We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Twice in the book of Exodus where tradition preserves the revelation of the divine name to Moses, God employs a peculiar idiom which S. R. Driver has called the idem per idem. In Exod 3:14 God says:
I will be what I will be
and again in 33:19 he tells his servant:
But I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious
and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy
The idem per idem is a tautology of sorts which Driver says is employed “where the means or the desire to be more explicit does not exist.” Driver calls the idiom Semitic, and indeed it is, as one can see by perusing the many examples from Hebrew and Arabic cited earlier by Paul de Lagarde in his Psalterium Iuxta Hebraeos Hieronymi. But it is also found, as we shall see in a moment, in other languages both ancient and modern.
1 The Book of Exodus (Cambridge Bible; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1911) 362–63Google Scholar; Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1966) 185–86Google Scholar.
2 This translation of the Hebrew Massoretic Text—where the verbs are pointed Qal—is the one preferred by Arnold, William R. in his detailed paper “The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” JBL 24 (1905) 125–27Google Scholar. See also Smith, W. Robertson, The Prophets of Israel (London: A. & C. Black, 1895) 386–88Google Scholar; S. R. Driver, Exodus, 23–24; and more recently K.-H. Bernhardt, “hāyāh,” TDOT, 3. 381. In the RSV “I will be what I will be” appears as an alternate reading in the footnotes. Ancient support for this translation comes from Aquila and Theodotion who rendered the idiom: ἔσoμαι δς ἔσoμαι.
3 On the translation of the Hebrew waw as an adversative, see the discussion following.
4 On the tautological nature of the idiom see further Ch. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame, 1971) 214–18Google Scholar, and Hayakawa, S. I., Language in Thought and Action (2d ed.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964) 219–20Google Scholar. I cannot agree with those who take the idiom as paronomastic, e.g., Vriezen, Th. C., “‘Ehje ‘Ašer ‘Ehje” in Festschrift Alfred Bertholet (eds. Baumgartner, W. et al. ; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1950) 498–512Google Scholar; Albrektson, Bertil, “On the Syntax of 
in Exodus 3:14” in Words and Meanings (eds. Ackroyd, Peter R. and Lindars, Barnabas; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1968) 27Google Scholar; Childs, Brevard, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974) 69Google Scholar. See a similar criticism by Vaux, Roland de, “The Revelation of the Divine Name YHWH” in Proclamation and Presence (eds. Durham, John I. and Porter, J. R.; Richmond: John Knox, 1970) 67Google Scholar.
5 Exodus, 363.
6 Notes on the Hebrew Text of Samuel, 185.
7 (Lipsiae: B. G. Teubneri, 1874) 156–58.
8 Outside the Bible the oldest example of the idiom is thought to exist in The Instruction for King Meri-ka-Re, an Egyptian document from the 22d century B.C. The Egyptian reads wnn·՚ i wn·՚kw, and ANET3 (416, line 95) translates “I am while I am.” This was first cited as a parallel to Exod 3:14 by Albrecht Alt in his brief note, “Ein ägyptisches Gegenstück zu Ex 3:14,” ZAW 58 (1940–41) 159–60Google Scholar and later picked up by de Vaux in “The Revelation of the Divine Name YHWH,” 68–69, and Bühlmann, Walter/Scherer, Karl in Stilfiguren der Bibel (Fribourg: Schweizerisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1973) 26Google Scholar. But Prof. Leonard Lesko, an Egyptologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has pointed out to me that because the two verb forms are different the translation could just as well be “I will be (as) I have been.”
9 Lagarde lists 1 Sam 1:24 and Zech 10:8 to which Smith adds Deut 9:25. Driver accepted all three but not Arnold; cf. Arnold, “The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” 127–28.
10 The examination of figures in their context is particularly stressed by modern rhetoricians, such as Chaim Perelman and William J. Brandt. See Perelman, The New Rhetoric, 218, and Brandt, The Rhetoric of Argumentation (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970) 100, 120.
11 The idem per idem is found in the mouth of God only one other time in the Bible, and that is in Ezek 12:25, where God says, “For I Yahweh speak the word which I speak.” There the function seems to be strictly one of emphasis. God wants to affirm that his word—once spoken—will indeed be performed (cf. Isa 55:10–11).
12 Cited in Tournier, Paul, The Adventure of Living (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) 120Google Scholar.
13 The issue of January 10, 1977.
14 The song was titled “Whatever Will Be Will Be” and was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (North Hollywood: Artists Music, 1955).
15 Moses (Oxford/London: East & West Library, 1946) 46Google ScholarPubMed.
16 Rad, Gerhard von, Old Testament Theology I (Edinburgh/London: Oliver and Boyd, 1962) 182Google Scholar. Arnold (“The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” 129) detects “a tone of resentment and rebuke.” See the similar judgment of Albright, W. F. in “Contributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology,” JBL 43 (1924) 376Google Scholar.
17 Carpenter, J. Estlin and Harford-Battersby, G., The Hexateuch II (London: Longmans, Green, 1900) 82–84Google Scholar; Arnold, “The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” 107.
18 “Contributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology,” 377.
19 While 
is not meant to be a proper name in the idem per idem, it is a proper name here; cf. Arnold, “The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” 124.
20 Haupt, Paul, “Der Name Jahwe,” OLZ 12 (1909) 211–14Google Scholar; W. F. Albright, “Contributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology,” 374–78; id., From the Stone Age to Christianity (2d ed.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1957) 15–16Google Scholar; Freedman, David Noel, “The Name of the God of Moses,” JBL 79 (1960) 152–55Google Scholar; Cross, Frank Moore, “Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs,” HTR 55 (1962) 255Google Scholar.
21 Freedman, “The Name of the God of Moses,” 154.
22 Freedman says the original meaning of 
(Yahweh) was forgotton (ibid., 153, n. 6). This now is even more likely if the Ya found affixed to personal names at Ebla (3d millenium B.C.) is a form of Yahweh; cf. Pettinato, Giovanni, “The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla,” BA 39 (1976) 48Google Scholar.
23 The amount of literature on this passage is enormous, yet only a few scholars notice and place emphasis upon the repetition of 
in vv 12, 14 and 4; 12,15. Abba, Raymond, “The Divine Name Yahweh,” JBL 80 (1961) 325–26Google Scholar is an exception. He translates 
“I will be present” and recognizes that it has the same meaning in 3:12, 14; 4; 12,15. The idem per idem for him is “only a more emphatic affirmation of this assurance” meaning “I will indeed be present.” Brevard Childs also notes the four occurrences of 
in chaps. 3 and 4 and says they provide for “thematic unity”; cf. Childs, Exodus, 70. Earlier Smith (The Prophets of Israel, 387–88) was influenced in his views—which are different, however, from those expressed here—by a suggestion of R. Jehuda Hallevy that 3:14 should be interpreted in light of 3:12. Driver too (Exodus, 41, n. 1) cited with approval Ewald who connected these two verses, though he rejected Ewald's translation of the idem per idem. More recently the connection between 3:12 and 3:14 has been noted and emphasized by Bernhardt in “hāyāh,” TDOT, 3. 381.
24 James Muilenburg did a careful study of vv 12–17 in his article “The Intercession of the Covenant Mediator (Exodus 33: la, 12–17)”in Words and Meanings, 159–81, but I cannot agree with him that a unit ends at v 17. The chapter may indeed be a composite as Muilenburg claims, but vv 12–23 appear to me to be too firmly held together to admit further fragmentization.
25 M. Luther, WA DB 8, 307.
26 Freedman, Lundbom, “ḥānan,” TWAT1. 34.
27 Arnold (“The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14,” 129) felt that the idem per idem in 14a was a non-answer, so he deleted it as a midrashic gloss on 14b. De Vaux too (“The Revelation of the Divine Name YHWH,” 64–65) argued that 14 was a non-answer. For him the answer does not come until v 15. Abba (“The Divine Name Yahweh,” 324) thinks both 14b and 15 give a positive answer. This is also the judgment of Childs (Exodus, 69), though later on (p. 76) he says precisely what we are affirming here: “The formula is paradoxically both an answer and a refusal of an answer.”
28 Ricoeur, , “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” HTR 70 (1977) 17–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; published also as Colloquy 27 of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1977) 7.
29 Muilenburg, James, “A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric: Repetition and Style,” VTSup I (Copenhagen, 1953) 97–111Google Scholar.
30 One will notice, however, that Paul expands upon Exod 33:19 in Rom 9:18 saying that God “hardens the heart of whomever he wills”; but even this falls short of his saying “I will judge whomever I will judge.”
31 Westermann, Claus, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967) 97–98Google Scholar.
32 On the unconditional covenants see Freedman, David Noel, “Divine Commitment and Human Obligation,” Int 18 (1964) 3–15Google Scholar.
