An Exhortation

[Esaias]

Gill says this:

but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them; which he had in the preceding verse called himself by. This is not to be understood absolutely; for it is certain that he had made himself known by this name, and this name was known unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Genesis 15:6, and but comparatively, as some think; that is, he was not so much made known to them by the one name as the other; though it may be questioned whether the one was more used in speaking to them than the other; wherefore others think, as Saadiah Gaon, that the word only is to be supplied, as in Genesis 32:28 and the sense to be, that by his name Jehovah he was not only made known to them, but by his name Elshaddai, and others also; and others reconcile the difficulty thus, that though the name Jehovah itself was known to the patriarchs, by which they were assured that God is eternal, immutable, and faithful to his promises; yet he was not known as to the efficacy of this name, or with respect to the actual performance of his promise, as he now would be by delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt, and bringing them into the land of Canaan; though perhaps, by reading the words with an interrogation, the clause will appear more plain, "and by my name Jehovah was I not known to them?" (t) verily I was. Josephus (u) says, this name was not before made known to men, and that it was not lawful for a man to speak it; and this is the common notion of the Jews, that it is ineffable, and not lawful to be pronounced, and therefore they put Adonai and Elohim in the room of it, and the vowel points of these words to it, which is a false and superstitious notion: this name was known among the Heathens; it is the same with in the oracle of Apollo (w); and Diodorus Siculus (x) says, that with the Jews Moses is said to give laws from a God called "IAO", and is the same which in Philo Byblius (y) is called Jevo; and both are no other than a corruption of Jah or Jehovah; and perhaps the of the Pythagoreans (z), by which they swore, is the same with the tetragrammaton, or this word of four letters, with the Jews.

(t) Vid. Noldium, No. 788. (u) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 4. (w) Cornelius Labeo de oraculo Apoll. Clarii apud Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 18. (x) Bibliothoc. l. 1. p. 84. (y) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. c. 9. p. 31. (z) Carmin. Aurea Pythagor. l. 47. & Hierocles in ib. p. 225, 277. Porphyr. de Vita Pythagor. p. 189.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

But wouldn't that imply that prior to Exodus God was not known by the name YHVH?

When He appeared "b' flame of fire" it means He appeared in conjunction with (or even "as") the flame of fire. Thus He says He was previously known "b'God Almighty but not YHVH"? You say the beth is applied to YHVH by extension (not actually in the text, but rather it's force carries to both El and YHVH?) which, whether it does or doesn't, seems irrelevent to the issue of whether He was known previously "in the character of YHVH as well as God Almighty". Or maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying?

The presence of YHVH (the name itself) in Genesis can be understood as anachronistic, applied by Moses to God in order to strengthen the identification of God with the name YHVH for the reader. Not much different than 1 Cor 10 when Paul mentions Christ as the Rock during the wilderness wanderings (nobody in Moses' day was referring to the Rock as "Christ" obviously).

Not saying you are wrong, I'm just trying to understand the line of reasoning in your position.

I think we have to draw a distinction between whether or not the pre-Exodus 6:3 figures of the Bible found in Genesis were aware of the name YHVH in terms of its sound and pronunciation, and to Whom It pertained, and thus so called Him, versus understanding just what that name meant and the weight It carried.

YHVH is a Hebrew name, and certainly of Semitic origin. But did the men and women of Genesis speak Hebrew, even if they spoke some form of a proto-Semitic tongue?

I would put it like this:

I have interacted with you many times here at AFF. I know you simply as Esaias. But is that your real name, or just a screenname by which you chose to have yourself identified? You previously posted under a different screenname, well before my time here, as well. I believe it was Eliseus (correct me if I'm wrong)???

So, if either of the two screennames you've posted under are not your real name, you could, of yourself, say:

I posted at AFF by the name Eliseus/Esaias, by but my real name (fill in the blank) I was not known to them...

In such an instance, we do very much know you, who you are, what you believe and teach, something of your temperament and personality, etc. But in another way, since and if we do not know your real name, the one given to you by your parents at birth, there is, in some true sense, a lack of knowledge, on our part, of just who you really are (and I'm not asking you to share your real name, here, just for the record).

Regarding myself, I am consistently known and addressed as Votive Soul, occasionally truncated to VS, by I have also shared that my name is Aaron.

Does the fact that you and others know my name is Aaron mean you know me, as a person, who and what Aaron is, where I'm from, what I'm like in my life away from AFF, and etc.? Would it not be better to say that you know me as Votive Soul?

I submit it's a similar case with the Genesis figures and YHVH. They knew that YHVH was His name. Several people, including Eve and Abraham address God specifically by that name. If it's mere anachronism, then we have Moses forcing YHVH into the mouths of people who actually didn't speak that name. That seems a dubious, perhaps even specious, line of reasoning.

In the Scriptures, names are often given to people and even places, for very specific reasons, commonly due to etiological significance. No one's name in the Scriptures is by accident. They each seem to mean something important about the person or place who/which bear the respective name, even if other people in the text, or we ourselves as readers of the text, do not realize it.

The same is with God and His name YHVH. We sometimes do not realize the significance of God's name, and cannot see the etiological reasons why His name is YHVH, as opposed to something else.

I think the same is true with the Genesis figures. They knew His name, that YHVH was a term by which God Himself was denoted, and so, they applied the appellation correctly. But to truly know God as YHVH, to know what YHVH means, and its etiological significance to the people of Israel and the Covenant at Sinai they would eventually receive?

It seems that is what was lost on people like Abraham, et al. To them, El Shaddai was the chief manner in/by which YHVH revealed Himself.

Otherwise, we have a major contradiction in the foundational texts of the Bible. And that doesn't seem reasonable to me to conclude. Now, if there is a different, better explanation that accounts for all the data, different and better than there being a Beth Essentiae in Exodus 6:3, then I am all ears.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Gill says this:

but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them; which he had in the preceding verse called himself by. This is not to be understood absolutely; for it is certain that he had made himself known by this name, and this name was known unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Genesis 15:6, and but comparatively, as some think; that is, he was not so much made known to them by the one name as the other; though it may be questioned whether the one was more used in speaking to them than the other; wherefore others think, as Saadiah Gaon, that the word only is to be supplied, as in Genesis 32:28 and the sense to be, that by his name Jehovah he was not only made known to them, but by his name Elshaddai, and others also; and others reconcile the difficulty thus, that though the name Jehovah itself was known to the patriarchs, by which they were assured that God is eternal, immutable, and faithful to his promises; yet he was not known as to the efficacy of this name, or with respect to the actual performance of his promise, as he now would be by delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt, and bringing them into the land of Canaan; though perhaps, by reading the words with an interrogation, the clause will appear more plain, "and by my name Jehovah was I not known to them?" (t) verily I was. Josephus (u) says, this name was not before made known to men, and that it was not lawful for a man to speak it; and this is the common notion of the Jews, that it is ineffable, and not lawful to be pronounced, and therefore they put Adonai and Elohim in the room of it, and the vowel points of these words to it, which is a false and superstitious notion: this name was known among the Heathens; it is the same with in the oracle of Apollo (w); and Diodorus Siculus (x) says, that with the Jews Moses is said to give laws from a God called "IAO", and is the same which in Philo Byblius (y) is called Jevo; and both are no other than a corruption of Jah or Jehovah; and perhaps the of the Pythagoreans (z), by which they swore, is the same with the tetragrammaton, or this word of four letters, with the Jews.

(t) Vid. Noldium, No. 788. (u) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 4. (w) Cornelius Labeo de oraculo Apoll. Clarii apud Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 18. (x) Bibliothoc. l. 1. p. 84. (y) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. c. 9. p. 31. (z) Carmin. Aurea Pythagor. l. 47. & Hierocles in ib. p. 225, 277. Porphyr. de Vita Pythagor. p. 189.

I have read that a pre-eminent OT scholar by the name of Walter Kaiser, Jr. believes the same as the text I emboldened above.

Apparently, the quote is from his book The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant but I do not have the source in hand, only the footnote that quotes him.

For more on Kaiser:

http://www.walterckaiserjr.com/default.html