[Note: The following is the prepared text for a sermon given to The Dalles congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, February 15, 2025.]

Recently, when I closed my last sermon, I hinted at a mystery between two names of God that are used in the Hebrew for God, but given that I had already spoken at length before then, I did not have the time to get into the matter in depth, unless I really was trying to be like Mr. Gerald Waterhouse from the old days. Today, though, a lot sooner than I expected, I will get into that discussion and explore the reason why the Hebrew Bible refers to God primarily, but not exclusively, by two names, Yahweh (which I take here to be the most reasonable transliteration of the Yod-Het-Vet-Het of the original Hebrew) and Elohim (which is the plural version of the El name that is common throughout Semitic languages for the Most High God).

To explain it in a bit more detail, the mystery of Elohim is that it is a plural name (signified by the -im ending) that refers to both El Elyon, the Most High God, God the Father, as well as the one who was to become Jesus Christ acting in perfect harmony and unity. This was indeed a mystery, though there are at least a few glimpses we will see in a later message that at least some people in the Old Testament times did appear to understand the nature of God as being made up of a Father and a Son. The name El, the basis of Elohim, is a rather standard and even somewhat generic Semitic name for God, as the Canaanites called their chief god El, and even the Muslim Allah appears to come from a similar source linguistically at least. The fact that such a name is translated as God, the generic equivalent in English, is not surprising, just as it is not surprising that it should be rendered theos, the Greek generic word for deity, in the Greek New Testament. The name Yahweh, on the other hand, however it is pronounced, appears grammatically connected to the word for being or existence, which makes sense. It is a bit more puzzling why it is that this name is translated as Lord. This is, interestingly enough, because it has long been the habit of the Jews to refer to the personal name signified YHWH (whose pronunciation is unclear, lacking vowel points) by the word Adonai, which meant Lord, which is then translated as such in most English language Bibles, even though the personal name of the God family does not in fact mean Lord.

There are, of course, various mistaken theories as to why the Hebrew scriptures refer to God by these two names. (There is, I should note here, a third name that we will briefly discuss here, as it plays into how we are to understand the identity of God as well and how it is spoken as well.) One of the most popular of these mistaken ideas is something called the Documentary Hypothesis, of which there are many specific versions but one overarching theme. That idea is that the Hebrew Old Testament is a patchwork of misaligned texts cobbled together from a variety of sources, some of which were Priestly sources, one of which was a source that included Deuteronomy, and two others of which came from different religious traditions, one of which used Yahweh to refer to God and the other of which used Elohim, which were stitched together inexpertly by someone seeking to harmonize these different religious traditions, the whole thing being subject to later editing that created various anachronisms regarding the name of groups of people and places to make them more familiar with later readers. As it happens, only this last part about later editing, happens to be true, but that is a subject I will leave for another time if you all wish for me to go into it.

Let us take a step back, though, and ponder why it is that people would feel the need to posit such a ridiculous theory that goes against everything in terms of how writers actually operate. Unless you are inexpertly using AI, which is easy enough to do I suppose, no writer actually creates works like the Books of the Bible by stitching together different writings from different authors and different periods without paying attention to the overall theme. It should be noted as well that the Bible itself has a grand narrative, and when we find doubles in the Bible, we should be attentive to the different points the two are trying to make. Given that we find the first and most important of those double narratives at the very beginning of the Bible, something that any editor or redactor would be certain to read carefully, it stands to reason that we should look to an explanation of such things not by concluding that the Bible was made by an incompetent quiltmaker, but rather by people who knew what they were doing and had very specific reasons for doing what they did. What those reasons are is what we will examine today.

If we compare the usage of Yahweh to that of Elohim in the Hebrew scriptures, looking at those areas where one or the other or both is used, we find the following distribution:

YHWH (יהוה) predominant usage:

• Genesis 2:4b-3:24 (The Garden of Eden narrative)
• Most of Genesis 4 (Cain and Abel story)
• Exodus 3-4 (The burning bush narrative)
• Most of Exodus 5-15 (The exodus narrative)
• The majority of prophetic literature
• Most of the Psalms
• Throughout the books of Samuel and Kings

Elohim (אלהים) predominant usage:

• Genesis 1:1-2:4a (The first creation account)
• Genesis 20-22 (The binding of Isaac narrative)
• Parts of Genesis 28-35 (Jacob narratives)
• Portions of Psalms 42-83
• Much of the book of Job
• Ecclesiastes uses Elohim exclusively

Mixed usage appears in:

• Genesis 7-9 (The flood narrative)
• Exodus 1-2
• Parts of Genesis 15-17
• Various Psalms (Specifically Psalms 14/53 (parallel psalms with different divine names), 40-41, 47, 50, 68-70, 76, 86, 108-110

With this information in hand, let us explore at least some of these areas today and see if we can determine the sort of patterns that indicate why some chapters, passages, and verses use the name Yahweh while others use the term Elohim, and some contrast between both. Admittedly, we will not get very far in the Bible today, but we can at least get some understanding of the purposes that the two main names for God have in scripture even if we only get through a few chapters today. Let us begin.

Let’s start with Genesis 1:1-2:4a, the seven days of creation. Genesis 1:1-2:3 reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day. Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

So, what sort of picture do we get of God’s actions from this familiar chapter. We see God’s creation of the world. It focuses on a cosmic scale, involving not only the whole earth and whole classes of organisms, plants, animals, and finally mankind. It discusses the sun, the moon, the stars, day and night, cycles of time that govern our experience on this earth as human beings. There is nothing specific in this passage to God’s relationship with His people, but rather a look at God’s purposes for all of humanity and His concern with all of creation. I want you to keep this in mind. When we see the use of Elohim to discuss God, we see concerns that exist across humanity or across creation as a whole.

In contrast, let us look at the next passage of the Bible, in Genesis 2:4-3:24. This too is a familiar passage, but it features the use of Yahweh instead of Elohim, and let us look at the difference in how God’s actions are portrayed here than we saw before in Genesis 1. Genesis 2:4-3:24 reads: “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Here, in contrast to the cosmic and universal elements we see in Genesis 1 and the first part of Genesis 2, in the rest of Genesis 2 and the entirety of Genesis 3, we see God in a very intimate light. We see God not merely creating mankind by voice, but forming him with His own hands out of the clay of the earth. We see God working with Adam, seeking to educate him about his own need for a helpmeet comparable to him, a complementary being with whom he could develop intimacy, and then forming from Adam’s rib a wife as his equal. Then we see Adam and Eve in the garden dealing with Satan while God appears to make Himself absent, testing them to see whether they will obey God’s clear and unambiguous commands or sin and then try to cover it up. Of course, it is the latter. All of this, though, is deeply personal. God is not only a God of cosmic ambitions and massive and sprawling canvases of heaven and earth, but He is also deeply personally connected with His creation, and Yahweh gives us this side of God.

In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising that the next story of the Bible we find, that of Cain and Abel, is also from the perspective of God as Yahweh, dealing personally with Cain, even if Cain is reluctant to confess his sins and truly repent, and instead acts whiny and dismissive when he is confronted with his son by God. This is what we see from Genesis 4:1-26. Genesis 4:1-26 reads: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” And Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech. Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. Then Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, “For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.”

With one exception, interestingly enough, when Eve says that Elohim has appointed another seed instead of the dead Abel at the end of Genesis 4, the rest of Genesis 4 shows God intimately involved with the well-being of early humanity. We are used to thinking of Yahweh as a covenantal name for God and relating to Israel, and this is certainly true. However, there is more going on than simply God belong close to people He has chosen. God shows Himself willing to work with humanity’s first murderer in the hope that he would repent and seek restoration with God rather than persist in rebellion and violence. God didn’t give up on Cain, even after Cain committed murder against his brother Abel. It may be hard for us to fully understand how this could be the case, but the fact that the Bible uses God’s personal name Yahweh here indicates God’s personal dealings even with flagrant sinners. When Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:4 that God desires all people to be saved, we ought to take that seriously. God’s mercy and desire for mankind to repent and to turn away from their wicked ways and return to Him is truly immense, far more than we can understand and far more than comes naturally to us to imitate.

Let us now turn to our final section for today and examine how the Flood narrative from Genesis 7-9 uses both names of God. Since we have seen that Elohim tends to be used when the Bible is speaking in a cosmic and universal sense about God and Yahweh is used when the Bible is speaking in a personal and intimate manner about God, let us see if this pattern holds up when the Bible speaks about the flood. Let us, as we did before, call out the names of God in Hebrew rather than the English, so we might better see what is being said. We will take each chapter one at a time and see the distribution of Elohim and Yahweh in these three chapters, at which point we will close this first part of the message.

Genesis 7:1-24 begins the flood narrative, and it reads as follows: “Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth. So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in. Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.”

Here we see that there is a predominant use of Yahweh in this particular passage. It is Yahweh who tells Noah, personally, that he was going to be spared from the flood that would destroy the vast majority of human and animal life in judgment. Hearing a personal commandment about what he is to do from the Eternal, Noah follows every one of Yahweh’s commands. It is interesting that later in the verse, when the passage says that the animals go two by two into the Ark, that this is said to be the result of what Elohim had commanded Noah. When the account moves out to look at the cosmic and universal aspect of animals entering the Ark, we see Elohim being used as we would expect from a theological perspective. But when we look at the door being shut behind the animals, we find that it is once again Yahweh the Eternal acting in a personal way to protect HIs servant and preserve life on earth through the Ark.

Let us now continue to Genesis 8. Genesis 8:1-22 reads: “Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.””

What we find concerning the use of names for God is an interesting pattern. The first part of the Bible has Elohim speaking with Noah as the representative of all mankind, and so what we get is something of cosmic and universal relevance to all of humanity being represented by Noah and his family. Included in this discussion is God as Elohim remembering Noah as humanity. Similarly, when God tells Noah to come out of the Ark and return to dwelling on the surface of the earth along with all the animals, this too is God speaking as Elohim for the forefathers (and foremothers) of all life that would come after the flood. But when Noah builds an altar, it is to Yahweh, and when Yahweh speaks to Noah in poetry at the end of Genesis 8, it is again a personal covenant that Yahweh is starting to make, and once again we see that as an aspect of the personal dealings of God (as Yahweh) with human beings. And we should note, at least in passing, that while Adam and Eve and later Cain did not end up making a successful covenant with the Eternal, Yahweh was still dealing with them personally. Here, though, we are about to begin the first covenant that God makes explicitly with mankind, and it is worth pondering how this is said, which we will turn to now.

Let us now conclude today’s message in Genesis 9. Genesis 9:1-17 reads: “So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.” Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

It is interesting to note that in this entire passage, the word Elohim is used to describe God, and God is here making a universal covenant with mankind and indeed all of the creatures of the earth through Noah. This covenant sets a minimum standard of acceptable behavior that is applicable to all societies at all times and establishes the legitimate basis of government in protecting people (and at least implicitly their property) from harm and in punishing evildoers. This covenant is called the Noahide covenant and it makes the first covenant that God successfully made with mankind. On the one hand, mankind is obligated to provide for justice and punish murderers and other evildoers, as well as to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with human beings created in the image and likeness of their Father in heaven. On God’s side, He gives humanity the sign of the rainbow as a promise that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. This, it should be noted, does not mean that He does not promise to judge those who provoke Him. It’s just that He will purge and cleanse the earth with a fire instead of the flood next time.

With that said, let us conclude. What is it that we gain by understanding that there are two different names from God that are used to describe different situations in which God interacts with mankind? What we gain is a sense of context. When the Bible speaks of God as Elohim, the Bible is speaking of those things which are applicable to all people in all places and times, with a universal and even cosmic scope. We see Elohim used for the creation of the earth and the plants, animals, and people who inhabit it. We see that all human beings, whether or not they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, are created in God’s image and have certain obligations to God and to others. We see that God’s judgment is similarly applicable to all human beings and indeed all of creation, regardless of whether or not there is any personal relationship between the Eternal and the being in question. On the other hand, we see that God intimately and personally formed mankind, created the first man and woman and set them up as husband and wife. He personally spoke to and dealt with early human beings, whether righteous like Abel and Noah, or even the unrighteous Cain, whom God urged repentance upon unsuccessfully. When we understand the mix between the universal and particular that the names of God indicate, we can understand how God avoids the paradoxes of being either remote and unconcerned with us or not concerned with universal principles and laws and morality. God is both cosmic and universal as well as deeply personal, and we need to understand how this operates on both levels. Having seen this in the early part of Genesis, we will take a look at how this plays out later in Genesis and Exodus next.