class="smcap">Rab, the great or mighty One. 7. חסד Chesed, the bountiful Being: He who is exuberant in his beneficence. 8. אמת Emeth, the Truth, or true One: He alone who can neither deceive nor be deceived—who is the Fountain of truth, and from whom all wisdom and knowledge must be derived. 9. נצר חסד Notser chesed the preserver of bountifulness: He whose beneficence never ends, keeping mercy for thousands of generations—showing compassion and mercy while the world endures. 10. נשא עון ופשע וחטאה nose âvon vapeshâ vechataah: He who bears away iniquity and transgression and sin; properly the Redeemer, the Pardoner, the Forgiver, the Being whose prerogative alone it is to forgive sin, and save the soul. נקה (לו) לא ינקה Nakeh lo yinnakeh, the righteous Judge, who distributes justice with an impartial hand; with whom no innocent person can ever be condemned. 11. And פקד עון Paked âvon, &c. He who visits iniquity; he who punishes transgressors, and from whose justice no sinner can escape. The God of retributive and vindictive justice. These eleven attributes, as they have been termed, are all included in the name Jehovah; and are the proper interpretation of it.2

The Jews had a superstitious respect for this name; and, after the Babylonian captivity, discontinued the use of it, which caused them soon to forget its true pronunciation. They called it the Tetragrammaton, or four-lettered name of God, which, to the present day, the Jews will neither write nor pronounce. They deemed it to be ineffable; and therefore when it occurred in reading the Scriptures; substituted אדני Adonai.

The Jews tell us that the woman’s son, mentioned in Lev. xxxiv, 11, was accused of blasphemy and stoned to death, because he pronounced the name Jehovah. But I conceive, that he had spoken contemptuously of God. We read, verse 10, that he and a man of Israel strove together, and it is probable that the Israelite, in the heat of contention, would deny his being a member of the church of God, because he was the son of an Egyptian father who was an idolater; whereupon, no doubt, the son of the Israelitish woman spoke scornfully and opprobriously of the God of Israel, despising the privilege of being one of his people. This, I imagine, was the blasphemy of which he was accused, and for which he was condemned and stoned to death; and not for pronouncing the name of Jehovah only.

The Seventy who translated the Old Testament into Greek, at the desire of Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, about the 124th Olympiad, were also very sparing in the use of this name Jehovah; and therefore did not render it according to the sacred import of the Hebrew, but changed it into the word Κυριος, Lord, which is of the same signification with Adonai in the Hebrew. Origen, Jerome, and Eusebius, testify, that, in their time, the Jews left the name Jehovah written in their copies with Samaritan characters, instead of the common Chaldee or Hebrew characters. And those divines, who at the command of King James translated the Scriptures anew into English, have very rarely used the word Jehovah, but rendered it Lord. Yet we may observe, that when this word Lord is substituted for Jehovah, it is printed in large Roman letters. It is to be wished, that the name Jehovah had been preserved in the English translation of the Scriptures, and especially in those passages whose sense entirely depends on the meaning of the word.

After the appointment of Moses, by Jehovah, to deliver the children of Israel from the tyranny and oppression under which they groaned, and to conduct them from Egypt to worship God at Horeb, he was anxious to obtain a particular revelation of the Divine nature and attributes, that he might be able to regulate, direct, and superintend their worship; and this he deemed necessary on account of the Israelites having been long conversant among the Egyptians, who were idolaters and polytheists, and called their gods by a variety of names. Hereupon he said to God, “Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?” Intimating, that it was expedient God should call himself by an appropriate name, to distinguish himself from all the gods of the heathen. For men did not, at this time, as Dr. Shuckford observes, know the works of creation well enough to demonstrate from them the attributes of God; nor could they, by speculation, form proper and just notions of his nature. Though he had revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the name אני אל שדי Ani El shaday, “I am God all-sufficient,” and likewise that of יהוה Jehovah; yet a further knowledge of him was sincerely desired and earnestly requested.3

Whereupon, says God to Moses, I am that I am, אהיה אשר אהיה Eheyeh asher Eheyeh. The Vulgate translates these words—Ego sum qui sum, I am who am. The Septuagint—Εγω ειμι ὁ Ων, I am he who exists. The Arabic paraphrases them—The Eternal, who passes not away. Not I was, but I am and will be: a name that expresses his own essence, and signifies independency, immutability, and necessary existence. As if he had said, You may inquire who I am, and by what name I would be distinguished: know then that I am he who has being from himself, and has no dependence on any other.4 This contains in it the whole plenitude and possibility of being, all that is, or can be, or, as the Apostle expresses it, παν το πληρωμα της Θεοτητος “all the fulness of the Godhead.” By this name he is distinguished not only from all false gods, but from all other beings whatsoever; implying, that he exists after some very eminent and peculiar manner, and that nothing else besides him truly and essentially is.5

The self-existence of God proves that he always was, and evidently shows that he cannot cease to be. “He is, and was, and is to come.” His necessary existence comprehends a duration which has neither beginning, succession, nor end. He can have no succession in his duration, because wherever this is there must