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Happy aloha Friday, Beloved! Let us call upon the name of the LORD and look for Him where He can be found! Today I want to share with you some information about the Names of God. This subject has been one to which I have returned many times. I think I owe that fascination to my upbringing as a “Baptiterian.” I’ll explain that in a little bit. I will begin, though, with this marvelous list compiled by Lee Ann Rubsam. I’ll use it to introduce the Topic of The Day: remembering God’s Names.
A Few Hebrew Names and Their Meanings
Adonai-Jehovah — The Lord our Sovereign
El-Elyon — The Lord Most High
El-Olam — The Everlasting God
El-Shaddai — The God Who is Sufficient for the Needs of His People (this is my personal favorite) or God Almighty who is all sufficient
Jehovah-Elohim — The Eternal Creator
Jehovah-Jireh — The Lord our Provider
Jehovah-Nissi — The Lord our Banner
Jehovah-Ropheka — The Lord our Healer
Jehovah-Shalom — The Lord our Peace
Jehovah-Tsidkenu — The Lord our Righteousness
Jehovah-Mekaddishkem — The Lord our Sanctifier
Jehovah-Sabaoth — The Lord of Hosts
Jehovah-Shammah — The Lord is Present
Jehovah-Rohi — The Lord our Shepherd
Jehovah-Hoseenu — The Lord our Maker
Jehovah-Eloheenu — The Lord our God
© 2007 by Lee Ann Rubsam. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author. For additional information about the author’s work or to order materials from Character Building for Families, please visit http://www.characterbuildingforfamilies.com/.
Here is an important passage that the Nation of Israel heard from Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4 (see http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0506.htm#4)
Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad. “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is One”.
Remembering God’s names
I used to be able to remember many if not most of these ‘long time ago’ as they say in the Navajo stories, but nowadays I rely on the Internet quite a lot. The list I sent you comes from:
http://www.characterbuildingforfamilies.com/names.html
I have found it useful when I pray to occasionally use other names for God; names other than “God” or “Father” or the names we hear in our liturgies. When I know I am speaking to El-Shaddai, I acknowledge God’s attribute of being completely sufficient. We don’t need anything or anyone else to which or to whom we can go to in confident faith.
Back in 1962-63, I was pretty sure I was ‘called to the ministry,’ and as a pre-seminary high school student, got even more involved with Bible Study. I grew up as a “Baptiterian.” It was really a Presbyterian church, but our Pastor, Rev. Bob Lutz (he pronounced it ‘lootz’) preached the Bible like a Baptist fundamentalist and we sang and prayed like Presbyterians (all the verses of all the hymns, and had to use the word ‘just’ about 60 times in a two minute prayer). We had a great Sunday School program that was very Bible-focused, so I learned a lot about Bible studying by the time I got to high school. I studied Hebrew and Greek on my own — to no avail because it was not a formally organized attempt — and can remember going deep into cross-references, contextual studies, hermeneutics, and expositional studies as far back as the fourth grade.
It is a fascination that strengthens and broadens as I age. I have at least three different software applications with different translations (one has over 200, many in foreign languages, maybe 30 in English), study aids, references (Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, lexicons, concordances, encyclopedias, what have you), lesson outlines, histories of famous hymns, excerpts or whole quotes of famous sermons, and so on. Back in my ‘hippie days’ — 64-68 — they called me a Jesus Freak. It was in 1968 that I made the decision to take instruction to become a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I chose that because it brought into one package many of the things I had come to understand about what theology, worship, communion, and Christian fellowship could and should mean. I am still active in my Parish Community (St. Catherine’s in Kapa`a), and still very active in my Bible study. One recent acquisition is a 30-disk set of MP3 CD’s featuring over 1200 messages by Pastor Jon Courson (www.joncourson.com). He’s pretty good at Catholic-bashing, but he also makes some interesting insights into scripture. Again, some of what he says is pretty speculative and presents a construct made in large part of assumptions and personal opinions which indeed are based on remarkably deep Bible study; HOWEVER, he sure makes me think, sure makes me look, sure makes me get deeper and deeper into The WORD, and that’s a Very Good Thing, as A. A. Milne would say.
It doesn’t make me impervious to temptation or sin, certainly doesn’t take away my sinfulness (that only gets healed in the next life), doesn’t even make me act like a Christian all the time (literally, ‘person of Christ’), but it DOES bring me an immense amount of comfort and pleasure. That is what “bless” means — Bless the LORD means pleasure Yahweh, and the ‘pleasure’ is that intense delight that is engendered in absolute, pure, unconditional, reciprocated love. Man! Just 2 seconds of that is enough to change your whole LIFE! You know that ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ we’re all supposed to want (or for some ‘are entitled to’)? I think fifteen minutes of Blessing would be far better as a goal; such a foretaste of heaven could just annihilate your worldly desires — for a while anyway (we’re still in a ‘fallen state’ while we’re here).
Well WHEW, Beloved! That’s probably way more information than you bargained for, eh? Nonetheless, thanks for reading all the way down to this sentence:
I love what you’ve done with the LOVE God gave to you.
In parting, just a little additional insight into a Baptiterian-raised, Catholic ex-hippie’s prayer-life …
From the Mission by Fr. Chuck Faso at St. Catherine of Alexandria Church in Kapa‘a, HI Nov 5-8, 2007:
Names I use when I talk to God:
Yahweh, Yahweh Sebaot, Elohim, El Elyon, El Shaddai, Adonai, Abba, Almighty Triune God, Blessed Trinity, Almighty Father, Creator, Giver of Life, Saviour, My God, My Lord and My God, My King, My Brother, My Help/Rock/Salvation/Hope and Joy, My Friend, Holy ONE, Sacred Heart, Divine Spirit, Spirit of the Living God, Fire of Love, Spirit of The LORD (of Yahweh), Heart of Love, Lover of My soul, Lover of All Mankind, Dearest Jesus.
Age quod agis, my friends; God sees it all. Whatever we do, we do it to Him because He is in us and we are in Him. He’s everywhere in the Universe, but He is not the Universe. He is its Creator and Maintainer. Is it time you went in for a little maintenance?
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved
chick
Please consult these additional excellent resources for more information on this topic:
http://www.ldolphin.org/Names.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10675a.htm
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/El/el.html
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=N
http://www.biblestudy.org/question/what-are-names-titles-bible-uses-for-god.html
http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.cfm
http://www.smilegodlovesyou.org/names.html
http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-definition-god-titles.htm
http://www.allaboutgod.com/names-of-god.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm
Incidentally, in all my studies I have never found the following to be names of God:
The Force
Creative Intelligence
The Man Upstairs
A Higher Power
The Universe
The Big Bang
The Powers that Be
