10 replies to this topic

[Maidservant]

Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.

What does this mean in Hebrew?

Is this the sound of "I am that I am" . . . or is there another meaning on it?

Can it also mean "I am forever becoming who I am becoming"? Or is that too much in it?

Thanks.

Edited by Maidservant, 24 April 2012 - 12:50 PM.

[Vance]

I assume you are referring to Ex 3:14.

According to this,
http://www.scripture.../OTpdf/exo3.pdf

it means "I shall become who I am becoming".

Hope that helps.

Edited to add,
It is interesting to compare that with verse John 8:58 as found here,
http://www.scripture.../NTpdf/joh8.pdf

Edited by Vance, 24 April 2012 - 01:31 PM.

[maklelan]

Its meaning is not perfectly clear, but it is something along the lines of "I will be what I will be." Various emendations have been suggested, like "I am the one who is," or "I am  the one who causes to be," or stuff like that, but it's just an old folk etiology for the name Yhwh that connects the name with the verb "to be."

[Zakuska]

Vance, on 24 April 2012 - 01:26 PM, said:

I assume you are referring to Ex 3:14.

According to this,
http://www.scripture.../OTpdf/exo3.pdf

it means "I shall become who I am becoming".

Hope that helps.

Edited to add,
It is interesting to compare that with verse John 8:58 as found here,
http://www.scripture.../NTpdf/joh8.pdf

Adds some meaning to the following verses too:

Alma 34
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

[Maidservant]

Ok, thank you.  So is this the construction that "I AM THAT I AM" in that verse (Exodus 3:14) comes from?  Or is there another construction for that?

And does "asher ehyah" have anything to do linguistically with "asherah" or is that not anything?

[volgadon]

Maidservant, on 24 April 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

Ok, thank you.  So is this the construction that "I AM THAT I AM" in that verse (Exodus 3:14) comes from?  Or is there another construction for that?

No, that is the correct construction.

Quote

And does "asher ehyah" have anything to do linguistically with "asherah" or is that not anything?

No, not at all.

[Robert F. Smith]

Maidservant, on 24 April 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.

What does this mean in Hebrew?

Is this the sound of "I am that I am" . . . or is there another meaning on it?

Can it also mean "I am forever becoming who I am becoming"? Or is that too much in it?

The conventional 1611 KJV "I AM THAT I AM," represented the best scholarship of that day.  However, we can say a good deal more now.

Following the analysis by William F. Albright, the use of the 1^st person qal-causative-indicative verbal form of Hebrew hwy as ’ehye [Exodus 3:14 = egō eimi in John 8:58, where “I am” in the KJV is discussed in a footnote: “The term I AM used here in the Greek is identical with the Septuagint usage in Ex. 3:14 which identifies Jehovah. (Cp. Also John 4:26.)”[1]], the actual meaning is “I-Cause-to-Come-Into-Existence; It-Is-I-who-Create” (Exodus 3:14),  i.e., a divine epithet rather than name.  Jesus’ use of that very term, undoubtedly in Hebrew, was considered blasphemy by Jews there in the temple precincts in John 8:58-59.

The current LDS “Bible Dictionary” provides the meaning for Jehovah as “Unchangeable One; the Eternal I AM” (Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2 ǁ2 Nephi 22:2; Isaiah 26:4),[2] even though Jehovah is the modern, inaccurate Germanic-English form of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH, presumably pronounced Yahwe, and meaning “He-(Who)-Causes-to-Come-Into-Existence; It-Is-He-Who-Creates” (Exodus 6:3), the 3rd masculine singular form of the epithet in Exodus 3:14 (cf. the jussive Yahu),[3]  Hebrew YHWH (with conventional vowels of ‘Adonai “My-Lords”), was, according to F. M. Cross, originally descriptive of "’El as patron deity of the Midianite League in the south."  YHWH first appears in 14th & 13th century B.C. lists of Edomite toponyms in Egyptian as yhw3, to be read as ya-h-wi, or the like.[4] Cf. YHWH in the 9th cent. B.C. Mesha Stele, line 18, in Moabite.  It also appears in the 8th cent. B.C. Khirbet el-Qom and Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions as “Yahweh and his Asherah”; translated as either Greek IAW, or LXX Greek Κύριος.


[1] W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (London, 1968), 147-149, nn. 44-52; Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1957), 15-16.
[2] Cf. LDS 1979 “Bible Dictionary,” 710-711.
[3] LDS 1979 KJV Holy Bible, 1342 n. 58b.
[4]  F. M.  Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 60-75; cf. D. N. Freedman, “The Name of the God of Moses,” JBL, 79/3 (1960), 156.

Edited by Robert F. Smith, 25 April 2012 - 05:05 AM.

[Maidservant]

Thank you, everyone .  Lovely.

[Ron Beron]

maklelan, on 24 April 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

Its meaning is not perfectly clear, but it is something along the lines of "I will be what I will be." Various emendations have been suggested, like "I am the one who is," or "I am  the one who causes to be," or stuff like that, but it's just an old folk etiology for the name Yhwh that connects the name with the verb "to be."

Isn't there some kind of linguistic conflation with the Sumerian myth?  I also thought it was also used to indicate that God (El) was now designated as Ya (or Sumerian Ea).

[maklelan]

Ron Beron, on 25 April 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

Isn't there some kind of linguistic conflation with the Sumerian myth?  I also thought it was also used to indicate that God (El) was now designated as Ya (or Sumerian Ea).

I don't see any link to anything Sumerian, but Exod 3 and 6 make an effort to connect Yhwh with the patriarchal deity El. They were originally two separate collections of traditions with distinct deities involved, and when they were conflated, the different authors had different ways of combining the deities. One group simply interpolated Yhwh's name in the earlier traditions (for instance, saying his name was called upon since the days of Adam's grandson), while the other simply stated in Exod 6:3 that Yhwh used to be called El Shaddai.

[Ron Beron]

maklelan, on 26 April 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

I don't see any link to anything Sumerian, but Exod 3 and 6 make an effort to connect Yhwh with the patriarchal deity El. They were originally two separate collections of traditions with distinct deities involved, and when they were conflated, the different authors had different ways of combining the deities. One group simply interpolated Yhwh's name in the earlier traditions (for instance, saying his name was called upon since the days of Adam's grandson), while the other simply stated in Exod 6:3 that Yhwh used to be called El Shaddai.

I agree completely with your conclusion, but isn't there some kind of paronomasia referenced here.  For example, when YHWH says I Am he uses the Hebrew "eyah" which could also refer to YA, the regional god of the Midianites.  Ya, at least as thought by F. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel ( Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1921), pp. 79-80.9-80.79-80, has a close linguistic similarity to Ea of the Sumerians.
I did a little more reading on this and read that while the example given reflects  both a verb, ehyeh (based on the verb haya or "to be") it also reflects a future reference as well.  The NET Bible offers the following commentary

Quote

Some commentators argue for a future tense translation, “I will be who I will be,” because the verb has an active quality about it, and the Israelites lived in the light of the promises for the future. They argue that “I am” would be of little help to the Israelites in bondage. But a translation of “I will be” does not effectively do much more except restrict it to the future. The idea of the verb would certainly indicate that God is not bound by time, and while he is present (“I am”) he will always be present, even in the future, and so “I am” would embrace that as wellPs 50:21; Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name: A Case of Biblical Paronomasia,” TJ 1 (1980): 5-20;
C. D. Isbell, “The Divine Name ehyeh as a Symbol of Presence in Israelite Tradition,” HAR 2 (1978): 101-18;
J. G. Janzen, “What’s in a Name? Yahweh in and the Wider Biblical Context,” Int 33 (1979): 227-39; J. R. Lundbom, “God’s Use of the Idem per Idem to Terminate Debate,” HTR 71 (1978): 193-201;
A. R. Millard, “Yw and Yhw Names,” VT 30 (1980): 208-12;
R. Youngblood, “A New Occurrence of the Divine Name ‘I AM,’” JETS 15 (1972): 144-52.

"Truth is enlightenment, and enlightenment is of God.  Shedding light on what passes as truth is not only permitted; it is necessary, the highest calling."

Erasmus

• Back to top