Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you and they ask me, ‘what is His name?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation. (Exodus 3:13-15, CSB)

In Exodus 3 God commissioned Moses to lead the people out of 400 years of Egyptian slavery and revealed both His nature and His name to Moses on Mount Horeb. There is some significant wordplay at work in this revelation that is not so apparent in the English translation. Knowing a little of this Hebrew wordplay can certainly strengthen our understanding of God’s purpose in our lives and our world.