What did God’s name mean to the Israelites? (3:14) 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
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I would say that the Israelites would have understood God's name (as He had given it to Moses) to indicate that He alone was the essence and source of all existence, and that He alone had been, was, and would be sufficient within Himself, from eternity past to eternity future -- deriving no aspect of His existence from anything; depending on nothing else for the sustaining of His existence; and remaining eternally the same.
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