The Name Yahweh: Moses Asks at the Bush

Moses asks a reasonable question. He is being sent to enslaved people with a message from their God, and they will want to know which God. So he asks for the name.
The answer is not a title. It is a verb. Ehyeh asher Ehyeh - "I am who I am." Ehyeh is the first-person form of the Hebrew verb hayah, "to be." Then God says: tell them Ehyeh sent you.
Sit with how strange that is. The name God gives is a statement about existing. Not a description of power, not a rank, not a location. Being itself, spoken in the first person by the one being.
Everything else about the divine name follows from this one fact: it is a verb, and verbs in Hebrew have forms.
Scripture links:
- Exodus 3:13 - "and they say to me, 'What is his name?' then what shall I say to them?" (LEB)
- Exodus 3:14 - "And God said to Moses, 'I am that I am.' And he said, 'So you must say to the Israelites, I am sent me to you.'" (LEB)
- Exodus 6:3 - God speaks of making himself known by his name.
The name is not a label. It is a verb about existing.