Life before God
2. Does the name of Yahweh, which Israel calls upon, reveal some- thing of the nature of this God?
To answer this question, we must distinguish two directions of inquiry.
(a) Quite apart from the statements made by the Old Testament texts them- selves, we can inquire whether philological investigation can give us any in- formation about the original meaning of the name “Yahweh.” But of course an answer in these terms need by no means have any relevance for the faith of the Old Testament. The name might have taken shape in a totally differ- ent context. This does not hold true in the same way, however, if (b) we ask whether the Old Testament context itself says anything about the meaning of the name. With such a statement, whatever its original philological ac- curacy may be, we are in any case dealing with an actual statement of the Old Testament that is significant for an Old Testament theology.
a) There is no lack of suggestions about what the name “Yahweh”
originally meant.
Philological investigation must first deal with the question of whether we should take as our point of departure the long form “Yahweh,” an abbreviated form
“Yahu” as found in many names (lTVYufs fSa‘ycih2i; 1VbT yimn”yciht& D3i?S1;1Y fh@iqim, etc.), or the monosyllabic form “Yah,” as found, for instance, in the acclamation
“Hallelujah” (;I’ 1% hat’lti ~6). Driver claimed that he could interpret the form
196 Walther Zimmerli
“Yah” as a shout of ecstatic excitement, which then turned into a divine name and, in association with the deliverance from Egypt, became the long form with the meaning “he who is” or “he who calls into being.” Eerdmans derives the name from a disyllabic form, in which he hears what was originally an onomatopoetic imitation of thunder. There are good reasons to consider the long form original; it probably represents an imperfect form of a verb al;r hwh. But is this root related to the Ara- bit verb meaning “blow,” which would suggest the name of a storm god, or to the verb meaning “fall,” which would suggest a god of lightning and hail? Or should we take ;17;1 hwh as equivalent to ;1’;1 hyh and interpret it as “he is” or “he shows himself efficacious” or “he calls into being”? And are we then to follow Cross in thinking of an abbreviated form of the more complete MKX 313’ yahweh J”bti’d, “he who calls the (heavenly) hosts into being” (see UZimmerli 197&D, p. 75)?’ It is unlikely that we are dealing with a noun form having the meaning “being.”
b) We come next to the actual statements of the Old Testament itself.
When Moses asks the name of the God who sends him to Israel, he is given, ITZOll according to Exod 3: 14, the answer: ;1’;1N 1ltiX ;I’;IK ehyeh ii&
ehyeh (“I am who I am . . . and so you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am [?;1~
ehyehI) has sent me to you”‘). Here the name ‘Yahweh” is unequivocally in- terpreted on the basis of the verb ;1’;1 hyh (= ;11;1 huh).
This passage, therefore, has provided the basis for most attempts to interpret the name in a way consonant with the faith of the Old Testament. The Septuagint led the way with its translation eg8 eimi ho in, “I am the one who is,” transforming the verbal expression into a nominal participle and, following Greek example, finding an ontological concept of being in Exod 3:14. It was probably sensed, how- ever, how inappropriate this concept was within the framework of Old Testament thought. Scholars have therefore gone on to ask whether ;1’;1 hyh might not be bet- ter taken to mean “be efficacious” (Ratschow), “be there, be present” (Vriezen),
“be with someone” (Pr’euss) .3
But the name ‘Yahweh” is here not meant to be understood on the basis of the isolated verb ;1’;1 hyh, but rather on the basis of the figure of speech “I am who I am.” This form may be compared to the lordly state- ment of Exod 33:19: ‘To whom I am gracious I am gracious, and to whom I show mercy I show mercy.” In this figure of speech resounds the sover- eign freedom of Yahweh, who, even at the moment he reveals himself in his name, refuses simply to put himself at the disposal of humanity or to allow humanity to comprehend him. We must also take into account 2. Frank M. Cross, Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs,” ffaruard Theological Review 55 (1962) 22.5-59. [Zimmerli does not give the bibliographic data fbr the references to Driver and Eerdmans in this paragraph.]
3. Carl I-l. Ratschow, Wmden und Wirken (Beiheft zur Zeitschrift fiir Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 70; Berlin: Tiipelmann, 1941); Theodorus C. Vriezen, [An Outline of Old ‘r&a- ment Theology (trans. S. Neuijen; Oxford: Blackwell/Boston: Branford, 1958) 235-36I1; Horst D. Preuss, “ . . .ich will mit dir sein!” jlAW80 (1968) 139-73.
(;od’s refusal to impart his name to Jacob in Gen 32:30: “Why do you ask
;&out my name?” According to the statement of Exod 3:14, at the very point where Yahweh reveals his true name so that people can call him by it, he remains free, and can be properly understood only in the freedom with which he introduces himself.
This knowledge, which also lies behind God’s free revelation of his name in Exod 6:2 (P), coming not in response to any human question,
WXS given further expression in certain characteristic Priestly turns of tjhrase. In the laws of the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18ff., the legislation is urlderlined by copious use of the appended phrase “I am Yahweh” or “I
;LI~ Yahweh, your God. ” Here, in the context of proclamation of the law, this formulaic phrase of self-introduction maintains the majesty of him who issues the law, who encounters people as their Lord. It is possible to
;lsk, even if a definitive answer cannot be given, whether there were occa- siorls in the liturgical life of Israel when this free self-introduction of Yah- wch in his name was publicly spoken (by the priests?). The preamble to rhc Decalogue with its @K ;nn9 ‘XX cinoki Yahweh dtihikiza [‘I am Yahweh
!pour God’] may also support this suggestion.
In a different way this element centered into the prophetic formulation of the so-called “proof-saying”
(Erweiswmt) ,
found repeatedly in the book of Ezekiel but apparently originating in earlier pre-literary prophecy and its messages from God in the context of the Yahweh war (1 Kgs 20:13, 28).l~lcre a statement of what Yahweh will do with or for his people (expanded (I 2 1 D by the addition of a motivation or stated without any motivation at all) can be concluded with the formula: “And you [he, they] will know that I am Yahweh.” This formula declares the announced action of Yahweh to be the place where people will know-and acknowledge-Yahweh as he intro- duces himself. Yahweh declares himself in what he does. This rhetorical f’orm is also found in Joel and the late exilic Deutero-Isaiah (see Isa 49:22- 26). See also [Zimmerli 1978:O pp. 207, 229.
This freedom of Yahweh means he is never simply an “object,” even in his name which he graciously reveals- the third commandment of the Dccalogue seeks to protect the freedom implicit in Yahweh’s name in a vC%ry specific way against “religious ” abuse. And this freedom of Yahweh must be taken account of in all other statements about the faith of the Old Testament. In the only passage where the Old Testament itself at- tempts to provide an explanation of the name “Yahweh,” it refuses to “ex- plain” the name in a way that would confine it within the cage of a definition. It seeks to express the fact that we can speak of Yahweh only in iittcntive acknowledgment of the way he demonstrates his nature (in his a(‘ts and his commandments).
. . . .
1% Walther Zimmerli
Yahweh, God of Israel since Egypt
In Hos 13:4, we hear the words: “I, Yahweh, am your God since the land of Egypt. You do not know any god except for me, or any savior except [22]
for me.” This statement corresponds in content with the beginning of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2-3); like the latter passage, it says two things. First, where Yahweh presents himself to the faith of the Old Testament, he does so as the God of Israel, who will not tolerate any other god. And even more clearly than the beginning of the Decalogue it underlines the fact that this “God of Israel” is a relationship that has existed from the begin- ning of time, in the sense, for instance, that the Babylonian god Shamash was the sun god by definition. Yahweh is the God of Israel by reason of certain historical events associated with the name of Egypt (to which the preamble to the Decalogue adds: “the house of servitude”).
This phrase points to the events recorded in the book of Exodus, in which the people of Israel first makes its appearance. Their forebears, as Exod 1: 11 maintains with historical accuracy, were compelled to perform forced labor for the building of the provision cities Pithom and Ramses during the reign of Ramses II (1290-1224 B.C.). Moses, who bears an Egyptian name, led them forth at the command of Yahweh. At the Sea of Reeds they escaped miraculously from the pursuing Egyptians, whose king had refused to let them go. This event is recorded in the earliest hymn preserved in the Old Testament, the Song of Miriam. “Sing to Yahweh, for highly exalted is he; horse and rider he cast into the sea” (Exod 15:21).
What Israel experienced was no piece of chance good fortune such as might be recounted dispassionately. In this experience Israel recognized and confessed Yahweh, who refuses to be worshiped alongside others. The glorification of this initial experience of the exodus also appears in the observation that there is no other event in the entire history of Israel so surrounded by a plethora of miraculous interventions on the part of Yah- weh as the event of the deliverance from Egypt. Again and again the de- scription of the exodus makes mention of the “signs and wonders”
performed by Yahweh for his people, “with mighty hand and outstretched arm.” Then the road leads out into the desert, toward the land that is to be given to Israel. The Old Testament returns again and again to creed- like mentions (von Rad)4 of this event, in detailed summaries of Yahweh’s history with Israel as well as in succinct formulas like the preamble to the
4. Gerhard von Rad, Das fkrmge.~chichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (Beitrige zur Wissen- schaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament 4/26; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938); repr. in his Ct- sammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (Theologische Biicherei 8; Munich: Kaiser, 1958) 9-86;
English translation: “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” in The Probkm of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E. W. T. Dicken; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966) l-78.
Life before God 199
Decalogue. When the farmer brings his offering to the sanctuary, he speaks in his prescribed prayer of what Yahweh did for his fathers (Deut 26:5-10). When a father tries to make the commandments meaningful to his son, he tells of this event (Deut 6:20ff.). According to Joshua 24, it was spoken of when Israel assembled at Shechem. The poetry of the cult re- counts the exodus immediately after speaking of Yahweh’s acts at creation (Psalm 136). Commandments in the Holiness Code can be underlined by reference to it (Lev 22:32-33; 25:55). Even the prophet Ezekiel, narrating the story of Israel’s sins, with the two kingdoms personified in two girls with bedouin [r23] names, says in Ezekiel 23 that they come from Egypt, where they became Yahweh’s own. Cf. also Ezekiel 20; Isa 51:9-10).
Alongside such passages, there are a few that state that Yahweh “found Israel in the desert” (Deut 32:lO; Hos 9:lO; cf. Bach) .5 This can hardly re- fer to a different story of Israel’s origins; these passages must be inter- preted in the same light. In Ezekiel 16, the motif of the foundling has been incorporated into the story of Jerusalem’s beginnings, a story orga- nized very differently.
. . . . We must now consider the significance of this fundamental confes- sional statement for the faith attested by the Old Testament.
1. In the first place, it is quite clear that the Old Testament, however much it thinks of Yahweh as majestic and free, knows this God from the very outset as the God who wants to involve himself with Israel. In the Old Testament we never come across any attempt to inquire into the nature of Yahweh per se. This could be observed even in the only passage that reflec- ted on the significance of the name “Yahweh.” How the God of Israel acts with respect to his people, with respect to the individual Israelite, and later, as the horizon of religious thought expands in head-on encounter with other forms of religious belief, with respect to all of creation and the nations dominates the Old Testament statements. [r24]
2. At the beginning of the exodus story, on which the faith of the Old Testament never ceases to reflect, stands the great deliverance from the house of servitude. It is not really accurate to turn this event into an “exo- dus principle,” which in turn produces a “principle of hope” (Bloch).’
What is really central is not the fact of the “exodus,” which would lead to
5. Robert Bach, Die Erwiihlung Israels in der Wiiste (Ph.D. diss., Bonn, 1951).
6. Ernst Bloch, Das P&zip Hoflnung (Gesamatausgabe 5; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1959).
For a discussion of Bloch’s views, see Walther Zimmerli, Der Mensch und seine Hoffnung im Al- ten l’estamznt (Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe 272s; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968) 163-78; English translation: Man and His Hqbe in the Old Testament (Studies in Biblical
‘Theology 2/20; Naperville, Illinois: Allenson, 1971) 151-65. See also Hans-Joachim Kmus,
“Das Thema ‘Exodus,“’Evangelische Theologie 31 (1971) 608-23.
200 Walther Zimmerli Ii&e before God 201
new forms of “going out” into the future, but the encounter with the God who has pity on those who are enslaved. We often hear the Old Testament speak of the God who hears the crying of the oppressed and sends them their deliverer; this image becomes a category by which subsequent expe- riences in the history of Israel can be understood (the judges, Saul, Da- vid). Therefore even Ezekiel and above all Deutero-Isaiah can paint deliverance from the terrible distress of the exile in the glowing colors of a new exodus, in which the events of the first exodus out of Egypt return antitypically. In TAO-Isaiah we can observe how the images of exodus and roads in the desert begin to form part of the stock language of religious discourse (see [Zimmerli 197&O p. 226).
3. Having seen that in the “exodus” we are dealing with an act of mercy on the part of the God who has pity on his people and delivers them, we must go on at once to say that the help Israel experiences sets it on a course on which God continues to be with it. The theme of “guidance in the desert” (Noth)’ is intimately associated with the theme of “exodus.”
From the very beginning, Yahweh was known to Israel as the “shepherd of Israel,” who accompanies it. Victor Maag has justifiably placed great emphasis on this heritage of Israel from its nomadic past.8 But a sociolog- ical reference to “the nomadic heritage” will not in itself suffice for a theo- logical understanding. We must go on to state that when Israel proclaims
‘Yahweh, your God since Egypt,” as an element of its faith, it is also keep- ing alive the knowledge of the God who remains with Israel on its journey.
Neither is this knowledge abrogated by all the later theologoumena about the presence of Yahweh in specific places (see [Zimmerli 1978:J $j9). This knowledge makes it possible for Israel not to lose its God in all its subse- quent “departures,” when it is snatched out of the “rest” to which God brings it in the land (Deut 12:9-lo), and to survive with the guidance of the “shepherd of Israel.” Israel remains preeminently a people of hope.
4. In the confession of ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel since Egypt,” Is- rael’s faith receives an intimate association with a historical event. An ini- tial historical deliverance, experienced by those escaping from Egypt, resounds in the earliest extant hymn of Israel. It has recently been accu- rately pointed out (Albrektson)g that it is quite inappropriate to set up a
7. Martin Noth, &et-liefkungspchichte des Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1948); En- glish translation: Histoly of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. B. W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971).
8. Victor Maag, “Der Hirt Israels,” Schweizer 7’~olo@xhe Umschau 28 (1958) 2-28; idem,
“Das Cottesversdndnis des Alten Testaments,” Nea!&ands Theologisch Tijdschriift 21 (1966/67) 161-207.
9. Bertil Albrektson, H&q and the Ckds (Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament series 1;
Lund: Gleerup, 1967).
contrast between Israel, with its sense of history, and the nature religions of the surrounding world, without any historical ties. The world of Assyria and Babylonia is also familiar with the intervention of the gods in the course of history and dependence on divine aid in historical crises. But it remains undeniable that Israel’s basing [25] of its faith on that early act of deliverance, in which it knew that a single Lord was at work, not a mul- tiplicity of powers, established a particularly intimate relationship between its faith and its historical experiences.
Having said this, we must still avoid the mistaken assumption that for Israel history as such became the revelatory word of Yahweh. Such an un- derstanding of history as a phenomenon in its own right, to be taken as an independent quantity in God’s revelation, is alien to the Old Testament.
By the same token, an isolated fact of history is not as such simply a proc- lamation of Yahweh. Vast stretches of Israel’s historical experience that come to light in the Old Testament remain silent, having nothing new to say. But then it can happen that messengers speaking for Yahweh appear unexpectedly in the context of exciting events, proclaiming the historical events to be Yahweh’s call to decision. Here we recognize very clearly that
“history” by no means simply proclaims Yahweh in its course of events; in the very midst of the historical disaster that is accompanied by the mes- sage of the prophets, it is especially urgent that Yahweh’s word be heard.
See [Zimmerli 1978:O $20 and $21.
Thus we must also remember in retrospect that the “deliverance from Egypt” was also accompanied by Yahweh’s word. The preponderance of evidence still supports the assumption that Moses, the man with the Egyp- tian name, did in fact lead Israel out of Egypt “in the name of Yahweh”
and thus, however we may go on to define the “office” of Moses more pre- cisely, determined the subsequent “representation” (Noth) lo of the acts of Yahweh in Israel.
5. In this event Yahweh declared himself for the faith of Israel. In what took place he made himself known as the deliverer of that company, which then handed on its confession to all “Israel” living at a later date in Canaan as the twelve tribes. Starting with this confession, he is the “God of Israel.” Not because Israel chose him voluntarily or because he has a “pri- mary relationship” with Israel, but simply because by a free act he deliv- ered those who dwelt in the house of servitude in Egypt-therefore he is their God. What the self-introduction formula sought to express in its own way is defined in terms of this historical self-statement of Yahweh and
10. Martin Noth, “Die Vergegenwartigung des Ahen Testaments in der Verkiindigung,”
bangelische Theologie 12 ( 1952/53) 6- 17; repr. in his Gesammelte Studirn zum Alten Testament (Theologische Bucherei 39; Munich: Kaiser, 1969), 2:86-98.