Shabbat Shalom!
Things are settling down here and slowly returning to the normal ebb and flow of life and I am so thankful for that. Children return to school next week, moms and dads are back at work, the malls are empty and the beaches have quietened and we can praise our King that we made it through another crazy season of silliness.
Now, we turn to our Torah reading for this week. A reading of redemption, deliverance, judgement, pride along with some very special words that God tells His servant Moses right in the beginning of the reading. Each week as I read the Holy Words of Father, I am struck by something different, something new – His word never fails to astound me and to minister to me.
At the end of last week’s portion, Moses was left in a state of despair as not only had pharaoh become his enemy, but also the people of Israel accused both him and Aaron of worsening their situation. Moses was heavy and he voiced his complaint to God. This week God’s answer comes to Moses, His words are harsh in the original Hebrew, but also they are comforting. Yahweh told Moses that He was the Great I Am, the Holy One, the Only One. We know that every attribute of God’s Name means something different, and it represents something of how He works with mankind. It reveals something of how He works with His people, it reveals new ways to understand His character that is vast and unfathomable.
Exodus 6:2 – 3
“God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am YHWH.
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai,
but with my name Yahweh, I did not make Myself known to them.”
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai,
but with my name Yahweh, I did not make Myself known to them.”
The Torah opens with the answer God gave to Moses after his complaint but the answer is somewhat strange because God did reveal His Holy Name to our patriarchs. Abraham did call upon His Holy Name, as well as the name of EL Shaddai. So what is going on here?
Scholars and rabbi’s have debated this issue for centuries, and the answer still remains unknown. However, Rashi the Jewish sage wrote something interesting that I tend to think is applicable. “the Name revealed to Moses, represents God as the One who carries out His promises, for God was now prepared to fulfil His pledge to free Israel and bring them to the Land. But, although the patriarchs were told that Gods Name was Hashem (Yahweh), they had not seen Him in practice as having kept His Promise, for the time had not yet come for the Land to be given to them. Nevertheless, they had perfect faith that when the proper time arrived, He would do so.”
Yahweh, has always been understood to represent God’s Covenantal nature. It’s His essence, His core being, it’s His Name. So while the patriarchs knew God by His Name, they lived in His attribute of El Shaddaibecause His promise to ratify the covenant with Israel as a people, was still future – based. Yet, they continued to serve Him faithfully, through deep faith in righteousness, they never gave up but believed that their God would accomplish all He promised to do (Hebrews 11). ![]()
Instead, Father walked with them as EL Shaddai and that’s a very deep, personal characteristic of God’s Holy Nature. El Shaddai has often been translated as the All Sufficient One but it can also be interpreted as meaning, the One who has everything you need. He is all in all, sufficient in every situation and able to provide everything we need. He is able to perform every miracle and to provide every deliverance we have need of. El shaddai is God’s most feminine characteristic, as it eludes to a mother bird nurturing and feeding her babies. El Shaddai provides our life giving milk, our life sustaining manna, our need for Wings of Comfort (Psalm 91). El Shaddai opens His chest for us to lie on and to weep on, El Shaddai is the nature of God when we are sojourning, when we are lost and its dark, when we have no home or no comfort that’s the time we need the arms and the eyes of El Shaddai. Our patriarchs were men of faith, they were nomads, hunted, threatened, imprisoned, in pain and in grief and they had need of the All Sufficient God. El Shaddai is the part of God I have needed so many times in the valleys of weeping and suffering. I have needed those arms and that life giving milk, and I still have need of that love through my storms. Yet there comes a time when El Shaddai rises up and says “now is time for My redemption!” It’s the time He stands and roars over our enemies, it’s the time He judges the wickedness and the injustices we face, it’s the time He judges the pharoah’s in our lives and brings forth our deliverance and when that happens, He is acting according to His covenant of Grace, as Yahweh our Mighty God.
Friends, I don’t know what you are facing right now. Your life, your heart, your home, workplace or horizon of your life may seem hard or broken but there is a God who is greater. A God who is both El Shaddai – sufficient for all your needs, and Yahweh, the God of covenant. His Son our Beloved King Messiah Yeshua spread His arms as El Shaddai and died to bring you in to His Covenant Love. There is a time for comfort and love and a time for deliverance. The Israelites were crushed and impatient, unable to believe in the Power of Yahweh. They were filled with doubt, bitterness and anger because of slavery. You, child of God have not received a slave spirit, you have received the calling to be a child and God longs for you to be His child. A child cries, a child does not always understand but a child trusts, a child waits, a child believes. Do not let the harshness of the ground you are tilling, to bring your soul down to despair, who knows how God will change your situation or how He will change you. We do not know the future, but we do know that God is Good and Mighty to Save. He is sufficient for your need beloved, may you know His Love and deliverance today and may He raise and stand, mighty to deliver you, able to comfort you and able to sustain you from day to day. He has all you need, run in to His arms – weep and believe like a child.
With much love in Messiah!
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