Elohim describes a transcendent God who exists beyond the physical universe. Nevertheless, although transcending creation, Elohim is still very much concerned with the general providence of the human race. The name YHWH expresses the closeness or immanence of a God Who is intimately involved in relationships with human beings and Who provides individual providence as well as national providence to the Jewish people.

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The concept of a single Deity being both immanent and transcendent represented a profound departure from the religious outlook of much of the ancient world. In our own times, we have no difficulty in moving between these two perceptions of God because of our familiarity with the Bible. However, people in the ancient world would have had difficulty conceptualizing the notion that the same God who created the universe was also interested in developing relationships with individual human beings. Pagan gods were associated with forces or functions within nature, such as storms and fertility, but rarely did they communicate with humans, other than perhaps with a king, and this was not understood as an expression of an enduring relationship.5

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The Torah does not attempt to eliminate the tension between these two contrasting aspects of God but expresses them through the two names YHWH and Elohim. Thus, the names of God are not an incidental aspect of the Torah but an integral part of its literary and theological structure.

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That God should have different, and even apparently contradictory aspects may seem strange to us today, since we are used to thinking about God in nothing but unitary terms. Nevertheless, using different names for the same person according to the nature of our relationship with that person is familiar to us. Most people address the president of a country as “Mr. President” in public. However, the children of the president may refer to their father as “Dad,” while his wife may use his first name. It would be strange for her to refer to him as “Mr. President” in a family setting other than in jest. Similarly, it would be inappropriate for anyone other than family or a close friend to call the President by his first name in a formal setting. Names such as “Dad” and “Mr. President” reflect different types of relationships with the very same person.

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It is my contention that this duality in the portrayal of God helps explain the presence of parallel and sometimes seemingly contradictory passages in the early stories of Genesis. One narrative may emphasize humanity’s relationship with Elohim, while another emphasizes its relationship with YHWH.

 

Thus, the creation of the world is described in two stories. The first is an Elohim account about the creation of the universe, while the second is a YHWH-Elohim account about the place of man and woman in the Garden of Eden. In this second story, both names of God are linked together as YHWH-Elohim, with the name YHWH first. This story is primarily about humanity’s relationship with the immanent God, YHWH, and particularly the loss of divine favor and its consequences for mankind.

 

Although not immediately apparent to the casual reader, the Noah narrative is composed of two interlocking Elohim and YHWH accounts. It is even possible to prize them apart, and to an extent each can stand alone, although both are truncated and incomplete compared to the complete narrative. As in the creation stories, there are apparent contradictions between the two accounts. As an example, the YHWH-passages provide no instructions to Noah as to how he should build the ark, and he, his family and the animals enter into a ready-made ark. Instructions about the construction of the ark are contained in the previous Elohim-passage. There are also differences in the number of animals that will enter the ark and how they will do so.

 

Two covenants are made with Abraham — the Covenant between the Pieces, initiated by YHWH, and a Covenant of Circumcision established by Elohim. Abraham and Sarah are also informed twice that they will have a child in their old age, once when Elohim informs Abraham following the Covenant of Circumcision and later when Sarah hears the announcement in a narrative associated with YHWH.

 

These parallel narratives are not oddities written into the Torah by a human redactor, but are deliberate and essential features of the Torah’s composition of Genesis. They reflect the immanence and transcendence of God, as well as the dual role of Abraham, and, later, of the Jewish people.

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On the one hand, Abraham has the particularistic mission of developing a covenantal community based on righteousness and justice that will recognize YHWH as its covenantal God. On the other hand, this nation has a universal function as a model to the rest of the world as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6). This universal dimension is particularly associated with the name Elohim.

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The tension between the immanence and transcendence of God was appreciated by Maimonides in his discussion of the Torah’s injunctions to fear and love God. The following passage in his Mishneh Torah was not written specifically about the names of God, but nevertheless illustrates the relationship between divine transcendence and the human religious experience:

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What is the path [to attain] love and fear of Him? When a person contemplates His wondrous and great deeds and creations and appreciates His infinite wisdom that surpasses all comparison, he will immediately love, praise and glorify [Him] yearning with tremendous desire to know [God’s] great name. . . When he [continues] to reflect on these matters, he will immediately recoil in awe and fear, appreciating how he is a tiny, lowly and dark creature, standing with his flimsy, limited, wisdom before He who is of perfect knowledge.6

 

It is noteworthy that for the expression “love of God,” the Torah uses only the name YHWH and not Elohim, since the Creator of the universe, Elohim, is too remote for such intimacy.7 There are two aspects to fear of God — one is fear of punishment and the other is awe of being in His presence. Fear of God can relate to both YHWH and Elohim, since both names are associated with the moral order.8

 

I would go further than this and suggest that the coexistence of apparently contradictory aspects is not only confined to the Torah’s portrayal of God, but is also a feature of the universe itself. Thus, in quantum mechanics, light exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties depending on the experimental conditions under which it is observed. These properties are not contradictory in the strict scientific sense, but they do illustrate how apparently incompatible descriptions can be necessary for understanding a single reality. Similarly, the Torah’s different portrayals of aspects of God may express complementary truths that cannot be adequately conveyed through a single description.

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It should be noted that the approach of this chapter differs markedly from that of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik described in his influential essay “The Lonely Man of Faith,” in which he argues that the two creation stories describe two different aspects of man.7 I discuss his ideas further in my essay “Are there one or two creation stories?”

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An approach that bears similarities to the interpretation presented here is that of Rabbi Mordechai Breuer (1921-2007). Rabbi Breuer emphasized the value of p’shat, or the literal meaning of the text, and his teaching contributed significantly to the study of p’shat in the religious Zionist yeshiva world, particularly at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Herzog College. An important contribution of Rabbi Breuer to biblical studies is his system of shitat hebehinot, often referred to as "the Aspects Theory.”8 Rabbi Breuer argued that the Torah is a divine work that presents multiple, sometimes conflicting perspectives. Each perspective represents a true and valid divine viewpoint. His starting point was his analysis of the documentary hypothesis. However, rather than seeing the Torah as a compilation of various authors with differing agendas, he saw these different passages as reflecting a multilayered truth and as deliberate components of divine revelation.

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My approach is narrower in scope. I focus specifically on the theological significance of the divine names and their relationship to the structure of the biblical narratives. Like Rabbi Breuer, I regard the Torah as a unified divine composition rather than a compilation of independent human documents. However, my interpretation does not depend on accepting the literary divisions proposed by the documentary hypothesis.

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Let us now focus more closely on the two principal names of God in the Torah.

 

The name Elohim

 

The name Elohim is a Hebrew designation for the Deity, and in contrast to YHWH is not presented in the Torah as a name revealed to humanity. It is related to the Hebrew word El, generally understood to refer to God or a divine power.9 The ending of the word Elohim with the letters “im” has the grammatical form of a masculine plural. This can be understood as reflecting the multiple powers operating within nature that are created and controlled by God. Nevertheless, when Elohim refers to the God of Israel, the accompanying verb is generally singular, although there are a few exceptions.10

 

Elohim is used in the Bible as a general term for “the Deity.” In certain legal passages, it may also refer to judges or judicial authorities, since they function as representatives of Elohim in administering justice.11 This name is also found in expressions such as Elohe Yisroel, meaning God of Israel, and may take possessive suffixes such as Elohekha (your God) and Elohav (his God). El was also the name of the supreme deity in the Canaanite pantheon.

 

Elohim is the Creator God in the first chapter of Genesis, and the universe He created has harmonious order, design and purpose. He is a transcendent God existing well beyond the natural world. He is also the source of the laws governing the universe, and these operate with regularity and consistency. Thus, in contrast to the biblical portrayal of YHWH as responsive to human behavior, Elohim is generally portrayed as acting according to an established order.

 

Despite existing beyond the universe, Elohim is not remote from His creation, and He is very much concerned with the general providence of the world and of humanity. This differs markedly from the conception of an uninvolved Creator who establishes the universe and then leaves it to operate independently. Aristotle’s concept of the Unmoved Mover is sometimes compared to such a view, although Aristotle regarded the universe as being eternal and did not teach that God created the universe at a particular moment in time. Within later Jewish thought one finds the idea that the universe would cease to exist without God’s continual sustaining activity.

 

Elohim is the God of all humanity, as the universe was created for all mankind and not for one nation or the adherents of one religion. The universal aspect of Elohim is evident in a number of places in the Pentateuch. Hence, Noah blesses his son Shem in the name of YHWH, but invokes Elohim in his blessing concerning Japheth (Genesis 9:26-27). Shem is the progenitor of the Semitic nations, while Japheth is traditionally associated with people extending into the Mediterranean and Aegean worlds, including the Greeks.

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An important idea found in the early chapters of Genesis is that humanity is commanded and blessed to procreate and populate the earth. It is illuminating to follow the consistency of this idea and its relation to the name Elohim.

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In the first creation account, when Elohim is relating to the progenitors of mankind, we read:

Elohim blessed them [the first male and female] and Elohim said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky and every living thing that moves on the earth (ibid 1:28).

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That mankind should procreate and populate the earth is not at all obvious. Even nowadays there are couples who limit the size of their families because of their fear of nuclear annihilation, the problems associated with climate change, or the possibility of global food shortage. These concerns raise questions about the long-term future of humanity and the wisdom of bringing additional children into this uncertain world. Such fears about human existence were particularly prevalent in the ancient world, since, as will be explained in the essay on Noah, the population of the ancient world had a pessimistic attitude regarding the human condition and the future of the world.

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It is appropriate, therefore, that following the destruction of the world by the Flood, Elohim emphasizes to Noah the desirability of humanity filling the earth, and we find almost identical wording regarding procreation as in the first creation account:

And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and He said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (ibid 9:1).

 

To reassure humanity about its future, Elohim proceeds to make a covenant with Noah and his future generations that there shall “never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Genesis 9:15). A covenant is a formal way of making a promise to another party. The sign of this covenant is a rainbow, which Elohim designates as visible sign linking His promise to this world.

 

The name YHWH

 

Unlike Elohim, YHWH is presented in the Torah not as a name devised by humanity, but as a personal divine name whose meaning is revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-15). In contrast to Elohim, YHWH is an immanent God Who relates to human beings on an individual level and Who is responsible for individual providence.

 

To maintain a relationship with God, human beings must practice moral behavior. Therefore, YHWH chose the descendants of Shem, and ultimately Abraham and his descendants, to establish a covenantal people who would bring morality and the attributes associated with His name into the world. YHWH also revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush as the personal God of the Jewish forefathers and the God Who will become the national God of the Israelite people.

 

The meaning of the name YHWH is illuminated by God’s words to Moses at the burning bush, particularly through the Hebrew word “ehyeh,” which means “I shall be” or “I will be:"

 

And He said: “For I shall be (ehyeh) with you — and this is the sign for you that I have sent you. When you take the people out of Egypt, you shall worship Elohim on this mountain” (Exodus 3:12).

 

Moses now asks a question to God:

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Moses said to Elohim: “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them: ‘The God of your forefathers has sent me to you, and they say to me what is His name? What shall I say to them?’ Elohim answered Moses: “I Shall Be What I Shall Be (eheyeh asher eheyeh).”’ And He said: “So shall you say to the Children of Israel: ‘I Shall Be (eheyeh) has sent me to you.’” Elohim said further to Moses: “‘So shall you say to the Children of Israel; YHWH the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My remembrance from generation to generation” (Exodus 3:13-15).  

 

One interpretation of the name YHWH is that it relates directly to God’s preceding promise to Moses, expressed through the verb “ehyeh:” “I shall be with you.” God promises to accompany Moses in his mission and provide him with the personal providence necessary for its success. Other explanations of this name have also been proposed that have significant philosophical implications, and which are discussed in reference 12.12

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In the last sentence of this passage, God declares that the name YHWH will remain His name throughout the generations, thereby emphasizing the enduring nature of His relationship with the Israelite people:  

 

This is My name forever, and this is My remembrance from generation to generation (Exodus 3:15).

 

The name YHWH first appears in the Torah in the first sentence of the second creation story, but in combination with the name Elohim:

 

These are the generations (i.e., products) of the heaven and the earth when they were created, on the day that YHWH Elohim (God God) made earth and heaven (Genesis 2:4).

 

This double appellation for God is unusual in Hebrew. Its oddity is not as noticeable in English, since the two names are usually translated as “the Lord God.” This combination occurs repeatedly in Genesis 2 and 3, but in only one other place in the Torah.13 Explanations as to why these two names are found together usually entail adding extra words to the sentence, such as “YHWH [who is the same God as] Elohim [used in the previous chapter]” or “YHWH [who is] the Deity.”14

 

However, a question can be asked regarding these explanations. If the phrase “YHWH Elohim” is no more than an introduction to YHWH in terms of the name Elohim mentioned in the first chapter, or expresses no more than that YHWH is the Deity, why is this combination of names continued throughout chapters 2 and 3?  Would not the opening sentence have sufficed?

 

I suggest another explanation. God relates to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on two levels. On one level, they are two individuals who, until their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, have a personal relationship with YHWH. On another, they represent the entire human race. This dual role becomes particularly important when the narrative describes the consequences of their disobedience, since these consequences concern not only Adam and Eve as individuals, but humanity as a whole. The combined name may therefore express the simultaneous involvement of God’s personal and universal attributes. However, once they are expelled from the Garden of Eden, God relates to Adam and Eve and their descendants through either the name YHWH or Elohim, depending on the aspect of the divine relationship being emphasized.  

 

In contrast to Elohim, YHWH relates to mankind in a very personal way, even to the point of being portrayed as responding emotionally to human conduct and reconsidering His previous course of action. This is very evident from two consecutive sections in the story of Noah. The first is a YHWH passage, while the passage immediately following is an Elohim passage:

 

And YHWH saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And YHWH regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And YHWH said: “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, to creeping things, and the birds of the air; for I regret having made them.” And Noah found grace in the eyes of YHWH (Genesis 6:5-8).

 

The difference in the portrayal of Elohim in the immediately following passage is very evident, even though both passages relate to the same situation:

 

These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked (hit’halech) with Elohim. And Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet. And the earth had become corrupt before Elohim, and the earth was filled with corruption. And Elohim looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And Elohim said to Noah: “The end of all flesh has come before me; for the earth is filled with corruption through them; and, behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood (Genesis 6:9-14).

 

The relationship between humanity and YHWH portrayed here is a reciprocal relationship. Were YHWH to be unresponsive to human choices and requests, the world would become a deterministic one. Prayer to YHWH would be pointless, since the outcome would have already been determined. Moreover, God would never have the opportunity to demonstrate His attributes of righteousness and mercy and thereby be a model for human behavior.

 

These divine names do not imply that God possesses separate personalities or that His essential nature changes. Rather, they express different aspects of the one God as He is revealed to humanity and as His actions are portrayed in the Torah.

 

Nevertheless, this does lead to an interesting theological question. If God knows the future, how could He regret creating humanity when He would already have known that mankind would take the wrong path in the generation of Noah?

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Rashi answers this question as it relates to the Noah account with an analogy based on a midrash in which a gentile asks Rabbi Yehoshua this very question:

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Do you not admit that the Holy One, Blessed is He foresees the future?” . . . Rabbi Yehoshua said to him. . .  “Even though it was revealed before Him that their destiny was to sin and to suffer destruction, He did not refrain from creating them because of the righteous who are destined to arise from among them.15

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Nevertheless, Rabbi Yehoshua’s reply does not answer the question as to why the text is written in a way that implies that God does not know the future.

 

There is another possibility, and this is that God’s knowledge of future human choices is not absolute in the manner traditionally assumed. All human beings possess free will. One may argue that if God knows with certainty every choice a person will make, genuine freedom of choice is impossible to explain. In actuality, God may know what a person is likely to decide based on that person’s character and previous choices. He knows in what direction mankind is trending. He can also direct events toward particular outcomes. However, I am suggesting, that the biblical portrayal of YHWH is best understood as implying that He does not possess complete foreknowledge of future human choices.

 

This approach challenges the approach of most classical Jewish authorities who maintain that divine foreknowledge and human free will are compatible, even if their reconciliation is beyond human understanding. Nevertheless, versions of a limitation on divine knowledge of future contingencies have been proposed by a small number of Jewish thinkers.16

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Nevertheless, this debate does relate to a separate philosophical question. What is important for the present discussion is that the Torah portrays the relationship between YHWH and humanity as reciprocal rather than mechanically predetermined.

 

The names of God and the development of a covenantal nation

As the narrative moves from the patriarchal period to the Israelites’ descent into Egypt, a significant change becomes apparent in the way that the divine names are used. Jacob was well aware of the protection provided to him by YHWH, but knowledge of YHWH seems to have been lost, or at least sublimated, by the rest of his family. Joseph speaks often about God, but it is invariably about Elohim. It may well be that his conception of God was primarily that of a Deity directing the fate of the Israelite people among the nations, rather than as a God providing him with direct personal providence.

 

Nevertheless, the text makes it clear that YHWH was active behind the scenes. When Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce Joseph and Joseph’s rejection of her advances lands him in prison, the Torah tells us:

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And it was after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and she said: “Lie with me.” But he refused: He said to his master’s wife “ . . . How then can I perpetrate this great evil; I will have sinned against Elohim?”. . . . Then Joseph’s master took him and placed him in the prison. . . . The prison warden did not scrutinize anything that was in his custody, because YHWH was with him [Joseph]; and whatever he would do YHWH would make successful (ibid 39:7-23).

 

The distinction is significant. Joseph invokes Elohim when explaining the moral basis of his refusal to commit adultery, while the text invokes YHWH in describing the personal providence that accompanies Joseph through his suffering. This supports the proposition that divine names are selected according to the aspect of God’s relationship with humanity that is being emphasized.

 

The Israelites in Egypt also appear to have lacked an awareness of YHWH as their personal and national God, in that when they cry out to God because of their oppression, the narrative describes their prayers as reaching Elohim:

 

And it happened during those many days that the king of Egypt died, and the Children of Israel groaned because of the work and they cried out. Their cry because of the work went up to Elohim. And Elohim heard their moaning and Elohim remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. And Elohim saw the Children of Israel and Elohim knew (Exodus 2:23-25).

 

The name YHWH first appears in the narrative of Exodus at the burning bush, where YHWH reveals Himself to Moses:

 

An angel of YHWH appeared to him [Moses] in flames of fire from within the bush . . . (Exodus 3:2).

 

From this point on, the focus of the Torah shifts to an almost exclusive involvement of YHWH in the fate of the Israelite people.

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In conclusion, the two principal divine names in the Torah, Elohim and YHWH, express complementary aspects of the One God. The name Elohim emphasizes divine transcendence, the creation and governance of the universe, the moral order, and God's universal relationship with humanity. YHWH emphasizes divine immanence, personal providence, mercy, and God's covenantal relationship with individuals and the people of Israel.

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These distinctions also illuminate the dual mission of the Jewish people. Judaism has a particularistic dimension, expressed through its covenantal relationship with YHWH, and a universal mission in which the Jewish people are called upon to serve as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). These are not competing missions but complementary aspects of Israel's religious purpose.

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These divine names are also fundamental to the literary structure of Genesis. The two creation accounts, the interwoven narratives of Noah, and the parallel covenantal and annunciation narratives concerning Abraham and Sarah express different aspects of God's relationship with humanity. These differences are not evidence of an imperfectly edited text but deliberate features of a unified divine composition.

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The Noah narrative is particularly revealing because the names YHWH and Elohim appear in closely related passages that portray God's response to the same human crisis from different perspectives. In the Abraham narratives, the distinction becomes more closely associated with the particularistic and universal dimensions of the covenant. Finally, during the Israelites' experience in Egypt, the personal significance of YHWH appears to recede from their consciousness until it is brought into renewed prominence through God's revelation to Moses.

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The central argument of this chapter is therefore that the names of God are not interchangeable labels. They are essential elements of the Torah's theological language, enabling the text to portray a single divine reality through different, sometimes apparently contradictory, perspectives. Recognizing their significance offers a deeper understanding of both the Torah's literary structure and its conception of the relationship between God, Israel, and humanity.

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References

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1. Rashi to Genesis 1:1 based on Genesis Rabbah 12:15: “At the beginning of creation, God intended to create the world with the attribute of judgment (middat ha-din). But seeing that the world could not endure it, He preceded it with the attribute of mercy (middat ha-rachamim), and partnered it with judgment.” Other sources are Genesis Rabbah 14:1, Exodus Rabbah 30:13 and Pesikta Rabbati 40.

2. Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashonah 17b.

3. Umberto Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch, Lecture 2, “The Divine Names,” p. 18. Jerusalem and New York: Shalem Press, 2006. See also Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, “The Names of God,” in The Koren Siddur, Introduction, Translation and Commentary, p. xiv. Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2009.

4. Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch, Lecture 3, “More About the Divine Names,” p. 32.

5. In the Noah story, God speaks freely to Noah. However, in the very similar Gilgamesh myth, the god Ea can only communicate with Utnapishtim about building an ark by speaking to the brick wall of his reed hut. See “Gilgamesh Tablet XI” in Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia. Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and Others, p. 110. Oxford University Press, revised edition, 2000.

6. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 2:2.

7. http://www.traditiononline.org/news/converted/Volume%207/No.%202/The%20Lonely%20Man.pdf.

8. Mordechai Breuer, The Aspects Theory of Rav Mordechai Breuer [Hebrew], edited by Yosef Ofer. Alon Shvut: Tevunot, 2012. See also the introduction, “Breuer’s Shitat HaBehinot (Aspects Theory) in In the Beginnings. Discovering the Two Worldviews Hidden within Genesis 1-11, p. 12, Jerusalem: Gefen, 2023. See also Avigail Rock, Great Biblical Commentators. Biographies, Methodologies and Contributions. Maggid Books, 2023, p. 417.

9. Judah Halevi, Kuzari IV:1. This explanation also partially follows Nachmanides in his commentary to Genesis 1:1. See also Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, “The Names of God,” in The Koren Siddur, p. xiv.

10. An example is Genesis 20:13 where the verb for “caused” is in the plural. “And so it was, when Elohim caused me [i.e., Abraham] to wander from my father’s house, I said to her. . . .” Rashi comments on this phrase and points out other examples in the Bible where the accompanying verb is in the plural. He does not regard this usage as necessarily significant. The plural grammatical form of Elohim should be distinguished from the divine use of the first-person plural in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man.” The latter has been explained in midrashic literature as God consulting His ministering angels. These are related questions concerning biblical language, but they are not grammatically identical.

11. Examples of judges or judicial authorities are "then his master shall bring him to God [Elohim], and shall bring him to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall bore through his ear with the awl, and he shall serve him forever" (Exodus 21:6) and: "If the thief is not found, then the householder shall come near to God [Elohim] that he had not laid his hand on his neighbor's property. For every item of liability, whether an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or a garment, or for any lost item about which he says: 'This is it,' the case of both parties shall come before God [Elohim]. Whomever God [Elohim] condemns shall pay double to his neighbor" (Exodus 22:7-9).

12. Consistent with this explanation is that of Rashi who interprets “ehyeh asher ehyeh” as: "I will be with them in this suffering, as I will be with them in future oppressions." Ibn Ezra also interprets “ehyeh” in relation to God's eternal nature and reliability and reflecting His ongoing presence. God saying: "I will be with you" is both a promise and a reassurance. He also notes that the future tense in Hebrew can imply the aspect of certainty and not just time. Sforno reads it as “I will be, as I will be” — meaning that God will reveal Himself in ways appropriate to the needs and spiritual level of the people. Each generation may experience God differently, but God is constant in His essence. By contrast, Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed (1:63), interprets “ehyeh” as a metaphysical declaration of existence. The phrase means “the One who necessarily exists” and who is independent of all else. Nachmanides connects “ehyeh” to God's eternal and unchanging existence, relating it to the divine name YHWH,  which also derives from the same root to be.

13. An example is Exodus 9:30, although its grammatical context differs from that of Genesis 2-3. Elohim in this instance may well be translated as “the Deity.”

14. See Rashi to Genesis 2:5. Rashi explains the name Elohim as the ruler and judge over everything.

15. Rashi to Genesis 6.6 based on Genesis Rabbah 27:4.

16. Most Jewish philosophers disagree with me and feel that God has complete foreknowledge of people’s freewill choices before they are made. Nevertheless, there are orthodox philosophers, namely the Ralbag (Gersonides) and the Shlah, who describe a limitation of God’s foreknowledge. For a thorough review of this topic, see Rabbi Natanel Wiederblank, “The Problem of Foreknowledge,” in Illuminating Jewish Thought: Explorations of Free Will, the Afterlife, and the Messianic Era, pp. 67–176. Maggid Books, 2018.