A famous passage in the Bible, Book of Exodus 3:13-15, relates the following dialogue between God and Moses:
יג וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים, הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָא אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם, אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם; וְאָמְרוּ-לִי מַה-שְּׁמוֹ, מָה אֹמַר אֲלֵהֶם
“Moses answered God, “So I will go to the sons of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you.” They will ask me what is his name; what will I answer them?”
יד וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה; וַיֹּאמֶר, כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֶהְיֶה, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם.
God said to Moses, “I am who I am. Thus you shall speak to the sons of Israel: I AM sent me to you’.”
טו וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כֹּה-תֹאמַר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם; זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם, וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר.
Again, God said to Moses, “Thus you shall speak to the sons of Israel: ‘He who sent me to you is THE LORD (YHVH), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. This is my name forever, and by it you will remember me from generation to generation.
God makes himself accessible to mankind, offering us his name. In verse 14, the first part of this revelation tells us that God uses the verb “to be” to tell us about Himself. He says that he is called “I am”, “ehyeh” in Hebrew. It’s the first person of the unaccomplished mode of the verb to be, indicating an action that lasts, that isn’t finished, ongoing or future.
So God, who breathed his spirit into us, who called us into being, into existence, defines himself as the one who is, not the one who began to be and then will no longer be, as is the case with created beings, but as the one who is since ever and for ever. This is a very important statement, because in many philosophies, when we speak of God, we take precautions, fearing that we may be too familiar with Him and reduce Him to someone who is within our reach, on our same level. So we often hear God referred to as a superessence, a way of being that is not exactly like ours, like we are. His being is different from ours. Yet here in the Bible passage, God makes Himself very close to us and tells us that this being in which we participate is Him.
In verse 15, God’s name is used in a four-letter form, which no one can pronounce. This is the sacred name of God, revealed to Moses; its four letters are “YHVH”, yod, he, vav, he. This name is not pronounced by the Jewish people, for several reasons.
Firstly, naming someone, calling him by his name, implies putting oneself on the same level as him, and so in the case of a person whose authority requires the expression of respect, forms of respect are used, such as here the word “Lord” or “my Lord”, which in Hebrew is Adonay.
But it’s also possible that even if we wanted to pronounce God’s name, we couldn’t do it. Let’s take a look at the letters that make up this sacred word. Each of these letters is present when we want to decline the verb to be in its various forms:
- In the perfect form, used for past tense, completed actions, the 3rd person, is written: “HYH” and is pronounced it “hayah“, meaning “it has been”. This form also indicates the verb to be, as such, because these three letters constitute the fundamental elements of the root of this verb, as for all verbs the three letters of the 3rd person of the perfect mode are considered to be its root, the essential element that determines the verb and serves to construct all its forms.
- in the imperfect (unaccomplished, continuous form) used for future tense, habitual, or ongoing actions, in the 3rd person, the root is preceded by a yod “Y”, so we write “YHYH” and pronounce it “yihyeh“.
- In Hebrew, there are also different aspect of the verb, expressing the type of action, such as the intensive, or causative, meaning to do with greater intensity or make something existist. This aspect is expressed by doubling the second letter of the root. But roots with the letter yod “Y” in the second position are called weak in grammar, because sometimes yod “Y” can be replaced by vav “V”.
If we take the four letters of the sacred name, the Tetragrammaton, “YHVH”, we simultaneously find the letters used to form the different forms of the verb to be:
- the yod “Y”, which is used to form the unaccomplished (imperfect, still ongoing or future) action when we want to say “it is” or “it will be”. But the yod in also present in the middle of the two “h” for the perfect form “hayah“.
- the he “H”, which constitutes the first and third letter of the root expressed by the accomplished (perfect) form hayah “HYH”, meaning “it was”, “he has been”.
- the vav “V”, which indicates intensive, causative action, which makes being, which gives being. This can be deduced by analogy with the verb “to live” ḥayyah where the middle letter Y, considered “weak”, is replaced by a V in order to express an intensive, causative aspect. This replacement appears clearly in Eve’s name, derived from the verb “to live” (ḥayah) similar to the verb hayah, to be. Eve in Hebrew is written “Ḥ-V-H” and pronounced “ḥavvah” with an aspirated “ḥ”, different from “h”. Genesis chapter 3, verse 20 gives us the etymology of this name, telling us: “He called her Eve (ḥavvah) for she was the mother of all living (ḥay)”. Eve is then the giver of life: ḥavvah is here the intensive factitive form of the verb ḥayah. The second letter yod is substituted by vav to express the intensity of the action, to give life and not simply to live. I’m the same way, the HVH havvah form of the verb to be hayah contained in the four letters of the tetragrammaton can be read in the sense of giving the being, make something be. So, also the intensive, factitive, unaccomplished (imperfect) form is present in the four letters YHVH according to the form yehavveh, give the being, make something be as an unaccomplished (imperfect) action, always ongoing also in the future.
Often, to express the reality of God who is outside time and fills all time, we say of Him that He was (hayyah), He is, He will be (yihyeh), He gives being (havvah). So, if we wanted to put into a single word all the letters of the verb to be that are used to say this, we’d have yod, he, vav and he again. Of course, we can’t pronounce such a word because we’re obliged to express these different forms one after the other, but we could represent all these letters together in writing, in images, to tell us about the infinite being of God, who at the same time is and continues to be: he was before we were, he will be after us, he has called us to be and keeps us in being, he makes us be. Now, we could see all this in the four letters of God’s name, and tell ourselves that our own little fragile being also participates in this being who makes us exist and has put his breath in us.