Introduction
The interpretation of the Hebrew ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh [1][2] (‘I AM that I AM’, KJV, Douay, JPS, etc.) has been the subject of contrary opinion in journal articles and commentaries in the latter half of the twentieth century with some scholars opting for a meaning something like “I AM the one who is/exists” (or “I AM he who is/exists”); this proposal is known as the “existential” reading as it sees the significance of the assertion in terms of God’s being or existence. The proposal has been most fully defended in Hebrew philological scholarship in the 1954 article of E. Schild, “On Exodus iii 14 — ‘I AM that I AM’”.[3] As a proposal for the translation of the Hebrew of Exod 3:14, it is supported in the LXX rendering (“And God spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Being [’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh translated by egō eimi ho ōn]; and He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: The Being has sent me unto you”: Brenton, 1851) and so it is quite an old idea.[4] As a proposal in Hebrew grammar, however, it was refuted by B. Albrektson in his 1968 article “On the Syntax of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in Exodus 3:14”.[5] Nevertheless, the theological proposal that the assertion has something to do with God’s existence or being continues to dominate scholarship looking for coherence in Exodus 3, and it has also influenced Christadelphian writing. Most translations retain ‘I AM that/who I AM’ (KJV, RV, RSV, NIV, NASB, and ESV); some include a marginal note offering ‘I will be that/who/what I will be’ (RV, RSV, NEB, NIV, and ESV). For a Bible student without Hebrew, this weight of supporting testimony is significant. The only question that s/he faces is whether to read the verb as a present “I AM” or a future “I will be”, or perhaps juggle both in their mind.
The purpose of this article is to consider the correct translation. The problem with this task is that the philology of the expression has been carried out by commentators with an eye on the theology of the expression, and this has influenced what they have said about the syntax and linguistics. An obvious illustration of this would be the curious capitalization, ‘I AM’, which the translators do not follow for the verb elsewhere. The two jobs—linguistics and theology—can and ought to be separated. We should consider the grammar before we look at its broader theological significance, and in this article we will restrict theological proposals to our “Conclusion” section where will sketch directions for further study. It is not our purpose to criticize contrary recent Christadelphian writing on this clause;[6] in any event, older Christadelphian writing takes the same view as our paper;[7] our interest is solely with the question of translation.
Description and Pattern
On a syntactic level, philology is the study of patterns in sentences and an observed pattern is abstracted and turned into a rule of grammar. The construction ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh is one that is comprised of a verbal form, ’ehyeh, with an embedded (prefixed) pronominal element, and a relative clause with the same verbal form and the relative expression ’asher. The main clause contains no explicit noun or pronoun, and is not, as such, a nominal clause; likewise, the relative clause does not contain a nominal expression.
The above description of Exod 3:14a (“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM”, KJV) is unexceptionable and the question that concerns us is: what else might we say about the construction? While accepting the theoretical possibility of alternative systems of grammar, grammatical description within the discipline of Hebrew Philology seeks to be simple and straightforward and simply a matter of observing patterns of usage. We will start our analysis with two uncontroversial patterns about ’asher.
Pattern 1
The classic reference Hebrew grammar, Gesenius-Kautzsch (GKC),[8] identifies dependent relative clauses and separates main clauses where the governing substantive (e.g. a noun in the main clause) is the subject of the relative clause from those where governing substantive is the object of the relative clause. Such clauses stand subordinate to the main clause and attribute a quality, state or verbal idea to the main clause.[9]
1) Examples where the governing substantive is the subject of the relative clause:
…the water which (’asher) was below the firmament… Gen 1:7 (KJV)
This statement has two clauses and it is clear that the subject of the main clause “the water” is the subject of the relative clause.
2) Examples where the governing substantive is the object of the relative clause:
And on the seventh day God ended his work which (’asher) he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which (’asher) he had made. Gen 2:2 (KJV)
This statement has two sentences each with a main clause and a relative clause dependent on the main clause; each sentence relates a noun/object ‘work’ to a verbal form ‘he had made’.
The above subject/object distinction is one pattern of usage for ’asher; it is not controversial or difficult. It is simply that ’asher can relate two clauses in a relationship of dependency and the governing substantive may be implied or stated in the subject or object position of the relative clause. We might add that where the governing substantive is a person, ’asher might be translated as ‘whom’ as in ‘the woman whom thou has placed with me’ (Gen 3:12); likewise, if the governing substantive is about a place, ’asher might be translated ‘where’, and so on.
Pattern 2
Another pattern is one where there is a pronoun implied or stated in the subordinate clause, for example,
Every moving thing where it (is) alive (’asher hu’hay) shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. Gen 9:3 (KJV revised)
We have revised the KJV here to indicate where the pronoun ‘it’ is in the Hebrew, which brings out its “subject” role. GKC notes that the pronoun is more often present in subordinate negative clauses.[10] Schild observes that it is this feature—the use of a retrospective or resumptive pronoun that shows ’asher itself is not a pronoun.[11] Notice in Gen 9:3 the translators have translated ’asher as ‘where’ following the lead of the verb in the relative clause, which indicates a circumstantial qualification of every moving thing—where they are alive.
GKC constructs the rule that for ’asher constructions, “…if the governing substantive forms part of a statement made in the first or second person, the retrospective pronoun (or the subject of the appositional clause) is in the same person”.[12] A typical example would be:
I am the Lord that (’asher) brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees Gen 15:7 (KJV)
Here, after the ’asher, the verbal form for ‘brought’ is in the first person to agree with the substantive main clause, ‘I (am) the Lord’. This rule (the rule of concord) is perhaps trivial, but it is nevertheless a pattern of Hebrew usage. Notice here that the translators have translated ’asher as ‘that’ because they see a stress on the fact of “the bringing out of Ur” in the assertion.
Schild qualifies GKC by observing that the agreeing retrospective pronoun need not be the subject of the appositional clause. For example, take Gen 45:4:
I am Joseph whom (’asher) you sold—me Gen 45:4 (KJV revised)
Schild observes[13] that the implied subject of the relative clause in Gen 45:4 is “the brothers” and the Hebrew is a verbal form of the second person, ‘you sold’. The relative clause has a first person pronoun ‘me’ which picks up the first person reference of the main clause, ‘I AM Joseph’, but the ‘me’ is in the object position. GKC therefore needs to be modified so that it no longer stipulates that the retrospective pronoun is the subject of the appositional clause (i.e. the bracketed qualification needs to be removed). Hence, Schild proposes a revision to GKC: “If the governing substantive is the subject of a relative clause and is, in the main clause, equated with, or defined as, a personal pronoun, then the predicate of the relative clause agrees with that personal pronoun”.[14]
Pattern 3
The first two patterns describe dependent relative clauses. We can see that supplementary information is given in the subordinate clause about the subject of the main clause. Another pattern, the idem per idem pattern, has instead a focus on ’asher.[15] There are several examples of this idiom in the Hebrew Bible:
1 Sam 23:13
…[they] went withersoever (ba’asher) they went (KJV revised)
2 Sam 15:20
I (am) going where (’asher) I (am) going (KJV revised)
Exod 33:19
I will be gracious to whom (eth ’asher) I will be gracious (KJV revised)
This pattern repeats the verb on either side of ’asher and with the same person (1st, 2nd, 3rd person). The statement as a whole is indefinite and the focus is on the relative word ’asher. This will be translated according to the sense that best fits the verb either side of ’asher (going/where; being compassionate/whom, etc.). This pattern, unlike the first two patterns, is not about further delimiting a governing substantive (e.g. a noun) in the main clause; rather the pattern involves an independent relative clause insofar as the verbs on either side of ’asher are distinct statements and the two statements are related by ’asher. As a further illustration of the distinctiveness of this pattern, we can compare Exod 3:14a with 1 Chron 21:17.
1 Chron 21:17
I (am) he (’ani hu’) who (’asher) has sinned and done very wickedly (NASB revised)
Exod 3:14a
I AM (’ehyeh) that (’asher) I AM (KJV)
In Chronicles we have a personal pronoun ‘I’ coupled with another personal pronoun ‘he’ in what is a common pattern ‘I-he’; translators read this as a simple copula pattern ‘I am he’. As Albrektson observes,[16] the pronoun ‘I’ (’ani) serves as a kind of antecedent which governs the verb of the relative clause; Exod 3:14a has no such element, being just a first person verbal form.
In the Chronicles example, ’ani hu’ is a nominal clause with a verbal subordinate clause (predicate). Albrektson’s observation is that in Hebrew where the main clause is a nominal clause, and the subordinate clause is a predicate, the antecedent has an explicit noun or pronoun and not just a pronominal concept embedded in a verbal form;[17] accordingly, Exod 3:14a is not part of this pattern whereas 1 Chron 21:17 is part of this pattern.
Schild proposed ‘I am the one who is’ as the translation for Exod 3:14a and this makes the relative clause into a predicate. In such a case, the patterns of use in Hebrew would lead us to expect a noun or pronoun in the main clause, but we do not have either element. Accordingly, Schild is wrong[18] and the best pattern for understanding Exod 3:14a is the conventional idem per idem pattern. This is why B. S. Childs states in his commentary on Exodus, “Schild’s denial of the circular idem per idem construction is not convincing”.[19]
An attempt to rescue Schild has been made by D. J. McCarthy. He concedes that “Albrektson may be right in terms of normal grammar”, and he observes that the sentence, ‘I am the one who is’ would properly be ’ani hu’ ’asher ’ehyeh.[20] However, he speculates that the first ’ehyeh in ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh has replaced the normal ’ani hu’ to form an assonance pattern with Yahweh in Exod 3:15. Accordingly, we should read the meaning “I am the one who is” even though the grammar is wrong for this meaning.
McCarthy’s 1978 article hides a speculative assumption about assonance, namely that another ’ehyeh is needed and that the first ’ehyeh in Exod 3:12 and the second ’ehyeh of Exod 3:14a is not enough to strike a play on words with Exod 3:15 and its Yahweh. The choice before the exegete is therefore that God either used normal grammar and an idem per idem form or that God felt the need for three uses of ’ehyeh in quick succession and that normal grammatical rules should be sacrificed. The argument is one from silence and the assonance is struck with three forms; it is just that there is no intended “I am the one who is”.
Existential and Non-Existential Readings
We can be certain that the correct syntax of the Hebrew is as the English translations have it: either ‘I AM that/what/who I AM’ or ‘I will be who/what I will be’. The rendering ‘I AM the one who is’ is an error based on insufficient analysis of the syntactic patterns of Hebrew. The LXX, ‘I AM the Being” (Brenton), is also incorrect for the same reason as it does not translate the Hebrew but is some sort of interpretative guess at the underlying point of the expression.[21] This leaves the question to be answered: are the margins or the main text of the translations right, or are both options right?
There are two issues: the tense of the verb (I am/I will be) and the rendering of the relative word ’asher; we will first consider the relative word ’asher. The choice of ‘what/that/who’ is between an existential and non-existential reading and some have even argued that both readings are legitimate; we now need to explain this choice. In choosing ‘that’ or ‘what’ to translate ’asher in ‘I AM that/what I AM’ translators direct a reader to think of the assertion in existential terms—God is making a statement about his nature and/or his existence; the assertion is about God’s person. The alternative rendering ‘I will be what I will be’ shifts the focus of the reader to the future and what God will be but it is still a statement about his existence/nature.
This is a rough characterization and it is worth qualifying what we mean by “existence/nature”. It appears nothing specific is said by ‘I AM that/what I AM’ and the speaker instead relies on what is already known by the other party to the conversation. Hence, nothing is specifically said about God’s manner of existence or his attributes—his nature. It is a mistake therefore to select a quality about God and affirm that he is saying something about that quality. Thus, while God can affirm his existence saying ‘I exist’ using the Hebrew verb “to be”, this is not what he does in ‘I AM that/what I AM’. Further, we might remember that when God wants to affirm that he is the only true God, he does so in Isaiah by saying something like, “I am the Lord, and there is none else” (Isa 45:18).[22] Similarly, we cannot expand our analysis and say God is here affirming his “self-existence” or his “eternal existence”. This may be good exhortation and true but it is not exegesis of ‘I AM that/what I AM’ simply because it violates the indefiniteness of this statement by adding our specification of what is said in philosophical and theological terms. If we translate the Hebrew as ‘I will be what I will be’ we can still make the same mistake if we specify the meaning of the assertion in terms of God’s existence or nature; we might mistakenly affirm that God is saying he will always be God, the existent One.
The same point applies if we eschew the notion of existence and think of God’s attributes or character, but here the point is more obvious. If we said that by ‘I AM that/what I AM’ God was saying that he was all-knowing, it would be clear that we were violating the indefiniteness of ‘I AM that/what/who I AM’ by selecting and adding ourselves the attribute “all-knowing”. We can see that ‘who’ readily lends itself to the translation of ’asher when we read the assertion in terms of God’s character, but the mistake is the same as when we use ‘what/that’ and read the assertion about God’s existence or nature.
Existential readings violate the indefiniteness of the idem per idem form and they do this by taking a cue from the verb “to be” and offering a gloss along the lines of God’s being or existence. This may be good theology, and it can be found in church commentaries, but it is not an exegetical approach. A non-existential reading respects the indefiniteness of the syntactic form and looks to the context to establish the meaning of the relative word ’asher and the meaning of the assertion as a whole, and this is a quite different approach to the text.
In translating an idem per idem form, the relative word ’asher is rendered in the way that is considered a best fit with the verb; hence, we might have “I will go where I will go” or “I will create what I will create”, and so on. The verb “to be” (hyh) would fit with ‘who’, ‘what’ or ‘that’ depending on the context; syntax alone cannot settle the correct rendering.
Exodus 3:14 is an answer given by God to Moses in reply to his expectation that the Israelites will not believe or accept him as a messenger. Moses anticipated that the Israelites would challenge his claim to speak on behalf of God. The anticipated question, ‘What is his name?’, suggests that he expects they might not accept him as one of their own (John 1:11). The first answer that Moses is given to say involves the verb “to be”: “So shall you speak to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you’…” (v. 14b, KJV). The second answer is parallel to the first, “So you shall say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh…has sent me to you’…” (v. 15, KJV revised).
The first answer, ‘I AM has sent me to you’ is unusual in placing a verbal form into the position where a name or title might be expected. However, in conversation, a play on words easily accounts for this happening. The play is obvious from the parallel—’ehyeh and Yahweh are the two words with which God constructs a play. Hence, it is a mistake to assert that ’ehyeh is a name; lexically, it is a verbal form—nobody says that it is a name in other places. The name of God is Yahweh, but it is beyond the scope of this essay to elaborate upon this play on words and the meaning of the divine name. Our point is simply the observation that there is a play on words in a conversation between Moses and God. This conversational dynamic is set up by the initial ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh, and this reply is given in response to Moses’ hesitancy and self-effacing stance. Such a stance is all about who is Moses that he should be sent to Israel. Hence, the reply of God is focused on who he can be and spoken to Moses it asserts that God can be Moses.
This analysis of the context is not existential; we have not noted elements in the conversation that concern God’s existence or his nature. That God is from everlasting to everlasting, that he is self-existent, eternal; that he is good, kind or gracious – none of these aspects figure in the conversation. Accordingly, ’asher should not be translated by ‘what’ or ‘that’ but by ‘who’ and in this choice there lies an ambiguity.
In situations of representation and delegation a person acts for and represents another person. In colloquial speech we might say, “You can be my eyes and ears” or “You can act for me and speak for me in court”, and so on. In such a situation, the person selected to be a representative, say a junior clerk, might be self-effacing and hesitant. To such a person, a senior solicitor might say, “I can be who I want to be in court; you are to act for me”. The ‘who’ embraces both the senior solicitor and the junior clerk in a relationship of representation, and on this non-existential reading Exod 3:14a is an assertion that states God can be Moses.
To sum up: the existential reading elaborates ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in terms of God’s existence or nature; the non-existential reading leaves ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh indefinite and seeks to specify the ’asher from context, and this shows a concern with who is Moses and whether and how he can represent God.[23]
Verbal Aspect
The verbal form ’ehyeh is not uncommon (55x, BibleWorks), and it is usually translated as “I will be”, as it is in Exod 3:12 (KJV). This statistical preference for a future rendering on the part of translators makes this the preferred choice for Exod 3:14a unless there is a reason in the context to prefer “I am”.
In teaching grammars, ’ehyeh will be classified as an “Imperfect” with regard to aspect and we need to understand this concept. In their reference grammar (2002), C. H. J. van der Merwe, J. A. Naudé and J. H. Kroeze state,
Not all languages possess a grammatically realized tense system. In some languages verbs conjugate primarily to indicate whether an action is complete or incomplete. Languages which have the grammatical means of indicating that an action is complete or incomplete are described as having an aspect system.[24]
Hebrew is described as having a two aspect system and ’ehyeh, as an Imperfect, is characterized as signifying incomplete action (with Perfect verbs signifying complete action). However, Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze are careful to state that,
Various opinions exist as to whether BH [Biblical Hebrew] has a tense or an aspect system. Older Jewish grammarians, like the more recent grammarians, are of the opinion that BH verb system is primarily a tense system.[25]
On this way of describing matters, the Perfect refers to past time and the Imperfect refers to the present and future or “non-past” time. This is how Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze proceed in their grammar and state that “It is not clear whether in BH it is time that assumes aspect, or aspect that assumes time”, and “BH speakers and narrators had a choice of describing either the aspect or the time of an action”.[26]
The viewpoint presented by Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze is important for our examination of the verb “to be” in Exod 3:14a because commentators, relying on older reference grammars such as GKC, or an older teaching grammar, may mislead by implying that the Hebrew Verb System is all about aspect and not about tense. For instance, the older but still used teaching grammar by J. Weingreen states,
In Hebrew thinking, an action is regarded as being either completed or incompleted. Hebrew, therefore, knows of no past, present, or future tenses, but has instead a Perfect and an Imperfect (which, in a context, lend themselves to a variety of shades in meaning).[27]
This is misleading in that it might cause a reader to deny the presence of tense in the Hebrew Verb System. Hence, a more modern teaching grammar by J. F. A. Sawyer (1976) states,
Because of this, it is not uncommon to find grammarians nowadays making only one distinction, namely, that between “past” and “non-past”.[28]
Accordingly, we can say on a grammatical level that there is tense in the Hebrew Verb System as well as aspect, and that context (and other grammatical features in the context) assists the reader in discriminating the “non-past”. Sawyer associates the Imperfect with the “non-past” (present/future) and the Perfect with the “past”,[29] but it is important to realise that this is a simplification appropriate in a teaching grammar. B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi give a fuller picture of the Imperfect and identify that it is also used for customary and habitual action in the past.[30] The tense that the Imperfect contributes towards and participates in could be past or non-past (present or future).
The Verb “to be” in Hebrew
The verb “to be” is very common (3576x, BibleWorks). It might be queried whether this verb is like other verbs; after all, other verbs have been characterized above in terms of action, and the verb “to be” does not appear to be a kind of action. We should not assume that general descriptions of the Hebrew Verb System apply directly to the verb “to be”. Some teaching grammars may single out the verb for special comment. T. O. Lambdin did so in his 1971 grammar,[31] but a full study is that of G. S. Ogden in a 1971 article in Vetus Testamentum, “Time, and the Verb hyh in O. T. Prose”.[32] His opening analysis for the Imperfect of “to be” is interesting:
In the Semitic languages it is generally understood that the Imperfect represents actions, events, or conditions which are incomplete in themselves. Temporally they may be located in past, present or future time (normally the latter two) but as it is the nature of the action that is more important, the time of its occurrence takes second place.
The examples of hyh in the Imperfect upon examination reveal a temporal reference which is future and in which the nature of the action involved is of considerably secondary importance—in other words, a reversal of the traditional values—for the Imperfect functions primarily as a Future Narrative tense.[33]
Ogden’s analysis is useful as a corrective to those who might argue that the verb “to be” is not about tense but about aspect; it is also useful as a corrective to those who argue that the Imperfect cannot be precise with tense: Ogden’s conclusion is that it is primarily a future narrative tense. In this regard, his conclusion about the Imperfect as a customary and habitual past tense is informative. On this he says “One might therefore be permitted to conclude that this frequentative [his terminology] aspect arises not from within the verb but by association with others”.[34] This observation helps to explain the past tense association of some Imperfect forms of “to be” while allowing his conclusion about its primary role as a future tense to stand.
In any analysis of ’ehyeh, we should tabulate the sentence fragments in which the form occurs in translation (except for Exod 3:14), and this we do for the KJV in the following table.[35]
| Passage | Sentence fragment | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Gen 26:3 | and I will be with thee | God |
| Gen 31:3 | and I will be with thee | God |
| Exod 3:12 | I will be with thee | God |
| Exod 4:12 | I will be with thy mouth | God |
| Exod 4:15 | I will be with thy mouth | God |
| Deut 31:23 | I will be with thee | God |
| Josh 1:5 | I will be with thee | God |
| Josh 3:7 | I will be with thee | God |
| Judg 6:16 | I will be with thee | God |
| Judg 11:9 | …shall I be your head? | Jephthah speaking |
| Ruth 2:13 | …though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens | Ruth speaking |
| 1 Sam 18:18 | …that I should be son in law to the king? | David speaking |
| 1 Sam 23:17 | I shall be next unto thee | Jonathan speaking |
| 2 Sam 7:6 | …have walked in a tent | God |
| 2 Sam 7:9 | I was with thee withsoever thou wentest | God |
| 2 Sam 7:14 | I will be his father | God |
| 2 Sam 15:34 | I will be thy servant | Hushai speaking |
| 2 Sam 16:18 | … his will I be | Hushai speaking |
| 2 Sam 16:19 | … so will I be in thy presence | Hushai speaking |
| 2 Sam 22:24 | I was also upright before him | David |
| 1 Chron 17:5 | …have gone from tent to tent | God |
| 1 Chron 17:8 | I have been with thee withsoever thou hast walked | God |
| 1 Chron 17:13 | I will be his father | God |
| 1 Chron 28:6 | I will be his father | God |
| Job 3:16 | I had not been | Job speaking |
| Job 7:20 | …so that I am a burden to myself | Job speaking |
| Job 10:19 | I should have been | Job speaking |
| Job 12:4 | I am as one mocked of his neighbour | Job speaking |
| Job 17:6 | I was as a tabret | Job speaking |
| Ps 50:21 | I was altogether such an one as thyself | David speaking |
| Ps 102:8 | …and am as a sparrow | David speaking |
| Prov 8:30 | I was by him | Solomon speaking |
| Prov 8:30 | I was daily his delight | Solomon speaking |
| Song 1:7 | why should I be as one that turneth aside | Solomon speaking |
| Isa 3:7 | I will not be an healer | Anonymous |
| Isa 47:7 | I shall be a lady for ever | Babylon speaking |
| Jer 11:4 | I will be your God | God |
| Jer 24:7 | I will be their God | God |
| Jer 30:22 | I will be your God | God |
| Jer 31:1 | …will I be the God | God |
| Jer 32:38 | I will be their God | God |
| Ezek 11:20 | I will be their God | God |
| Ezek 14:11 | I may be their God | God |
| Ezek 34:24 | I the Lord will be their God | God |
| Ezek 36:28 | I will be your God | God |
| Ezek 37:23 | I will be their God | God |
| Hos 1:9 | I will not be your God | God |
| Hos 11:4 | I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws | God |
| Hos 14:6 | I will be as the dew unto Israel | God |
| Zech 2:5 | For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in the midst of her | God |
| Zech 8:8 | I will be their God | God |
While we have chosen to represent the KJV in this table, a similar pattern would be presented if we chose, say, either the RSV or the NASB. Examining the table, it is worth observing first the frequency of ‘I will be’ when God is speaking, and it is perhaps not surprising to see that God would often want to utter ‘I will be with you’ or ‘I will be your/their God’. A second observation is that translators have sensed a tense other than future a few times in the poetic works of Song, Psalms and Job. Thirdly, we have highlighted the five texts when God uses ’ehyeh for continuous action of the past: he was continually walking in a tent and with the people wherever they went (2 Sam 7:6, 9; 1 Chron 17:5, 8); and he treated the people with compassion, like the herdsman that takes the yoke from off the oxen (Hos 11:4).
The five texts where God uses ’ehyeh for continuous action of the past are worth further comment. These are waw consecutive forms and the past tense is partly set by the Perfect verbs in the conversational context:
I have not dwelt…since the time…even to this day… (2 Sam 7:6; 1 Chron 17:5)
…wherever you went/walked (2 Sam 7:9; 1 Chron 17:8)
God had taught Ephraim (Hos 11:3)
Looking at this table as data for the character portrayal of God in the Hebrew Scriptures (under inspiration), we would have to say that God’s idiom in speaking using ’ehyeh is for the future narrative tense unless there are past tense indicators in associated verbs and/or temporal words like ‘since’ or ‘until’.
If we consider the context of Exod 3:14a, its future and forward looking character is apparent:[36]
And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be (’ehyeh) with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I will be (’ehyeh) who I will be (’ehyeh): and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I will be (’ehyeh) hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Yahweh…hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Exod 3:11-15 (KJV revised)
This future cast is set by the conversation being about Moses going to Egypt. Accordingly, even if we were to propose that God could equally have said ‘I AM with you’ rather than ‘I will be with you’ in his use of ’ehyeh in Exod 3:12, the cast of the conversation makes ‘I AM with you’ have an idiomatic future sense. In terms of translation practice it would be obtuse to propose ‘I AM with you’ just because ’ehyeh can be associated with a present tense meaning. The same point would apply if we were to claim that God was saying ‘I have always been with you’, which would equally be an assurance about the future situation that will face Moses in Egypt.
M. Pákozdy notes that the Hebrew equivalent for ‘I AM who I AM’ would be (better, ‘could be’[37]) ’anoki hu’ ’asher ’anoki hu’ or ’anoki howah ’asher ’anoki hu’ rather than ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh.[38] He prefers ‘I shall be that which I shall be’ but usefully draws in the parallel of Hos 1:9 in support of the future tense rendering of Exod 3:14a as it is the only other comparable use of a verbal sentence with ’ehyeh. It says, ’anoki lo ’ehyeh lakem which the KJV has rendered “I will not be your God”. The word ‘God’ is not in the Hebrew as indicated by the KJV italics and Pákozdy offers ‘So I shall not be present for you’. What seems clear is that Hos 1:9 echoes Exod 3:14a in its use of ’ehyeh without an object word such as ‘God’. With the end of the Northern kingdom being prophesied by Hosea, it is appropriate that Hosea would signal the end of God’s relationship with his people by reversing the promise implicit in ‘I will be who I will be’ by saying ‘I will not be present for you’.[39]
Philosophy of Translation
We have argued that the correct translation of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh is ‘I will be who I will be’. Moreover, the context of Exod 3:14a is a conversation that revolves around Moses and not the nature of God. Moses’ opening question is ‘Who am I?’ and it is this question of identity that controls the conversation and dictates the rendering of ’asher as ‘who’ in ‘I will be who I will be’. Accordingly, ‘I will be who I will be’ is the translation suggested by context rather than ‘I will be what I will be’ (or even ‘I AM that I AM’).
There are philosophical mistakes that can be made when discussing translation. For example, it is commonplace and uncontroversial to quote foreign language authors in translation. Thus we might affirm something like, “Descartes said ‘I think therefore I am’”. Notice we have used the notion of saying here and no one marking an essay on Descartes would object, “He did not say that; he wrote in French”. Likewise, when discussing ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh we would make a mistake if we stated that God did not say either ‘I am that/what I am’ or ‘I will be what/who I will be’ because he said something in Hebrew.
In the same way, we would be overly sceptical towards language if we held the view that languages could not in principle be translated. Obviously the industry of translation is successful and the discipline of translating dead languages is very much alive and well. Hebrew has a simpler verbal system than English, but this does not mean that translators do not succeed in mapping English tenses to Hebrew tenses. Furthermore, translators may not claim to capture nuance and all the richness in a target language, but they do endeavour to capture basic senses, and it is the basic sense that is disputed when translators propose ‘I am that/what I am’ and ‘I will be what/who I will be’ as alternatives for ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh. Whether God intended a future sense, a present tense, or both, is a definite question which is capable of determination by examining the evidence of context, the import of the conversation, the grammatical form of the verbs that God used, the syntactic form of his expressions, and the wider pattern of his speech. All these points we have laid out in this paper in favour of ‘I will be who I will be’.
It is therefore a mistake to argue that there are many aspects of meaning contained in the Hebrew verb “to be” and that these aspects are somehow there in the word as it exists in any sentence. A lexicon will highlight the range of meaning for the verb (its “fulness”), but it is a fallacy to import this range into each use of the verb. As the verb is used in a context there are selective factors at work which determine the meaning of the verb. As interpreters and translators we have to make this determination, and as we do the work of translation it is not the case that many aspects of meaning remain “in the word” when we have done the work of translation. The standard dictum is that a word has meaning in a context of use and it is the truth of this dictum that highlights the fallacy of bringing a lexical range of meaning to bear on each use of the verb.
The above fallacy is noteworthy in the argument for an existential reading of Exod 3:14a because the lexical range of meaning for the verb “to be” embraces usage with the past, present and future tense. So, it might be thought, in this connection, that Rev 11:17 is a translation of God’s use of the verb “to be” in Exodus because it reads, “O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come” (KJV). This is not a translation of the divine name nor is it a translation of the verb “to be” in Hebrew or the form ’ehyeh, and this is simply because the contextual use of the verb in Exod 3:14 is specific as to tense (let alone the absence of any “coming” element in the Hebrew verb or the dubious KJV rendering of the Greek).
The expression of the future tense in Hebrew is a function of grammatical form, context, and associated verbs. The future tense in Hebrew is not an English future tense; it would be nonsense to say so as an English future tense is an English future tense. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise the future tense in a Hebrew sentence when we have it and translate it appropriately into English. This is where the table of occurrences of ’ehyeh is important in conveying the likelihood that ’ehyeh is used in a future sense in Exod 3:14a. There is no proof to be had in such tables (to say so would be an error), just an indication of likelihood (to deny this is also an error); to this we should add considerations from the context. In this way we can avoid the fallacy that because a Hebrew verbal form is not sufficient to determine tense, Hebrew does not register a distinction between the past, present and future.
Translators will range in their translation from the literal, almost word for word, to the more free kind of paraphrase. If translators thought that there was a clear meaning in ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh which was about being, existence, eternal existence, self-existence, uncreate existence, then they could have paraphrased accordingly. They did not have to adopt either a future or present tense in their renderings (i.e. I AM/I will be). They could have paraphrased as follows: ‘I AM the one who was, who is, and who will be’. It is a significant counter-argument to the “God is, was and always will be” interpretation that they have given two alternative choices in the main text and in the margin.
We might ask why it is that the translators we have selected have placed ‘I AM that/who/what I AM’ in the main text and ‘I will be that/who/what I will be’ in the margin or as a footnote. There isn’t an explanation in the versions we have examined and the margin/footnote is presented as an alternative. This practice of putting alternatives into the margin/footnote of the Bible is well established. We should note that the margin/footnote is presented as an alternative and this excludes our speculating that the margin/footnote is there because ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh is not fully comprehended in either the main text or the margin/footnote on their own. If we want to know why translators have made their choices, we have to examine their translators’ notes, or in the absence of any specific notes,[40] commentaries and journal articles will supply discussion of the issues at stake from which translators have made their choice.[41]
The influence of church tradition and philosophy should not be discounted in investigating why ‘I AM that/who/what I AM’ is in the main text. Pákozdy speculates that it is due to the influence of the LXX upon the church fathers that led to their linkage of the divine name with the concept of Being.[42] McCarthy sketches examples from church theology and observes,
The passage [Exod 3:14, LXX] “served as the proof text for Christian ontology,” and though this may at times have led to an emphasis on static being, there was still plenty of play for the active aspect: God gave because He supremely was.[43]
McCarthy is supportive of the existential approach and says, “The text has a history not only in the scriptures but in the church, and this has not falsified but enriched the meaning of the text”.[44] Childs notes that “it was the philosophical implications of the passage which evoked such intense interest in Ex.3.14”,[45] and he offers a brief summary of its use in the theology of Eusebius, Augustine,[46] Aquinas[47] and then the Reformers. The Vulgate translates as EGO SUM QUI SUM—‘I AM who I AM’ and this has influenced subsequent church tradition.[48] Moreover, we should also not discount the influence of the Johannine ‘I am’ statements.
It is entirely plausible to attribute the choice of ‘I AM’ in the KJV (and later English versions) with the capitalization to such a history of church doctrine. What is surprising is that ‘I will be who I will be’ has made it back into the margins and footnotes of translations in the modern era. It is a testimony to the strength of the Hebrew patterns of use that this has happened. We might attribute this to the strength of the historico-critical method and its counter-influence to church tradition on the work of translation today.
The church tradition within which a Bible translator works is a potential influence on his/her translation. The same point is true of Christadelphians today who may be influenced by their forebears in their translation of Exod 3:14a. They may lean towards ‘I will be who I will be’ because of a desire to confirm Christadelphian tradition. Against both church and Christadelphian tradition it is worth briefly noting the Old Greek and Aramaic translations.
We have registered the LXX interpretation “I AM the Being”. The early Greek translations of Aquila (mid second century C.E.) and Theodotion (late second century C.E.) render ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh with the future Greek tense esomai hos esomai. In doing this, and unlike the LXX, they have produced a translation that is true to the Hebrew text, both with respect to the idem per idem form and the future tense.[49] If we examine the Jewish Targums,[50] the situation is mixed. Most editions of Onkelos do not translate but merely reproduce the Hebrew. Some editions of Onkelos have the translations, ‘I will be concerning that which I will be’ or ‘I will be with whomsoever I will be’. Neofiti leaves the phrase untranslated while Pseudo-Jonathan has, ‘He who spoke and the world was, spoke, and all of it came about’.[51]
In the 20c., M. Buber (a German-Jewish translator) affirmed,
Ehyeh in our passage means precisely what it means in the same story both before (3:12) and after (4:12 and 15): to be present to someone, to be with someone, to assist someone—except that here the verb is used absolutely, without any specification of whom the one-who-is-there is there for. God does not by this make any theological proposition that he is eternal or self-sufficient; rather he offers to the creature he has made, to his person and his people, the assurance that they are in need of and that renders all magical feats both void and superfluous.[52]
Buber’s perspective is not quite our view but it is close and one way of expanding our view. We have said that God is saying he will be Moses, i.e. manifest himself in Moses. Clearly, this can be expanded in terms of fellowship: God will be with Moses. This is explicit in Exod 3:12 but the change of expression in Exod 3:14a suggests to us God-manifestation and not just redemptive fellowship.
And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Exod 7:1 (KJV)
Where there is a choice in translation it can be difficult to make that choice. Some may suggest instead that both choices are valid. It may be argued that ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh has both a future and a present tense—it says God is and God will be. It might appear that this is an easy option, a way out of conflict, but it is a difficult position to establish in the case of Exod 3:14a. Several obstacles present themselves. First, ambiguity in language use is indicated by context and readers pick up on ambiguity. We cannot just assert that ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh is present and future, we have to show how ’ehyeh is conveying an ambiguous tense to readers. It is not enough to observe that the Imperfect can carry the non-past, because this general rule is instantiated in instances that are either present or future. Second, are there other examples of uses of ’ehyeh where it is both present and future? The table above does not list any such cases on the part of the translators of the KJV. This question concerns pattern—if there is no pattern of ambiguity in which ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh participates as a present and a future tense statement, how can we begin to establish that the tense in Exod 3:14a is both present and future? Finally, the wide ranging semantic values of the verb “to be” (hyh) in Hebrew cannot be cited to establish an ambiguous tense in Exod 3:14a. Any word can have a range of basic senses and a range of subtle overtones, but such are selected in the use of language. It may be good theology to affirm that God is and that God will be, that he self-exists and is always becoming, but this is not strictly linguistic.
By way of a conclusion to our discussion of the philosophy that hangs around grammar, we can say that there are two mistakes to avoid in a discussion of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh: we should not rely on grammatical form alone (’ehyeh) to assert a future tense; and neither should we rely on the tense ambiguity associated with a grammatical form across a semantic field to argue for the necessary presence of a tense ambiguity in a particular instance of that field, i.e. Exod 3:14a.
Conclusion
In this paper we have argued that the correct translation of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh is ‘I will be who I will be’ (obviously). This translation fits the focus of God’s conversation with Moses, which from our perspective is about identity rather than existence and nature. From this point it would be possible to expand on this basis and show how the idea of God being with someone and being that person through God-manifestation is fulfilled in other figures in Israelite history and pre-eminently in Jesus Christ. In this sense Moses is a type of Christ. It would also be possible, separately, to show how the name of God, Yahweh, is related to the verbal form ’ehyeh. These are subjects for other papers. What we can offer is a contrast—a contrast between the philosophical theology that is imposed on a text, a theology about existence and being, (as if God is concerned to make these points with his servant Moses; that this is his need), and an assurance that He will be with his servant and in him through the Spirit. This was correctly emphasized in older Christadelphian writing, and it should not now be diminished in favour of the church tradition that Exod 3:14a is about existence and being.
[1] There is a website devoted to the verse: www.exodus-314.com, presumably written by an orthodox Christian; this paper was written in response to another website, www.dianoigo.com, written by a Christadelphian seeking to promote more orthodox views about the nature of Christ. [Cited 9/9/2009].
[2] In this article we will transliterate all Hebrew (including that which is used in the citations from and the titles of articles according to The SBL Handbook of Style (eds. P. H. Alexander, et. al.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999), 28.
[3] E. Schild, “On Exodus iii 14 — ‘I am that I am’” VT 4 (1954): 296-302.
[4] Philo, Life of Moses, 1.75; C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997).
[5] B. Albrektson, “On the Syntax of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in Exodus 3:14” in Words and Meanings (eds., P. R. Ackroyd and B. Lindars; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 15-28. At SOTS 2007, I spoke to Albrektson and ascertained that the views expressed in his article had remained the same over the years.
[6] A. H. Nicholls, The Name That is Above Every Name (Birmingham: CMPA, 1983), 38, “The idea they represent is not so much that of “being” anyone or anything, but of the absolute existence of Him who only hath immortality”. A. D. Norris, What is his Name? (London: Aletheia Books, 1986), 68-74, “…‘I am the One with Being’ is a sound, if perhaps limited, understanding of what God said to Moses…” (71). More recently, M. Vincent, “The Exodus: A Commentary on Exodus 1-15, D. Moses’ commission – Exodus 3-4 (Part 2)” The Testimony (2001): 305-310, “God’s name is a verb, not just of being, but also of becoming” (308).
[7] J. Thomas, Phanerosis (Centenary Edition; West Beach: Logos Publications, 1969), 59-60; C. C. Walker, Theophany (Birmingham: CMPA, 1967), 22-23, 48-49.
[8] W. Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch; trans. A. E. Cowley; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1910); hereafter, GKC.
[9] B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 184.
[10] GKC, 138.
[11] Schild, “On Exodus iii 14 — ‘I am that I am’” 297.
[12] GKC, 138d.
[13] Schild, “On Exodus iii 14 — ‘I am that I am’”, 298.
[14] Schild, “On Exodus iii 14 — ‘I am that I am’”, 298.
[15] Arnold and Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 185-186.
[16] Albrektson, “On the Syntax of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in Exodus 3:14”, 21, 23.
[17] Albrektson, “On the Syntax of ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in Exodus 3:14”, 24.
[18] For the same critique, see A. Gibson, “Our Man in Hell (1)” The Testimony (1971): 348-352.
[19] B. S. Childs, Exodus (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1974), 50.
[20] D. J. McCarthy, “Exod 3:14: History, Philology and Theology” CBQ 40 (1978): 311-322 (316).
[21] [Ed. JWA] H. B. Swete, the Septuagintalist, in An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Rev. Ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914) believed that “The translators frequently interpret words which call for explanation . . . . Occasionally a whole clause is interpreted rather than translated; e.g., Exod. iii. 14 egō eimi ho ōn” (326-327). Indeed, there are well-known cases of ‘relics of ancient exegesis’, not direct translation of the Hebrew Bible, in the LXX. Later (446-447), Swete cites Exod 3:14 as one of many examples listed which “serve to illustrate the exegesis of the LXX in the historical books”.
[22] [Ed JWA] Assertions of ‘being’, that He is, or exists, by God are rare in the Bible. God affirms promises on the fact that He lives (e.g., Num 14:21); when He does so he uses the verb ‘to live’, rather than ‘to be’.
[23] For a discussion of representation, see N. Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), ch. 3.
[24] C. H. J. van der Merwe, J. A. Naudé and J. H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 141-142.
[25] Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 142.
[26] Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 144.
[27] J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Oxford: Oxford University Press (Clarendon), 1939), 56. This is the current teaching grammar at Durham University and has been for many years under its current Professor of Hebrew.
[28] J. F. A. Sawyer, A Modern Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (London: Oriel Press, 1976), 79.
[29] Sawyer, A Modern Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, 79.
[30] Arnold and Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 58.
[31] T. O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971), 55-56.
[32] G. S. Ogden, “Time, and the Verb hyh in O. T. Prose” VT 21 (1971): 451-469.
[33] Ogden, “Time, and the Verb hyh in O. T. Prose”, 456.
[34] Ogden, “Time, and the Verb hyh in O. T. Prose”, 458.
[35] This table is a list of the straightforward occurrences of ’ehyeh as given in BibleWorks.
[36] Ogden, “Time, and the Verb hyh in O. T. Prose”, 457, gives the same analysis for Exod 3:12.
[37] This change in the modal from ‘would’ to ‘could’ avoids giving the impression that Hebrew is inflexible. It would be a mistake to argue that exactly the same Hebrew form (’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh) would be used to express ‘I am what I am’, ‘I am the one who exists’, or ‘I will be what I will be’. Pákozdy shows that Hebrew has alternative ways to express these sentences.
[38] L. M. Pákozdy, “I shall be that which I shall be” The Bible Translator 7 (1956): 146-148 (147).
[39] A. Phillips and L. Phillips, “The Origin of ‘I Am’ in Exodus 3.14” JSOT 78 (1998): 81-84 (82) offer the more literal rendering of the Hebrew as “I a no-’ehyeh to you” which strikes the link clearly and might be a better option if we wanted to indulge in Engrew or Heblish. [Ed: JWA] Or, given ‘Lo-ruhammah’, this could be ‘Lo-ehyeh’: “I am ‘Lo-ehyeh’ to you” (or: “I am ‘Not-I will be’ to/for you”).
[40] For example, L. A. Weigle et al, An Introduction to the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, 1952); T. W. Chambers A Companion to the Revised Old Testament (London: H. E. Jerrard, 1885); nothing is noted in these volumes.
[41] In addition to the articles discussed in this paper, the April 1984 issue of The Bible Translator has a series of practical papers on translating divine names and titles.
[42] Pákozdy, “I shall be that which I shall be”, 147.
[43] McCarthy, “Exod 3:14: History, Philology and Theology”, 318.
[44] McCarthy, “Exod 3:14: History, Philology and Theology”, 318.
[45] Childs, Exodus, 84-87 (85).
[46] See also S. Macdonald, “The Divine Nature” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (eds. E. Stump and N. Kretzmann; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 71-90 (82).
[47] Summa Theologica, Part 1, Q.13, Article 11 in St Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica, Latin Text and English Translation (ed. T. Gilbey et al; London: Blackfriars, 1964), 3:91-93.
[48] See R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 476.
[49] F. Field, ed., Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875), 85. I thank J. W. Adey for this point.
[50] For a review of Jewish interpretation including the Mishnah, Talmud and Rabbah, see the papers of K. J. Cronin on www.exodus-314.com; this is his website.
[51] Targum Onqelos (ed., B. Grossfield; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 8-9. For a discussion, see M. Buber and F. Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 102-104, 190-191, 192-195.
[52] M. Buber and F. Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation, 194-195.
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