The Names of God and Their Meanings
What are the names of God in the Bible, and what does each one actually mean? Short answer. The Bible doesn't give God one name so much as a series of them, each disclosed at a particular moment of need. Yahweh ('I am who I am,' Exodus 3:14) is His personal, self-existent name, the one Israel considered too holy to say aloud. Compound titles build on it: Jehovah Jireh ('the Lord will provide,' Genesis 22:14), Jehovah Rapha ('the Lord who heals,' Exodus 15:26), Jehovah Shalom ('the Lord is peace,' Judges 6:23-24). El Shaddai ('God Almighty,' Genesis 17:1) speaks to raw, sufficient power. And Jesus hands us the most startling one: Abba, Father (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15). None of these are decorative. Each was spoken into a specific crisis, likely close to yours. Yahweh, the name God gave Himself When Moses stood before the burning bush, an Egyptian fugitive tending someone else's sheep, he asked God a practical question: if I go back and ...