- The Meaning of  Ehyeh asher Ehyeh

According to the above Explanation, I AM is the name of God. I AM is also one of the only two universally accepted literal translations of the word ehyeh as it occurs in Exodus 3:14. The word ehyeh of Exodus 3:14b can be identified in its context as a Divine name, and because it is a first person singular verb form can be identified as the name by which God is known to Himself; His Personal name. Therefore, the Ehyeh of Exodus 3:14b is the Personal name of God and translates into English as I AM.

Having established this, all that remains to be done in order to fully interpret the verse is to explain and translate the puzzling words of Exodus 3:14a; ehyeh asher ehyeh. This is undoubtedly the greatest challenge in Biblical interpretation. What follows is my answer to it.

In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God what he should say to the Israelites if they ask him for the name of the God who sent him to them. For the purpose of establishing how we would expect God to respond to this question, I would ask you to imagine yourself in an identical exchange, but with you in the place of God. Imagine it is you who is sending Moses on a mission to the Israelites, and that Moses is asking you what he should say to the Israelites if they ask him for the name of the one who sent him to them. The most natural and reasonable way to begin your response would be with a declaration of the name that you wanted Moses to convey to them. This would be naturally and reasonably followed by your instruction to Moses that he was to inform the Israelites that the one who bears that name has sent him to them. Your response would therefore fall into two parts. The first part would be some form of self-identification employing the name you wanted Moses to convey, and the second would be your instruction to him that he was to respond to their question with that name. A self-identification is normally comprised of some form of self-address and a name, and would normally take the form "My name is x" or "I am x". We will assume that you are of sufficient renown to employ the latter form of words, "I am x". If we now combine the two parts of your response, you would most naturally and reasonably respond to Moses' question with: "I am x. Tell the Israelites that x has sent you to them".

Now consider the exchange that took place between God and Moses in Exodus 3:13-3:15. Moses has asked God what he should say to the Israelites if they ask him for the name of the God who sent him to them. According to the above analysis, we would most naturally and reasonably expect God to begin his response to Moses with a Self-identification that would include the Divine name that Moses was to reveal to the Israelites. This would be naturally and reasonably followed by God's instruction to Moses that he was to inform the Israelites that that the God who bears that name has sent him to them. We have already identified two forms of self-identification that God might employ – "My name is x" and "I am x" - but in the Hebrew Bible God identifies Himself according to the latter form of words, with "I am YHWH". Therefore, if God were to identify Himself to Moses using His Personal name Ehyeh, we could reasonably expect His response to correspond to the following declaration: "I am Ehyeh. Tell the Israelites that Ehyeh has sent you to them".

However, the Divine Self-identification "I am YHWH" is rendered in Hebrew with a non-verbal clause, employing the personal pronoun ani or anoki, meaning 'I', and the name YHWH, but without the verb 'to be'. Examples of this are "ani YHWH" of Exodus 6:2 and "anoki YHWH" of Isaiah 43:11, both of which translate literally as "I YHWH" but are usually translated "I am YHWH". And so if this form of Self-identification were employed by God in declaring His Personal name Ehyeh, we could reasonably expect that declaration to take a corresponding form, i.e. 'ani Ehyeh' or 'anoki Ehyeh'. Therefore, if God did commence His response to Moses with a Self-identification employing His Personal name Ehyeh, then the words Ehyeh asher Ehyeh do not conform to the Hebrew construction that we would expect such a Divine Self-identification to take, and so we apparently still cannot account for the dual occurrence of ehyeh in ehyeh asher ehyeh.

Nevertheless, this puzzle can be readily solved, and its solution leads us to the recognition of what I believe to be the most profound and remarkable words ever written, words so uniquely remarkable that I believe they can only be attributed to the historic architect of Judaism; the man we know as Moses.

The solution to the puzzle that is Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is to be found in two key insights into the words of Exodus 3:14. The first is that in response to Moses' question of Exodus 3:13, God first identifies Himself to Moses using His Personal name Ehyeh, as explained in the Textual Analysis of Exodus 3:13-15 in Part II of this website. The second key insight is that the declaration Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is equivalent to the Divine Self-identification "I (am) YHWH" when God identifies Himself using His Personal name Ehyeh instead of His proper name YHWH. The explanation for this is as follows.

A self-identification would normally be comprised of some form of self-address and a name, such as "I YHWH"/"I (am) YHWH". The self-address in such a self-identification is a statement born of self-reflection, the purpose and effect of which is to bring to awareness knowledge of the one doing the reflecting. The purpose and effect of Divine Self-reflection is, therefore, to bring to God's awareness the knowledge He has of His Personal existence. On the occasion of God revealing to Moses His Personal name Ehyeh/I AM, it is reasonable to expect the Divine Self-reflection to have been perfect, because the Personal name is perfect, as established in Part 7 of the Explanation of the Meaning of the Name. This informs us that on the occasion of God revealing to Moses His Personal name Ehyeh/I AM, the Divine Self-reflection would have been identical to the perfect knowledge that God has of His Personal existence. The following interim conclusion ends Part 6 of the Explanation of the Meaning of the Name: "'I AM' is the articulation in God of the knowledge He has of His Personal existence". Therefore, on the occasion of God revealing to Moses His Personal name Ehyeh/I AM, the perfect Divine Self-reflection was also articulated as Ehyeh/I AM. This in turn means that God's perfect Self-address either is or at least incorporates the Divine Self-reflection Ehyeh/I AM. However, because Ehyeh/I AM is recognisable as a complete form of Divine Self-address in Hebrew as in English, there is no place for the asher in this Self-address. Therefore, Ehyeh/I AM is the Divine Self-address when God identifies Himself using His Personal name Ehyeh/I AM.

We can now confirm that the Divine Self-identification employing the Personal name of God Ehyeh ought to include the twofold declaration of the word Ehyeh that occurs in Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, and we can thus confirm Ehyeh asher Ehyeh as the Divine Self-identification when the Personal name Ehyeh is used instead of YHWH. Moreover, we can confirm this even without translating the asher, because it is inconceivable that there could be a second meaning being intentionally conveyed in the twofold Ehyeh of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.

Because the name and the Self-address are the identical word and identical in meaning, and because they are linked by a generic word of relation (see below), the declaration Ehyeh asher Ehyeh may be read equally correctly in the word-order "Self-address... asher... name" or "name... asher... Self-address". However, I would argue for the former of these two readings, because the most typical biblical Divine Self-Identification - "ani/anoki YHWH" - has the name following the Self-address.

 As for the asher, it is described in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon as a "sign of relation" (BDB, p.81), which is its precise function in Ehyeh asher Ehyeh. Its presence ensures that the name Ehyeh is recognised as being in relation to the Self-address Ehyeh, rather than they being simply side by side. This ensures that the Divine Self-identification cannot be mistaken for a simple twofold utterance of the name Ehyeh, which it certainly would be without the intervening asher. I say it would be so misconstrued because it has been even with the asher, for example in the second interpretation in Exodus Rabbah 3:6 and in Mendelsohn's interpretation, for which see the Talmud and Midrash and Modern Jewish Philosophy respectively in Part I of this website.

The asher is thus a sign of the presence of a relationship between the two Ehyeh of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh. Because asher is a generic sign of relation, there is no exactly corresponding word in English (BDB, p.83), and so we must search instead for an English relative word or phrase that fits the context. Having undertaken such a search, I have not found any lexically acceptable English relative word or phrase that when emplaced in "I AM asher I AM" makes of the declaration a recognisable Divine Self-identification. For that reason, I believe that the nuance of meaning in the asher of Exodus 3:14 is untranslatable into lexically acceptable English. It therefore makes most sense to retain the Hebrew asher in the literal English translation of Exodus 3:14, because it will mean the very same to the Hebrew reader as to the Hebrew non-reader who knows the grammatical purpose that it serves. I would therefore propose that Ehyeh asher Ehyeh should read as follows in literal English translation: "I AM asher I AM".

On the other hand, if Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is to be represented in full English translation, then I would recommend that it be represented non-literally, and with consideration given only to articulating its precise meaning, and so as follows: "I know Myself by My Personal name I AM". This paraphrase of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is totally unambiguous and, I believe, closely approximates the precise meaning of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, and so it is well fitted for use as a paraphrase of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.