Exodus 3:14

3:14 God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” ¹  And he said, “You must say this ²  to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Isaiah 43:13

43:13 From this day forward I am he;

no one can deliver from my power; ³ 

I will act, and who can prevent it?”

Isaiah 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ⁴  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

Isaiah 44:8

44:8 Don’t panic! Don’t be afraid! ⁵ 

Did I not tell you beforehand and decree it?

You are my witnesses! Is there any God but me?

There is no other sheltering rock; ⁶  I know of none.

Isaiah 46:9

46:9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! ⁷ 

Truly I am God, I have no peer; ⁸ 

I am God, and there is none like me,

Isaiah 48:12

48:12 Listen to me, O Jacob,

Israel, whom I summoned!

I am the one;

I am present at the very beginning

and at the very end. ⁹ 

Revelation 1:8

1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” ¹⁰  says the Lord God – the one who is, and who was, and who is still to come – the All-Powerful! ¹¹ 

¹ tn The verb form used here is אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh), the Qal imperfect, first person common singular, of the verb הָיָה (haya, “to be”). It forms an excellent paronomasia with the name. So when God used the verb to express his name, he used this form saying, “I am.” When his people refer to him as Yahweh, which is the third person masculine singular form of the same verb, they say “he is.” 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 well (see also Ruth 2:13; Ps 50:21; Hos 1:9). The Greek translation of the OT used a participle to capture the idea, and several times in the Gospels Jesus used the powerful “I am” with this significance (e.g., John 8:58). The point is that Yahweh is sovereignly independent of all creation and that his presence guarantees the fulfillment of the covenant (cf. Isa 41:4; 42:6, 8; 43:10-11; 44:6; 45:5-7). Others argue for a causative Hiphil translation of “I will cause to be,” but nowhere in the Bible does this verb appear in Hiphil or Piel. A good summary of the views can be found in G. H. Parke-Taylor, Yahweh, the Divine Name in the Bible. See among the many articles: B. Beitzel, “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 Exodus 3 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; and R. Youngblood, “A New Occurrence of the Divine Name ‘I AM,’” JETS 15 (1972): 144-52.

² tn Or “Thus you shall say” (also in the following verse). The word “must” in the translation conveys the instructional and imperatival force of the statement.

³ tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “No one can oppose what I do.”

⁴ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

⁵ tn BDB 923 s.v. רָהָה derives this verb from an otherwise unattested root, while HALOT 403 s.v. יָרָה defines it as “be stupefied” on the basis of an Arabic cognate. The form is likely a corruption of תיראו, the reading attested in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a.

⁶ tn Heb “rock” or “rocky cliff,” a title that depicts God as a protective refuge in his role as sovereign king; thus the translation “sheltering rock.”

⁷ tn Heb “remember the former things, from antiquity”; KJV, ASV “the former things of old.”

⁸ tn Heb “and there is no other” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

⁹ tn Heb “I [am] he, I [am the] first, also I [am the] last.”

¹⁰ tc The shorter reading “Omega” (ὦ, w) has superior ms evidence ({א¹ A C 1611}) to the longer reading which includes “the beginning and the end” (ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος or ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος, arch kai telo" or Jh arch kai to telo"), found in א*^,2 1854 2050 2329 2351 Ï^A lat bo. There is little reason why a scribe would have deleted the words, but their clarifying value and the fact that they harmonize with 21:6 indicate that they are a secondary addition to the text.

¹¹ tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”