The name Yahweh would then designate “a God who creates” in the sense of “a God who enters a relationship.”c This could be a rather generic epithet for a personal god, but it could also lay the foundation for the key concept of a covenant God, for this engendering becomes synonymous with choice (= election). We might recall that besides naming and giving a function, creating often involves separating—so here Israel is separated out, given a function (Exod. 19:5–6), and in that way Yahweh is causing them to exist as his covenant people.
