of Egypt, which they were leaving – had dozens of different gods. Against that backdrop, this verse says: “The Lord is our God, the Lord ALONE.” This is the word “one”. Moses says: there is only one God, and this God is unique. While every religion has a concept of God, only one God actually exists.  

• Isaiah 44:6,8 This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God. (7) Who is like me? Let him step forward and prove to you his power. Let him do as I have done since ancient times when I established a people and explained its future. (8) Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim my purposes for you long ago? You are my witnesses—is there any other God? No! There is no other Rock—not one!”

God is not one god among many others in the universe. He is not “one God for us”, but the only God, period. Only one being is self-existent. This God is not the same god other religions serve. Some people say: we all worship the same God. Not so. The God of the Bible is not the same as the god of Islam. The biblical God is unique.

If God is “ONE”, what about the Trinity? The biblical doctrine of Trinity does not undermine the claim that there is only one God. This one God is a tri-personal being. So sometimes we say, “the TRIUNE God.” The idea of the Trinity doesn’t come from just one verse. It’s not taught here in Deuteronomy 6, but it is not impossible in here either. This doctrine develops over the entire course of the Bible, from the whole teaching of the Bible taken together. There is no single place in Bible that says: “There is one God eternally existing as three persons.” Yet the Bible unwaveringly speaks of only one true God, not three. At the same time, it also reveals the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God, and it portrays them as distinct persons, not just one person playing separate roles. 

So when we consider the nature of the God of Deut 6, we would expect the same to be true of Jesus. Is he eternal?

• Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Again: this is not just interesting info. The nature of God calls for a response. When I think about him, it fills me with awe! that the God we worship is so unique, and so different from any concept of deity that humans could invent. This God is so far beyond me / my ability to grasp.

• Romans 11:33-36 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! 

“For who can know the LORD’S thoughts? Who knows him enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back?” 

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

Thinking about the nature of this God calls us to get on knees and worship him!

If all this is true about God: he is the one and only true God, he invites us into a personal relationship with himself as he did with Israel, then it follows…

Our Deepest Reverence Belongs to This God Alone

We’re going to anticipate our next episode a bit. After introducing God, Deut 6 says, “Love the Lord your God…” Next time, we will introduce what “love” for God means. Let’s build a bridge to that. We saw last week: Jesus taught the Shema and made it of first importance. 

• Mark 12:28-30 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

The point here is this: because the Lord our God is the one true God, we don’t give our deepest reverence to any other being. Just as God doesn’t share his existence with any other God, we don’t share the honor / devotion of our hearts with anyone / anything else on a par with him. Nothing compares to this God. So our whole heart / soul / mind / strength should be focused on Yahweh alone. 

This points us to the Ten Commandments, because the first four commandments (Exodus 20:3-11) reinforce exactly what the Shema is saying about God. The first commandment says, “You must not have any other god but me.” The second adds this: “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them…” We don’t make little images of gods anymore. But all of us have things we’re tempted to love & desire more than God. Third, “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God….” And fourth: “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” because the Sabbath is to be a day “dedicated to the Lord your God.”

All of this can be summed up by the word “reverence.” Reverence means honor and respect deeply felt and outwardly expressed. Reverence is not stuffy religiosity reserved for church – far from it! It is a vibrancy toward God that animates our lives every day.

The Takeaway

We see today: knowing about God – the real God – is important. But knowing about God is not enough. This knowledge should lead us to give him the response he deserves: humility before him; a deep awe of him; the decision to put him first above everything else. The rest of the series will help us understand what all of that means.