The Significance of Names — Ours, Others’ and God’s
Commentary by Walter Hesford | FāVS News
Ever since I read Dave Liezen’s moving spiritual autobiography, “God Called Me by Name, and I Follow Him,” for FāVS News, I’ve been pondering the significance of names — ours, others’, God’s.
I’m familiar with the religious tradition on which Liezen draws. In my church we sing David Hass’s 1991 hymn “You Are Mine,” which portrays God saying to us “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow me. I will bring you home. I love you and you are mine.”
That God can call each of us by name seems to signify that God knows us personally. This certainly may be comforting. But there is also danger in hearing our name being called by God.
Perhaps the most famous — or should I say infamous? — Biblical example of God calling someone by name occurs in Genesis 22 in which Abraham hears God calling him by name and ordering him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
This episode hovers over the first great American novel, Charles Brocken Brown’s 1798 “Wieland; Or, The Transformation,” in which Theodore, the Pennsylvanian protagonist, hears God calling him to kill his wife and children, and he does so.
What Could It Mean to Hear God Call Our Name?
Does hearing one’s name called by God signify that one is loved and chosen by God, or that one is delusional, perhaps dangerously so?
There is definitely danger in calling God by name. The third of the 10 Commandments warns, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7 KJV)
The fear that one might violate this commandment leads to the reluctance to call God by his real name, which is revealed by God to Moses to be something like “Yahweh.”(Exodus 3:15)
Thus, in Judaism and in most Christian traditions, the Hebrew word “Adonoy” is substituted, which in English translation becomes “LORD,” as we see in the above Bible verses.
Can We Say God’s Name?
The reluctance to say the true name of God suggests the belief that the name itself signifies the sacred essence of the divine. This belief is reflected in the prayer Jesus teaches his disciples, which begins “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” (Matthew 6:9 KJV)
One can understand why Jesus would see his Father as hallowed, as holy, but why his Father’s name? Does a name really contain what is holy?
What about our name? Does it really signify our essential identity? If we are called by some other name, do we become insignificant? Or do we then exist within the signifying system of those who call us by this other name?
What’s in a Name?
This summer, we took a visitor from New Hampshire up to our cabin in Heyburn St. Park within the Coeur d’Alene Reservation.
“Is ‘Coeur d’Alene’ the tribe’s original name for itself?” she asked.
I was surprised that someone would think that a tribe of Indigenous people would have an obviously French name, given to them by French traders who were exasperated by the hard bargaining of the folk they found living around the lake that now bears the same name as they do. The name of these people for themselves is “Schitsu’umsh,” meaning something like “Those who are found here.”
I accessed the above information on the official Coeur d’Alene Tribe website, which indicates that ‘those who are found here” have adopted the name given them by the French, giving in, perhaps, to the history of their colonization or, more positively, turning what might have been a negative signification into what now signifies resilience.
As I understand it, many other Indigenous tribes have similarly transformed a negative to a positive name. This also has happened to various religious groups. For example, to call someone a Lutheran was once a slur; now millions embrace this name, including me.
Names Evolve in Meaning
The evolution of names indicates that they signify our circumstantial rather our essential nature. Names may slip and slide. Thus there is truth in Juliet’s assertion to Romeo, “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”
However, the fate of both Juliet and Romeo is linked to their feuding families’ names. This suggests that the names we carry are significant, sometimes dangerously so.
Sometimes a given name no longer fits. I have a friend who named her son John. Now this son is a woman who has renamed herself Lily. My friend assures me that she loves Lily as much as she loved John.
I suspect that Liezen is sure that God loves him whether or not God ever again calls him by his name.
Re: “Biblical example of God calling someone by name occurs in Genesis 22 in which Abraham hears God calling him by name and ordering him to sacrifice his son Isaac.”
I see nothing particularly infamous in this episode when I look more closely at how the passage is actually written because this isn’t a case of God “ordering” a child sacrifice. The words are, “Kakh-na et-binkha et-yechidkha” (Please take your only son). The use of the enclitic “-na”, a particle of entreaty, changes an order into a request, and that must have made it much harder for Abraham. In the Torah, we find the particle of entreaty consistenly translated when people use it to address another or God. But if God uses it to address a human, translators have skipped over it entirely as if they’re allergic to the idea that God ever entreats anybody. It’s like translators said, “How dare we think that God could be gracious enough to say, ‘Please’?”. But He does. Their approach attributes the manner of a harsh taskmaster to God like they have known from human taskmasters and ignores the softness of the way a loving father speaks to his children. I kid you not. Genesis 22:2 isn’t the only place we see this translational discrepancy so consistently. We also see this same deletion occurring in Genesis 15:5,6; Exodus 4:6,7; and Job 38:3. But since the particle exists in each of these, we’re compelled to ask questions regarding the softening of these direct “Words of the LORD.”
As for me, my birth name was neither descriptive of anything essential nor circumstantial. It was bestowed with the full intention to demean. I eventually had it legally changed to one of my own choosing so I can better fit into a hostile society. So I think you can understand my gratitude at your closing this article with the case of Lily and her change of name..