JEHOVAH'S NAME.

THE theme of our last, forming as it does the climax of the vision, was suggestive of truths so solemn and momentous, that we may be pardoned for prolonging and expanding, under this new heading, the same topic. It admits of a still higher Gospel and spiritual application.

"What is Thy Name?" was the urgent interrogation of Jacob, twenty years later, when he was alone at midnight grappling with the mysterious Presence, in the deep defile of the Jabbok. Doubtless it was the same question which rose now in the mind of the Dreamer as he beheld the august Form at the summit of the stony ascent. The long familiar, and yet, in another sense, the only partially realised, God of the Tent and the Altar was now before him in the revealed majesty of His glory. How natural the silent promptings of the newly-illuminated soul, even though he gave no audible expression to them. 'Who art THOU?' "Tell me Thy Name?"

The answer, or rather the voluntary declaration,

was immediately vouchsafed-"I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac." It is worthy of special note, that it is the incommunicable name of JEHOVAH (7) which is here used. More than that, this holy designation, so holy, that the Jews came scrupulously to avoid, as they still do, the very mention of it as too awful and hallowed for mortal lips*-is only on this and on one other occasion employed by God in the revelation of Himself: that other, being at one of His earliest interviews with Abraham, when He ratified to the patriarch His grant of the covenant land (Gen. xv. 7). In subsequent personal revelations, the title of El-Shaddai (God Almighty) is adopted; the same word which last fell on Jacob's ears, on quitting the Beersheba home, when his father's voice was heard pronouncing the parting benediction "God Almighty bless thee" (Gen. xxviii. 3).

It is of great importance and interest to advert

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"In the Rabbinical writings it is distinguished by various euphemistic expressions; as simply "the name or the name of four letters" (the Greek tetragrammaton); "the great and terrible name; "the peculiar name," i.e., appropriated to God alone; "the separate name," i.e., either the name which is separated or removed from human knowledge, or, as some render, "the name which has been interpreted or revealed." . According to Jewish tradition, it was pronounced but once a year by the high priest, on the Day of Atonement, when he entered the Holy of Holies. Philo states

that for those alone whose ears and tongues were purged by wisdom, was it lawful to hear or to utter this awful name."- Smith's Bible Dic., p. 952.

+ See Dr. Jamieson's Critical Commentary, in loco.

to this specific name employed by the God above the ladder, as it gives a beautiful unity and consistency to the type we have been unfolding. Some learned writers hold, we think on substantial grounds, that the designation of Jehovah, employed in patriarchal communications, has reference to the first Person in the ever-blessed Trinity; while the El-Shaddai (the Almighty One, invested also with the attributes of Deity) denotes the delegated messenger of the Covenant.” In harmony with most, indeed nearly all ancient expositors, we have assumed the vision of the Patriarch to be a prefiguration of the great coming Redemption; and while the ladder forms a symbolic representation of the El-Shaddai as the Divine Way to the Father; in the Jehovah standing at the summit, we have the similar figurative representation of the adorable Father Himself;-the glorious "Revealer;" the supreme I am: "-"God in Christ."

* "The names," says the same accurate expositor from whom we have already quoted, "Jehovah and El-Shaddai, appear to have had in the patriarchal age that degree of distinct application which the names 'Lord' and 'God' had in the language of the apostles." "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him" (1 Cor. viii. 6). See Dr. Jamieson's Commentary; with a reference to 'Kidd on the Divine Names.' The above seems in every way a more consistent interpretation than that of some of the early Fathers, such as Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and Hilary, who regard the Lord above the ladder to be the glorified form of the Son of God.

As is well known, Elohim (a plural word, and considered by many to shadow forth the mystery of the Holy Trinity in Unity) is another

How cheering to Jacob would be the first accents emanating from the Being on whose Form he now gazed in trembling emotion, and who announced His name as the "Jehovah-God of Abraham thy father." And it was not only Jehovah, made known as very nigh,-looking down upon the very pillow on which he slept;- but the God also who had a tender cognisance of those nearest and dearest to Him: the Lord whose eye was at the same moment on the heath of Bethel and on the tents of Beersheba-" The God of Abraham thy father." How, at once, would memory begin to re-traverse the hours and scenes of childhood and youth, and recall the manifold story of Divine grace which must often have fallen from the lips of his saintly grandchief distinctive name by which the Divine Being is designated in the earliest inspired writings, sometimes conjoined with Jehovah (Jehovah-Elohim). Elohim would appear to be a general term, indicative of the existence of God as Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe, while Jehovah is expressive rather of His covenant relations to His Church and people :-Deity invested with moral attributes, and as such challenging their reverence and worship: -the righteous Lawgiver, the Theocratic King, the "Father of spirits." It has been noted that only once in the Old Testament does Elohim occur in connection with this covenant relation, when it is said (in Ps. lxxviii. 10) of apostate Ephraim, as the representative of Israel, "They kept not the covenant of Elohim." The term invariably employed in enjoining obedience is the former. It is not, "Keep the commandments of Elohim;" but "the commandments of Jehovah." It was Jehovah's Temple and Tabernacle; Jehovah's feasts and festivals;-Jehovah's prophets and kings; Jehovah's tribes and people. Even in speaking of ancient battles and heroes it was "the heroes," "the wars" of Jehovah. Their very watchword and battle-cry was, "The sword of the Lord (Jehovah)." See these and other interesting points specified in an exhaustive article on "Jehovah" in Smith's Bible Dictionary.

sire;-that grandsire whose body slept in the cave at Machpelah, but whose spirit seemed to be still in the presence of that Almighty One he had so faithfully served on earth. For the words of the Divine Speaker are not 'I was,' but "I AM the God of thy father Abraham." "The God" (as Christ's own interpretation expounds it) "not of the dead, but of the living" (Matt. xxii. 32).

Could Jacob wish for more? The whole vision was a reassuring one:-just at the time, too, when he urgently needed such help and invigoration. At the later, darker experience of his history, it was God-the 'Awful,' the Mysterious,' with whom he came in contact, wrestling with Him as if in a life and death struggle; indeed leaving him maimed in the conflict. Now, it was God the Protector-God the Forgiver-the God who, by varied personal acts of condescension and kindness, had showered blessings on the household of his relatives;-the Jehovah of the "everlasting Covenant, well ordered in all things and sure;" "the Shepherd of the stone of Israel: "the same God who was most fully revealed to him at the close of all; when, with the word 'Salvation' on his tongue, and probably reverting to this earliest vision of it, he was ready to die.

All that has been noted now regarding the Patri