The Convergence of Judaism and Islam. Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

Al-Khwarizmi’s Mathematical Doctrines in Ibn-Ezra’s Biblical Commentary r 173

from the burning bush, ordering him to deliver the Israelites from slav-
ery in Egypt. Moses at first maintains that he is unfit for the job, but God
insists that he should do it. Then we read:

ויאמר משה אל האלהים הנה אנכי בא אל בני ישראל ואמרתי

להם אלהי אבותיכם שלחני אליכם ואמרו לי מה שמו מה

אומר אליהם: ויאמר אלהים אל משה אהיה אשר אהיה

ויאמר כה תאמר לבני ישראל אהיה שלחני אליכם

)שמות ג’, י”ג-י”ד(.

[And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children

of Isra-el 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? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and

he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Isra-el, I AM hath

sent me unto you. (Exodus 3:13–14)]

These bracketed lines are taken exactly as they are, including capitals and
punctuations, from the Winston edition of the King James Version. The
key words here are EHYEH ASHER EHYEH (I AM THAT I AM) and
then just EHYEH (I AM). In various other English translations we have
“I will be what I will be” (or “I shall be what I shall be”) and then “I will
be” (or “I shall be”).
The immediate question arising here is—Did Moses get an answer to
his query? More than a few scholars and commentators maintain that he
did not. God said to him—I am who I am and you needn’t know my name.
The Lord refused to divulge His name. The reason might be that knowing
a name entails having a measure of domination. In the book of Genesis,
Adam is called upon to give names to animals, so as to signify his domina-
tion of the animal kingdom.
Other commentators (probably the majority) hold that Moses did get
a definite answer to his question. The repetition at the end of verse 14 of
just the word Ehyeh (“Ehyeh hath sent me unto you”) means that this (“I
am” or “I will be” or “I shall be”) is in fact God’s name as He gave it to
Moses. The idea is that God’s name signifies the very essence of Being (Ex-
istence). Indeed, closely related to the word Ehyeh, in root and meaning,
is the word Havaiah (Being; Existence; Creation), which in turn is closely
related to the ineffable Hebrew name of the Lord—Jehovah in English.