notion among the Jewish rabbins, that if the secret name of Jehovah could by any means be got possession of, it would enable a man to perform wonders and miracles. They, in their silly conceits, applied this to the recovery of the true pronunciation of the word Jehovah ; but no doubt the notion respecting the importance of the acquisition arose from a traditionary knowledge of what wonderful things were expected among the ancients to attend the full manifestation of Jehovah, in this his greatest name.

There is also another remarkable impression respecting the appearance of God, which we meet with several times in Scripture, well worthy our notice, and which seemed to have been very deeply imprinted on the minds of the ancients;-that they could not see God and live!' and even when they were convinced that they had seen the Divine Being, they felt astonished that they still survived, and hardly thought their lives were safe. notion, it is probable, arose from a persuasion,which they had derived from some antecedent revelation, that by the intervention of death alone men would come to behold the manifestation of Jehovah Elohim.

This

It is also very remarkable, that in that passage of scripture where, it should seem, the meaning of the name Jehovah is intended to be announced, the annunciation is most mysterious. The passage alluded to, is that where Jehovah appears to Moses

in a flame of fire in the bush at Sinai: Moses asks, "Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The Elohim of your fathers hath sent me unto you,' and they shall say to me, What is his name?' what shall I say to them? And Elohim said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And Elohim said moreover unto Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, JEHOVAH, Elohim of your fathers, Elohim of Abraham, &c., hath sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this my memorial unto all generations."

Thus the passage stands in our public translation. The expressions, however, which we translate I AM THAT I AM, others render, I am because I am, and suppose the phrase to express simply uncaused self-existence. But by every rule of the Hebrew syntax that can be clearly inferred from the original scriptures, the words can mean only this, I SHALL BE WHAT I SHALL BE;

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I SHALL BE hath sent me unto you"."

a

say unto them,

And as the

* 8 8. I must confess, indeed, that I long thought the tense, in which these verbs are found, might, by itself, simply express time present; and what chiefly led me into the error, was the supposed certainty of its being to be so taken in this place. But I am now convinced, whatever may be the obscurity sometimes respecting the tenses in the sudden transitions of the poetical language of the prophets, the verb in this form can express nothing else but future time, when unaffected by a verb going before, expressed or understood, in construction with which it loses its own time, and takes that

name Jehovah has the appearance of being substituted for I SHALL BE, in the second charge of God to Moses, it may lead us to suppose that the full manifestation of Deity in his name Jehovah was reserved to a period yet future".

of the governing verb. The frequentative sense of this tense, which it certainly sometimes has, cannot apply to the passage before us: it can only express future time, whatever be the mystery!

The late Bishop Horsley agrees with Mr. Hutchinson, &c. in considering as a compound of and . He differs from him in deriving , not from the verb-substantive, but with Cocceius and Vitringa, from ", or would make it a root by

itself. "The name," he says, we take to signify whatever is 'lovely,'' fair,' and 'admirable' in the divine nature. But it is a name describing God, not barely as possessing these perfections in himself, but as putting them forth in act for the benefit and protection of the godly." The import of the compound he thinks may best be expressed in English by 'THE ALL-GLORIOUS-SELF-EXISTENT,' though it cannot be adequately rendered in any language.

But to this derivation of JAH, it has been objected, 66 certe à rad. derivari nequit, quia & numquam in ♬ mobile mutari

solet."-SIMONIS.

This author suggests: 'Quid? si deduceretur à rad. Ethiop. mitis' clemens fuit.'" But the great objection to both these derivations is, that they are not Hebrew; and it would be extraordinary that a word consecrated to express the consummation of excellency, or to designate a particular attribute in the Deity, should actually have become obsolete in the Hebrew dialect.

And I

But I am persuaded we must have recourse to the Hebrew verb-substantive , for the derivation of, Jah. "As if an abbreviation," as Mr. Parkhurst observes, "for think there is something in his suggestion, that the relation between and the verb n is intimated to us, the first time is used in Scripture, Exod. xv. 2; and I conceive that the

The other epithet of Deity, which first occurs in the opening of this ancient book, as in the book

use of the same verb, in the denunciation of the divine name to Moses from the bush much corroborates this notion, or rather, clearly proves its correctness.

But the defect of the Hutchinsonian school seems to be, that they do not sufficiently mark the distinct meaning of the two verbs of existence and, as entering into the composition of the divine name , Jehovah. The distinction between the two verbs is well stated by Bishop Horsley, though he rejects the part of the derivation from 7.

"The difference between this root and the verb-substantive, we take to be this: the verb-substantive implies either cival or piqveolai; either simply to be, or to be by generation, or production out of some other thing previously subsisting. But imports simply to be,' without generation or production; eivai avev tov qiqveodai." See also Simonis on and

.הוה

The divine name, Jehovah, as compounded of these two verbs, will then imply, HE THAT SHALL BE THE UNCAUSED,

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SELF-SUBSISTING, or THE SELF-EXISTING, THAT SHALL BE, or BECOME SUBSISTING IN ANOTHER MODE OF EXISTENCE," THAT SHALL BE PRODUCED,'' THAT SHALL BE BORN.' The divine name will then involve the mystery of the manifestation of the Deity in "the only begotten of the Father." Begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father,' born into the world.' Unquestionably JEHOVAH is the highest epithet of the divine essence, the self-subsisting Godhead,' the uncaused Being,' -if one might so unworthily express it- the eternal accident;' but it denotes this essence to be manifested in a new state of subsistency. It denotes the self-subsisting Deity as manifested in a person of the Godhead becoming the son of man.' But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' we are to remember is all one.' The term Jehovah relates not to the personality of the Son, but to the DEITY SO manifesting itself in the person of the Son-incarnate; and that Deity is the same in all the three persons-in virtue of which they are the same one, JEHOVAH.

The Son is not more Jehovah than the Father, or than the

struction, my Elohim,' thy Elohim,' his Elohim,' &c., are frequent. Jehovah is asserted to be the Elohim of these, but not of those. Whatever is the object of a man's religious trust and worship, that is his Elohim;' so that, besides the true Elohim, there may be false Elohim. There are also typical Elohim; but the name Jehovah never enters into these constructions. It were an absurdity to say, my Jehovah, thy Jehovah, &c., to speak of a false Jehovah, or to imagine a typical Jehovah; which renders it very plain, that we are right when we consider Jehovah' as denoting, or at least containing in it, something that does denote the Divine essence, in its incommunicable, ineffable, and unrepresented properties, what the Deity is in himself, eternally and unchangeably, however he stands related to the creature, or whether there be or be

'captain of their salvation,' leading them to victory, and executing vengeance upon their foes; as Isaiah speaks of what he saw in the visions of futurity," JEHOVAH SABAOTH mustering the hosts of the battle." We have not yet the full manifestation of this name of God, or rather of God in this name; but it was early the theme of prophecy; even Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied concerning it: "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute vengeance, &c." And surely a type of this was shown to Joshua, when Jehovah appeared before him as "a man with a drawn sword in his hand," declaring, " nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host am I come." The prophets indeed are full of the description of Jehovah's appearing in the last day as a mighty warrior" in the great day of the battle of Almighty God." See especially, in Rev. xix., the vision of the "WORD OF GOD, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, leading the armies of heaven," "Who in righteousness doth judge, and make war."