Understanding Exodus 6:2-3
Notes of Ed Nelson
Sometimes the way the Hebrew text is translated into other languages causes mind-puzzling questions in the minds of readers. Such is the case with Exodus 6:2-3 with its puzzling statement in English that contradicts the Book of Genesis.
God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh.
And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai,
but by my name, Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them.”
On first reading you may quizzically ask yourself, “How strange! What is this? How can it be?”
If you have read the book of Genesis [Bereishit], many times you have read the personal and intimate name of God, Yahweh. In our English Bibles, typically the name Yahweh is rendered as “LORD”—usually with all letters capitalized.
Yet our English language Bible makes a clear statement in Exodus 6:3 that, on the contrary, God did not reveal Himself to the patriarchs in Genesis as Yahweh, as LORD, but as El Shaddai, or God Almighty.
Do you know of any English Bibles that render this verse significantly different that would yield a different view? You have to look hard to find one. Consider these English Bible versions:
Brenton’s English Septuagint: “And I appeared to Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, but I did not manifest to them my name Lord.”
The Jerusalem Publication Society Tanakh (1917): “… and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Jehovah I made Me not known to them.”
JPS Tanakh (1985: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHWH.”
The King James Version: “And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
New American Bible: “… and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them.”
New International Version: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”
Young’s Literal Translation: “… and I appear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; as to My name Jehovah, I have not been known to them …”
Virtually, all read the same way. The translations agree that God withheld the revelation of his Name Yahweh until He revealed it to Moses.
Attempts to solve the contradiction. When I first took a serious look at this text years ago, many possible explanations became apparent, none which seemed helpful. Most, if not all, so it seemed, smacked at the integrity of the Hebrew text of Genesis or, specifically, of Exodus 6:3 as being corrupt or in serious error. Some solutions were exotic.
In the final analysis, we were posited with the view that either Exodus 6:3 is right—that God did not reveal Himself as Yahweh before the time of Moses, or, if He did as Genesis claims, then Exodus 4:3 was wrong, or corrupt. The whole argument tasted flat and misdirected.
Common acceptance based on our English translations seems to be that this so-called ‘statement’ by Yahweh marked a new point, or juncture, in the linear progression of God’s revelation through the course of history. In other words, we need to forget we read the name Yahweh in the book of Genesis scores of times. Somehow, we have to explain the paradox away.
With this perspective we were to believe that God revealed Himself to the patriarchs in Genesis only within a tightly restrained context of being El Shaddai. As El Shaddai, the patriarchs only knew Him in terms of awe and power as Almighty God. For some reason, it is supposed by this convention, that when He disclosed Himself to Moses, it was at a personal and intimate level by his name, Yahweh.
However, this conclusion has formidable problems. We should not be so easily persuaded to throw out what we’ve learned in Genesis—that God revealed Himself as Yahweh from the beginning.
A simple Hebrew approach to the textual problem. Let’s take an up-close look at what Moses heard from Yahweh in Exodus 6:2-3 from a simple and satisfying Hebraic explanation. But before we do, let’s review the book of Genesis in regard to the divine self-disclosure as Yahweh.
God’s personal name Yahweh appears as early as Genesis 2:4 where the text reads:
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were
created, in the day that Yahweh Elohim made earth and heaven.
What do we make of this appearance of the personal name of God so early in the Bible? The fact is that the personal name Yahweh appears 203 times in the forty-nine chapters of Genesis.
Eve, Adam’s wife, referred to God as Yahweh. At the birth of her firstborn son Cain she declared, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of Yahweh” (4:1).
When Adam’s grandson, Enosh, was born to his son Seth, the Bible says that “then men began to call upon the name of Yahweh.”
In Genesis 8:20 the Bible states that Noah “built an altar to Yahweh.” In 9:26, Noah is quoted as saying, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God [Elohim] of Shem.”
Similarly in Genesis 10:9, a saying of the times about Nimrod, the mighty hunter, was that he was “a mighty hunter before Yahweh.”
If the verses above haven’t raised eyebrows on what was meant in Exodus 6:2-3, surely Genesis 12:1-8 does:
Now Yahweh said to Abram: “Go forth from your country, and
from your relatives, and from your father’s house to the land
which I will show you …
So Abram went forth as Yahweh had spoken to him … Yahweh
appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this
land.” So he built an altar there to Yahweh who had appeared to
him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of
Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on
the east. And there he built an altar to Yahweh and called upon
the name of Yahweh.
Six times Yahweh is mentioned in these verses. What’s more, a personal relationship with Yahweh is clearly indicated as well as the use of his Name.
We need not go further through Genesis since the problem is adequately framed already. Suffice it to say that of the 203 times the name of Yahweh is mentioned in Genesis, 154 refer to his Name in connection with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
Is Exodus 6:3 a declarative sentence to begin with? For the far greater part, English Bible versions tend to indicate that Yahweh spoke to Moses entirely in declarative sentences. This, of course, includes the clause: “But by my name, LORD [Yahweh], I did not make myself known to them.”
A fundamental aspect of conversation among Hebrew people is their instinctive propensity to ask lots of questions. Learning in the synagogue, for example, was often a matter of the teacher asking questions to students to generate debate. Jewish people are notorious for asking questions. Jesus [Yeshua] often asked questions, and in a very Hebrew way, He answered questions asked Him with other questions in return. So it is throughout the Bible where Yahweh speaks as well as the Hebrew people.
Look at Matthew 21:23-25 where a question asked Jesus [Yeshua] is answered by a question:
When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of
the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By
what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you
this authority?”
Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one thing, which if you
tell me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.
The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or
from men?”
The point is important to bear in mind when translating Bible texts. With Hebrew people naturally asking questions, we must look for signals in the Hebrew text that would show the so-called declarative sentence of Exodus 6:3 to be an interrogative statement.
The problem is that the ancient Hebrew language did not have a built-in signal or indicator—like a question mark—in written form to say that a question was being asked.
In reading the Hebrew Bible, often we do not know if a question is being asked or not until we read the whole context of the passage. Does the sentence make sense without it inferring a question is being asked? Then it is likely a statement. Does the sentence make sense only by understanding it to be a question? Then it is probably a question.
Often an interrogative statement, that is, a question, will include a negative word like “not” to offset it from the rest of the declarative statements. If we find a negative in a sentence that translates as “not,” we should consider if the negative is to be understood as a flag to alert us that a question is being asked.
This is the case with Exodus 6:2-3. It has a negative “not” in it, whereas the other sentences around it do not.
So this is how the text ought to read in English:
God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh.
And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai.
And by my name, Yahweh, did I not make myself
known to them?”
The answer is a resounding yes. Seventy-six percent of all references to Elohim by his personal name Yahweh occur in the narratives of Genesis that pertain to Abraham, the Isaac, and Jacob.
Now the passage makes good sense, and it flows with continuity and purpose. “I did not …” should read as an interrogative, “Did I not …?”
We may further confirm this to be the reading by analyzing the biblical narrative according to its Hebraic literary style.
Exodus 6:2-9 comes to us in the form of “reverse concentric symmetry.” The passage is composed in a literary fashion like dawing a bull’s eye target where the central point is the main emphasis. All the other surrounding segments of the main point are in parallel fashion like concentric circles.
In our passage below, you see the concentric symmetry moving toward and away from the center point represented by the letter “F”. A and A¹ correlate as do the other letters in succession leading to the main point “F” in the center—“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, I am Yahweh.”
By going to the very outside edge to A¹ we see that this central point was carried out—“So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel.”
Observe the literary structure of the text:
A God spoke further to Moses and said to him:
B “I am Yahweh.
And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai.
And by my name Yahweh, did I not make myself known to them?
C “I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan,
the land in which they sojourned.
D “Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel,
because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage.
E “And I have remembered my covenant.
F “Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh.’
E¹ “And I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will deliver you from their bondage.
I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.
D¹ “Then I will take you for my people.
And I will be your Elohim.
And you shall know that I am Yahweh your Elohim
who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
C¹ “I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and I will give it to you for a possession.
B¹ “I am Yahweh.”
A¹ So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel.
Did you notice that B and B¹ also correlate synonymously, as do all letters A-E with A¹-E¹? With the synonymous correlation of B and B¹, we find that the content of both passages is Elohim’s declaration, “I am Yahweh.” It’s also the central point in “F”, but, in this central point, instructions are added for Moses to tell the sons of Israel his personal Name so they will know by what authority and power he acts.
With B and B¹ being synonymous, the literary structure emphasizes the continuity in history of his self-disclosure as Yahweh—first in Genesis to Adam, then through time to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from which springs forth the people of Israel. The literary structure further corroborates what the interrogative statement makes—Yahweh is the one and only Yahweh of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He has appeared again to Moses to keep his covenant to liberate and return his people back to their promised land.
By adding the interrogative, “And by my name Yahweh, did I not make myself known to them?” the sons of Israel should recognize the higher authority of Moses over Pharaoh amidst the troubles they face as slaves.
If the sentence was not a question, then the whole literary symmetry would be off kilter. The fact that the symmetry is preserved by understanding this line as an interrogative clause further substantiates the fact that this statement is a question.
Yahweh was acting on their behalf. The Hebrew slaves should understand that Moses was sent by Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Divine help and deliverance was on the way. They should not be afraid, but be hopeful and supportive. Their time of tribulation was ending soon.
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