Again, after His first message to Israel, through Moses, that He was going to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians (Ex. 6:6), He told him to tell them that when He shall have fulfilled His word, they would acknowledge that He is YHWH (Ex. 6:7 & 8). Next, He told Moses that, seeing He was YHWH, he should not be afraid to go to Pharaoh to deliver His message to him (Ex. 6:29). Following that, He told Moses that by the time He must have dealt with the Egyptians, the Egyptians would acknowledge that He was YHWH (Ex. 7:5). Then, He told Moses two times to go to Pharaoh and say to him that YHWH, the God of the Hebrews, had sent him to tell him to let His people go; if not, He would show him by signs that He is YHWH (Ex. 7:17; 8:22). And finally, having brought them out of Egypt, getting to Mount Sinai, when He was about to give them the commandment, He told Moses to tell Israel, “I am YHWH,” and reiterated it until He took them to the promised land. Even, after they got to the promised land, He did not stop reminding them that He is YHWH.
Pharaoh definitely understood what Moses meant by YHWH to have replied the way he did, and the Israelites understood what the Hebrew word means when Moses told them; if they didn’t, they would never attempt to follow Moses. For Pharaoh to have understood Moses, surely, Moses did not speak Hebrew to him, He spoke Egyptian language. What could Moses have interpreted the word to, in Egyptian language, for Pharaoh to have responded the way he did, and what could God have meant when He told Moses that He was YHWH and also sent him to tell Israel that He was YHWH? Again, what could the Israelites have understood YHWH to be for them to have followed Moses? Also, what did Eli take YHWH to mean when he told Samuel, “He is YHWH; let Him do what He thinks is good”? What did God mean when He told Ahab, two times, that he would acknowledge that He is YHWH (1 Kgs 20:13 and 28)? Finally, what did God mean when He told Israel, “I am YHWH; I do not camouflage; that is the reason the sons of Jacob have not been consumed” – Mal. 3:6 (KJV modified)?
Knowing that the Hebrew word, YHWH, has its origin in the Hebrew word, “hayah,” which is translatable to “exist” or “to be,” it is deducible that what God was telling Moses, Pharaoh, Ahab and Israel was that He was the Self-existent, in that He was not created and His existence is independent of any extrinsic force. Therefore, the accurate translation for Ex. 6:3 is:
I made Myself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty,
but not as the Self-existent.
God was letting Moses, Israel and Pharaoh know that He was the highest Authority on earth and that His counsel must stand, and making Israel to know that His laws were binding. In fact, He was deliberate: He wanted even Pharaoh and the Egyptians to confess Him consciously or unconsciously as the Self-existent – Exod. 8:8, 28; 9:27-28; 10:7-11, 16-17, etc, and also that all tongues should do the same (Is. 45:23-25; Phil. 2:9-11). Therefore, the most accurate translation for the Hebrew word, YHWH, as attested to by Paul (Acts 13:17 – WET), is “the Self-existent.” It is demeaning to call the Creator by the title of nobility in the United Kingdom which refers to members of the peerage – Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts, and Barons – being a general title for a prince or sovereign or a feudal superior, a title which today denotes a peer of the realm, whether or not he sits in parliament as a member of the house of lords.
That God said He made Himself known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as “Almighty,” an appellation or a qualifier, means that what He was revealing to Moses was a qualifier, not a name. God doesn’t have a name in the sense of a nounal word or phrase which indicates a person, He occupies an office and is identified by His attributes or by adjectives. The Hebrew word translated to “name” means reputation, authority or identifier. For instance, Jesus’ appellations are what are given in Isaiah 9:6, not names. Therefore, “the Self-existent” is the most appropriate, under the circumstance He revealed the identifier to Moses, being that it was not yet revealed to anyone as at that time. Even the word, “Elohim,” translated to “God” is not a name; it is an appellation.
Apart from “the Self-existent,” other identifiers or appellations exclusively employed for God the Invisible as shown in the Bible (KJV), include “Almighty,” “Most High,” “Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7:9, 13 & 22), “I AM THAT I AM” (Ex. 3:14), “Rock” (Deut. 32:18, 30 & 31), and “Father” in the First Testament; and “Him which is, and which was, and which is to come,” “Him that liveth forever and ever” (Rev. 4:9-10), “Father,” “God of gods,” “Lord of lords,” “King of kings,” “Almighty God” (Rev. 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7 & 14; 19:15-16; 21:22) and “Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the Ending, First and the Last” in the Final (Rev. 1:11; 21:6; 22:13).
The Greek translators were not entirely in the dark about this; it is the reason they translated the Hebrew word as “kurios” in Greek. “Kurios” has its root in the Greek word “Kuros” which talks of supremacy, implying “supreme in authority,” or “controller,” and translatable to “Master,” “God,” “Lord,” or “Sir.” (To see its accuracy, the reader is implored to replace YHWH in the 5,861 instances it appears in the First Testament with “the Self-existent.”)