In Genesis 13:4, Abraham “called on the name of Lord,” the Hebrew word for “Lord” in that verse being YHWH.
So Abraham clearly knew God as YHWH. But in Exodus 6:2-3, “God also said to Moses, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord (YHWH) I did not make myself known to them.’” So in Genesis 13:4 Abraham does know YHWH, but in Exodus 6:3 he doesn’t. Is there a contradiction here?
Which would be good to know, because with Abraham being the father of us all and us being his offspring, his relationship with God gives us clues as to what our relationship with God is like too. And Abraham knowing God as YHWH ties in with that.
Israel knowing God as YHWH tied in with that too, because it got the same point across to them about the caring, relational God that Abraham knew him as. We see that in YHWH personally telling the Israelites through Moses that he’d “heard their groaning,” Exodus 6:5, he’d “free them from being slaves” and “redeem them with an outstretched arm” (6), and “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (7).
It was this deeply caring, rescuing, redeeming, personal YHWH side of him that God wanted the Israelites to know. They were about to see his “mighty hand” (1) ripping them out of Egypt, just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had known God as “God Almighty” (3) – El Shaddai in Hebrew – but God wanted the Israelites to know him as YHWH, and “be remembered by (that name) from generation to generation” (3:15).
In context, then, God was introducing himself to the Israelites as both El Shaddai and YHWH, the same way he’d introduced himself to Abraham – as El Shaddai in Genesis 17:1, and as YHWH in Genesis 15:7. But how to make sense of Exodus 6:3, that sounds like Abraham didn’t know God as YHWH?
In the context of what God was up to here, it would make sense if verse 3 was phrased: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, and by my name YHWH did I not make myself known to them?” In other words, “as to my name YHWH, was I not known by that too?” Because he WAS known by that name too, so calling him YHWH should be nothing strange for the Israelites, and especially since knowing him as YHWH was what God wanted most for them.
It was also what God wanted most for Abraham, so next blog: “What did knowing YHWH do to Abraham?”
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