The Sacred Name of God
“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” (Exod. 20:4-6). This passage is often cited as some sort of prohibition against speaking some explicative. I suppose that can be an application in a roundabout way from the point Moses thought to make, but that was never the heart of the issue. The third command had to do with verbal representations or better yet misrepresentations of God. In other words, “the people were to exercise the greatest caution when talking about him or invoking his name. They were to say nothing which might detract from a true appreciation of his nature and character” [1]. God revealed His name to the Hebrew people through the prophet Moses (Exod. 3:13-15). The name given was YHWH, which is translated “I AM.” Inasmuch as the giving of one’s name was something deep and personal, God gave the second commandment to warn against saying something that would drag the name of the ...