Why I believe Exodus 3:14 is one of the most mispreached verses in the Bible.
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Before I get to Exodus 3:14 I want to take a look at another verse that will help you understand why Exodus 3:14 is so misinterpreted. So first let's go to Jeremiah 23:26-27... Here GOD is showing His disdain for the practice of false priests and prophets who are removing His holy name from scripture. These false priests believed that by removing the name of GOD from text that it would remove the power of His name as well and in this way they could turn the hearts of the people away from the GOD of Abraham and towards their false pagan god, Baal. And so the practice of removing GOD's name and replacing it with the word "LORD or Lord" began and also continued afterwards. The result is that today your English translated bible is missing the holy name of GOD over seven thousand times. In fact it has been removed approximately 3 times for every page of the Old Testament. Interesting note is that the word "Lord" is actually a direct interpretation of the name Baal as seen here in the Britannica Encyclopedia
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Baal
ancient deity
Baal, god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew baÊ¿al) meant “owner” or “lord,”
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If you open up your bible, most of them have a preface which explains how they kept to the tradition of the removal of GOD's name and replaced it with the words Lord or LORD which are not names at all. It's also important to note that the King James Bible was not created until 1600 years after Christ was on Earth. This is why the Bible commands us to study to show ourselves to be a workman so that we are not ashamed. It is sad to say but many preachers today do not know the history behind the book that they preach from every week and therefore they set themselves up for misinterpretation of the Words of GOD.
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Now let's look at Exodus 3:14, the famous "I AM" verse.
How many times have I heard preachers preach that here GOD is saying His own name is "I AM". First we'll read the verse from two different bible translations. The first is the KIng james Version, the second is the TS2009 Version which re-inserts the proper names of the prophets and the name of GOD back in it's proper and original place by inserting the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, which in english we very poorly translated as YHWH (which is a whole nother topic, that for the sake of time I won't get into). TS2009 uses the Tetragrammaton to avoid controversy about how to interpret GOD's name, so as you are reading when you see the Tetragrammaton you simply interpret it as what you believe GOD's name is. Some will use Yahwey, some Jehovah, in my case I will use the name I believe is the most accurate YAHUAH, (again a whole nother topic on GOD's name which we will not go into for the sake of time). You use whatever name you believe is proper, the important thing is to know GOD has a name and it is not Lord or God or even I AM as we are about to see. So now let's look at the text. For the rest of this commentary I will be using the name I believe to be proper when referring to GOD.
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King James
Exodus 3
13. And Moses said unto 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 to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. 15. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
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TS2009
Exodus 3
13. And Mosheh said to Elohim, “See, when I come to the children of Yisra’Ä•l and say to them, ‘The Elohim of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His Name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14. And Elohim said to Mosheh, “I am that which I am.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Yisra’Ä•l, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
15And Elohim said further to Mosheh, “Thus you are to say to the children of Yisra’Ä•l, ‘יהוה Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of YitshÌ£aq, and the Elohim of Ya‛aqoḇ, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My remembrance to all generations.’
Now that you can see the difference in translations you may notice something. It seems that YAHUAH is calling Himself I AM in verse 14, but then in verse 15 we see that He is clearly commanding Moses to say that His name is YAHUAH, and that this is who Moses should say He is and in fact this will be His name forever and should be remembered by all generations. Sadly though everyone thinks His name is I AM and most people today do not even know YAHUAH's name, in fact most people today do not even realize that the words god and lord or not names at all.
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So what's really going on here? The answer is quite simple. In these verses YAHUAH is not only telling Moses what to call Him but also telling Moses who He is. Moses is about to go in and attempt to free the children of Israel who have been in captivity for many years. By now all they know and have experienced for themselves is hardship and pain and this has become their way of life. It is a hard life but they are alive for the most part and will need some assurance before they head off into the wilderness with this man who was raised by Egypt and now calls himself their brother. So YAHUAH first brings Himself to their remembrance by telling them who He is, I am who I am, the same, the GOD whom your fathers worshiped, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the GOD of Jacob. Moses tell them I am. In other words, tell them "WHO I AM", remind them of who I am. And how do we know this is what YAHUAH meant when He said "I am that which I am"? We simply have to read verse 15 written in a proper translation and not the mistranslated King James Version. Here YAHUAH commands Moses to say to the children of Israel, YAHUAH the GOD of your fathers has sent me, the GOD of Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob. And He says this is my name forever, and my remembrance to all generations. What is His name forever? Is it I AM or is it YAHUAH? I AM is not a name it is a description, of course it is plain to see the name to remember for all time is YAHUAH. Yet preachers all over the country falsely teach this verse and assist in the forgetting of YAHUAH's name. Which incidentally comes with a terrible price if you are a pastor according to the Word of YAHUAH. We are commanded to not only remember His name but to teach His name to our children.
To understand the value of His name you must first understand the translation. The tetragrammaton is a series of 4 Hebrew letters which are Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey.
Yud - in ancient Hebrew is a picture of an arm or hand
Hey - is a man with raised arms and it means to look or reveal
Vav - is a picture of a tent spike or nail
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When you translate the name which YAHUAH told Moses to say was His name the interpretation is HAND,LOOK,NAIL,LOOK.
This was His name from the beginning, His name testified of the cross, to the redemption of mankind. His name pointed to His son who would become the only path for redemption for all mankind. Now maybe you understand why Satan was so bent on removing His name.
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My advice to you is get yourself a Bible that restores His name and teach your children as well. I'll leave you with two final verses.
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Jeremiah 10
25. Pour out Your wrath on the nations who do not know You, and on the tribes who do not call on Your Name. For they have eaten up Ya‛aqoḇ, devoured him and consumed him, and laid waste his home.
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Joel 2
32. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the Name of יהוה shall be delivered. For on Mount Tsiyon and in Yerushalayim there shall be an escape as יהוה has said, and among the survivors whom יהוה calls.