I Am


I Am


1:
I AM THAT I AM  When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, he said, ‚ehyeh- ‚asher-‚ehyeh, “I AM THAT I AM,” and enjoined Moses to tell the children of Israel, “I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exod. 3:14). Although it is widely agreed that ‚ehyeh is derived from the root hayah, “to be,” and that that name hints at “Yahweh,” the meaning has never been satisfactorily explained. The inherent ambiguities of the text and radical inadequacies of subsequent translations have prompted scores of attempts to explain the precise significance of the name. The LXX egō eimi ho ōn (“I am the one who is” or “I am the existent one”) and Vg Ego sum qui sum (“I am who I am”) suggest a definition of God’s Person in terms of “essential being,” whereas the original Hebrew suggests a definition “in terms of active presence” (J. Plasteras, The God of Exodus, 94-95). Various English translations have been tried. In addition to the KJV rendering, The Interpreter’s Bible offers “I am who I am,” “I am what I am,” “I am because I am,” and “I will be what I will be.” (The last rendering was suggested as early as Nicholas of Lyra in his Postilla on Exodus.)
Underlying all patristic commentary is the implicit assumption that at the heart of the name is God’s selfrevelation as pure or essential Being—a notion which has had profound philosophical as well as theological repercussions in Western Christendom (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence). In his Enarrationes in Psalmos, St. Augustine distinguishes his own “self ” and that which “rather seems to be than really is” from “what has a true being”—the one “who said ‘I AM HE THAT IS.’” He goes on to say that “that which I now am is nothing in comparison to that which truly ‘IS’“ (39.7, 9). In his Confessiones, he refers to this passage in recalling the climax of his search for God. At that moment he hears “in the heart” the words “I AM THAT I AM” (7.10). Elsewhere, Augustine sees in the name proof of God’s immutable eternality (De naturi boni contra Manichaeos, chap. 19; De Trin. 1.8), as does St. Jerome (Eps. 15 and 48). St. Gregory of Nyssa regards it as proclaiming God’s absolute immanence (The Great Catechism, chap. 35; Contra Eunomius, 2.4). St. Ambrose dwells upon the text’s insights into the nature of the Son (De fide, 1.13; 1.19; 5.1).
English literary allusions frequently occur in parodic contexts. One of Spenser’s deceitful villains says of herself: “I, that do seeme not I, Duessa ame” (1.5.26). Shakespeare’s devilish Iago likewise admits (Othello, 1.1.65), “I am not what I am.” Elsewhere in the Shakespeare canon Richard III utters the blasphemously egotistical “I am I” (5.3.182).
In Religio Medici (1.11), Sir Thomas Browne gives a reductive solution to the problem of explanation, saying of God’s self-definition “’twas  a short one, to confound mortalitie, that durst question God, or aske him what hee was.” Browne’s near contemporary, the Catholic poet Henry Constable, alludes to Exod. 3:14 in the first quatrain of his “Sonnet 1, To God the Father”:

Greate God! within whose symple essence wee
   Nothyng but that, which ys thyself can fynde:
   When on thyself thou did’st reflect thy mynde,
   Thy thought was God, which tooke the forme of
    Thee.

The 19th cent. provides a range of less devout allusions. In his crucial chapter “On the Imagination” (Biographia Literaria, chap. 13), Coleridge defines the “primary Imagination” as “the living power and prime agent of all human perception” and as “a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.” Byron’s Manfred gives an exemplary definition of the romantic hero when he says, “Then wonder not that ‘I / Am what I am,’ but that I ever was” (3.1.151-52). Manfred finds the fact of his own existence more astonishing than God’s. Tennyson, querulous in “The Higher Pantheism,” asks his darkling soul if God “is … not all but that which has the power to feel ‘I am I’?” In contrast, Swinburne, bursting with pagan enthusiasm, has the Germanic earth goddess Hertha declare, “before God was, I am” (“Hertha”… cf. John 8:58).
More recent allusions may be found in two of Conrad’s novels. The villain of Victory, Mr. Jones, is an inebriate of theology. Having explained that he has been spending his days as “a rebel now, and was coming and going up and down the earth,” Jones twice adds, as though consulting Douay as well as KJV, “I am he who is” and “I am he that is.” Jones imagines himself both Job’s adversary (Job 1:7; 2:2) and the voice from the burning bush. Conrad turns to the text again in his next novel The Rescue, where the vainglorious protagonist Tom Lingard declares that his temper could “burn you all up” because “I am what I am.”
See also burning bush.
Bibliography. Gilson, E. “Notes sur le vocabulaire de l’Être.” MS 8 (1946), 150-58; Noth, M. Exodus: A Commentary (1962); Plasteras, J. The God of Exodus: The Theology of the Exodus Narratives (1966).
Dwight H. Purdy

Jeffrey, D. L. (1992). A Dictionary of biblical tradition in English literature. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.


2:
“I AM” SAYINGS Self-proclamations made by Jesus in the Gospel of John.
One of the distinctive elements of the teaching of Jesus is the way Jesus expresses important truths in terms of his own personal character and mission. These statements begin with the words “I am” and then continue to express a deep theological thought in terms of metaphorical statement. This method of teaching is preserved for us in the Gospel of John alone. While Matthew, Mark, and Luke emphasize Jesus’ mode of teaching in the form of the parable, John pictures Jesus as teaching in discourses. These discourses often find an “I am” statement as the key expression of the central thought.
The “I am” statements found in the Gospel of John are the bread of life or the living bread (6:35, 48, 51), the light of the world (8:12; see also 9:5), the gate (10:7, 9), the good shepherd (10:11, 14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth and the life (14:6), and the vine (15:1, 5).
Each of these statements follows a basic pattern. They are written as metaphors in which one of the key elements is to be the Christ expressed as “I am.” The meaning of the metaphor is to be drawn chiefly from the explanatory statement connected with it. Thus when Jesus says, “I am the light of the world,” the explanatory statement follows, “So if you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, for living light will flood your path” (tlb). This latter statement is intended to help a person interpret the metaphor. Most statements have such interpretive elements joined to them.
These metaphorical statements often complement Jesus’ miracles. The statement and a miracle each contribute to the understanding of the other. Thus when Jesus proclaims that he is the light of the world, he proceeds to bring sight to the blind man. The controversy that follows between the blind man and the Pharisees shows that the man has received spiritual sight as well as physical. Before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he tells Martha that he is the resurrection and the life. The raising of Lazarus is intended to show Jesus’ power to give life now and to demonstrate his power to do what he proclaimed he was able to do. After Jesus had fed the 5,000, he declared that he was the living bread that had come from heaven. Each of these miracles is interpreted by the metaphorical “I am” statement. Each statement is intended to give the miracle meaning for the ministry of Jesus. They show us that Jesus’ miracles were not just acts of power or mercy but actions demonstrating the meaning of his ministry and teaching.
Many theologians consider the “I am” formula to reflect an identification of deity found in the OT (see God, Names of). When Moses was called, he asked God to identify himself in such a way that Moses might gain acceptance from the Hebrew people. God revealed himself to Moses as the great “I Am.” Moses was to tell the Israelites that “I Am sent me to you” (Ex 3:13–14). From this “I Am” the name Yahweh is derived. Many believe that Jesus used this same formula from the OT to relate his deity. The “I am” statements in John’s Gospel help the reader identify Jesus as divine, as God.

Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference library (623). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.


3:
I AM (˒ehyeh ˒ăsher ˒ehyeh, “I am Who I am”). The name God gave Himself when speaking to Moses from the midst of the burning bush (Ex. 3:14; lit., God is He who is); the absolute I, the self-existent One.
bibliography: S. Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God (1977), pp. 78–80.

Unger, M. F., Harrison, R. K., Vos, H. F., Barber, C. J., & Unger, M. F. (1988). The new Unger's Bible dictionary. Revision of: Unger's Bible dictionary. 3rd ed. c1966. (Rev. and updated ed.). Chicago: Moody Press.


4:
I Am Who I Am
Explanation of Yahweh, the covenant name of the God of Israel, given to Moses when he encountered the burning bush (Exod. 3:14; Heb. ˒ehyeh ˒ăšer ˒ehyeh). It is also rendered “I will be what I will be” or perhaps “I create what(ever) I create.”
See Yahweh.
Robert E. Stone, II

Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (624). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.