The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, speaking in the bush, called himself by a single name that is not a name, ‘I will be who I will be’, which is an explanation of a name used thousands of times throughout the Hebrew scripture, Yahweh.14 By itself, the story gives no reason to suppose that these personal gods had previously been linked by a single name. In effect the story tells of the recognition of a new god, and that point is underlined on a further occasion when God says to Moses about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that ‘by my name [Yahweh] I did not make myself known to
...more
