3 Facets Of Exodus 20:7

 

Exo 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

 

 

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain,” I have read this many times, and I thought the same as many have, that this is talking about vocabulary. It very well could be, but it might be talking about something else as well.

I do think that people, especially Christians should not be going around using the Lord's name loosely, with disrespect, with no reverence at all. Things such as, “Oh, my God.” “Jesus!” I think even the acronym “OMG” should not be used by Christians. God's Name is Holy and should be treated as such. Now, to another take on this Scripture.

 

When a person becomes a member of a club or an organization, you take on the name of that establishment. When someone sees you, they associate you with the club or organization. Or when they see the name of the club, they think of you. Same goes for when we take on the name Christian. When we call ourselves Christian, we take on God's name. Now, how do we represent God's name. Did we take it vain. Do we act like, talk like, think like the world, or like our Father in Heaven.

Let's take a look at this verse closely.

 

Exo 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

 

We are going to look at three words in this verse.

Take
The Hebrew word for “take” is נשא (nasa) and is very generic. It is used in a wide variety ways in the text. This word has been translated as lift, carry, accept, exalt, regard, forgive, respect and many other ways. In the context of this verse it is the "name" that is being "lifted up." One lifts up a name by making it known to others.

Name
In our modern world a name is nothing more than an identifier, really no different than being assigned a number. The Hebrew word for a name is שם (shem) In the Ancient Hebrews culture the "shem" is much more than just a name it is the "breath" of the individual. To the Hebrews the breath is more than just the inhale of good air and the exhale of the bad, it is his "character," it's what makes him unique. This idea of the word shem meaning character can be seen in 1 Kings 4:31, "and his fame was in all the nations round about." Here, the word fame is understood as his "character."

All Hebrew names are words with meaning and these words reflects their characters. For instance, Eve (Hhavah in Hebrew) means "life" because she is the mother of all the living (Hhay, a related word to Hhavah, see Genesis 3:20). The names for God is no different. The name Yahweh means "he exists" and God (Elohim) means "one of power and authority." Some other names of God include "Jealous" (Exodus 34:14), "One" (Zechariah 14:9 which literally reads "his name is one"), Holy (Isaiah 57:15) and others. What is God's name? Most will answer with Yahweh or God but we must remember that a name or shem in Hebrew is the character of the individual so the correct question should be "What is God's character?"

Vain
The third word that we need to understand correctly is the word "vain." This is the Hebrew word שוא (sheva). This word literally means "empty" and vain actions are empty of substance. This word can also be understood as "falsely" and “evil” in the sense of being empty and destitute of its true substance. This idea can be seen in Exodus 23:1, "You shall not utter a false report." The word "false" is the very same Hebrew word שוא (sheva), and can mean, “evil report”.

Now that we have a more complete understanding of the words in the passage we are able to see this in a more Hebraic interpretation.

You shall not represent the character of Elohim Falsely

 

So, how do you, I, we represent the Name, Character of God, Yah? With respect? With integrity? With honor? Or in vain, empty and false ways?

If we say Christ the Messiah lives in us, then we need to show the world His Character has become part of us.

 

One other way to take this verse could be this; when we hear people use the Name of our God in manner that is anything other than with respect, we shouldn't just sit there and “Take it”. Watching movies and TV, they throw His Holy Name around as if it were no more than saying,”dog”. And yet, we, “Take it”. We except it, we listen to it, and do nothing about it.

Selah, I.H.G.

Pastor D W Riffe