Restoration
Quarterly 28.3 (1985/86) 135-43.
Copyright © 1985 by
Restoration Quarterly, cited with permission.
Exodus 6:3 in Pentateuchal
Criticism
SHAWN
D. GLISSON
The verse with which this paper
deals has no difficult words and
presents no significant problems in translation.
Nevertheless, Exodus 6:3
has become a very controversial passage in Pentateuchal criticism.1 Because
of the supposed historical incongruity of this
verse with much of the book
of Genesis (e.g., Gen. 4:26, "To Seth also a
son was born, and he called
his name Enosh. At that
time men began to call upon the name of the
Lord .”2),3
many Old Testament scholars found what they thought was the
1 E.g., Otto Essfeldt, "El and Yahweh," Journal of Semitic Studies 1 (1959):25-
37,
by assuming a modified form of Wellhausen's
documentary hypothesis,
theorizes that Exodus 6:2-3 indicates how Yahweh
was at one time separate from
El,
but supplanted his supremacy by assuming his name and later becoming the
one God of Israel. But G. Ernest Wright, The Old Testament Against Its Environment
(Chicago:
H. Regnery Company, 1951), p. 13, rejects this idea.
Furthermore,
several scholars now reject the entire
documentary theory because they are con-
vinced that no distinction can
be made on the basis of divine names and titles.
E.g.,
Moses Hirsch Segal, "El, Elohim, and YHWH in the
Bible," Jewish Quarterly
Review 46 (1955):89-115.
2 All Bible quotations are
taken from the Revised Standard Version.
3 John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on
Genesis, The Interna-
tional Critical Commentary
(Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1910),
pp.
126-127, asserts that Enosh "was the founder of
the worship of Yahwe." He
does this by noting that the expression qr'bsm literally
means to invoke the divine
name. But John T. Willis, Genesis, The Living Word Commentary (
Sweet
Publishing Company, 1979), pp. 157-158, suggests the possibility that this
expression simply means "to praise or give
thanks to the Lord" (see Isa. 12:4; 1
Chron.
16:18; Pss. 105:1; 116:17). From this he concludes
that "the emphasis
would not be on the divine name ‘Yahweh,’ but on ‘the
calling the name of
Yahweh,’
and ‘Yahweh’ would be used because this was the name familiar to the
author of Genesis. .. " Another
possible explanation is offered by Samuel Sandmel,
"Genesis
4:26b,"
other possible textual understandings of the verse
aside from the accepted text:
(1)
Rabbinic exegesis viewed the verb huchal as meaning "profaned" (i.e., "Then
men profaned the name of God in their
prayers."); (2) the LXX renders the same
verb "hoped" (i.e., "He hoped to call
on the name of the Lord God."); (3)
as preserved by Origen,
renders the verse "Then there began the being named in
the name of God" (i.e., the use of theophoric names). Sandmel
rejects these
possibilities and holds to the MT. He
concludes, "Of course, the verse [Gen. 4:26]
clashes [with Exod.
6:3, etc.]. But why emend the text?"
136 RESTORATION
QUARTERLY
first clue to various documents existing in the
Pentateuch.4 Thus, Exodus
6:3
was ascribed to the Priestly source (P), while portions of Genesis
containing YHWH (except for 17:1 and 21:1b) were
ascribed to the
Yahwistic writer (J).5
This alleged historical incongruity between the
J and P sources was
compounded when Exodus 3:13-15 was brought into the
picture:
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people
of
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?"
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."
And he said, "Say
this to the people of
also said to Moses, ”Say
this to the people of
the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of
Issac, and the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you’: this is my
name for ever, and thus I am
to be remembered throughout
all generations.... “
In
this passage Moses is at
6:3
he is in
been for the supposition that both of these accounts
are referring to the
same calling of Moses by Yahweh. It is also said
that both are recounting
the first time the tetragrammaton
was made known to Moses.6
4 E.g., Arthur Gabriel Hebert, The Authority of the Old Testament (
of the various documents was first given in Exodus
6:3 where it is said that God
was known to the Patriarchs as El Shaddai and not by his name Yahweh." Cf. also
Harold
Henry Rowley, The Biblical Doctrine of Election (
(New
York, NY: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), pp. 12-13, 171ff.; Allen Hugh
McNeile, The Book of Exodus,
Methuen
& Company, 1908), pp. 34-35.
5 In the English-speaking
world, Samuel Rolles Driver, An Introduction to the
Literature of the Old
Testament
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891), was the first
to use the Graf-Wellhausen
documentary hypothesis to divide the Pentateuch into
the JEDP sources. For a more recent study of the J
source, see Peter F. Ellis, The
Yahwist: The Bible's First Theologian (Notre Dame, IN: Fides
Publishers, 1968).
6 E.g., Martin Noth, Exodus: A
Commentary, The Old Testament Library
(Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1962), pp. 33, 58; G. H.
Parke-Taylor, Yahweh:
The Divine Name in the
Bible (
1975),
pp. 18-19; and especially Immanuel Lewy, "The
Beginnings of the Worship
of Yahweh: Conflicting Biblical Views," Vetus Testamentum 6
(1956):429-435.
GLISSON/EXODUS
6:3 137
Even
though several scholars still look to the Kenites for
the begin-
nings of Yahweh-worship in
most would agree that the P source has the most
accurate account of the
three supposed biblical references.9 It is thought that the J source was
attempting to make Yahweh worship seem to exist
from the beginning of
time. It is also explained that the E source in
Exodus 3 was attempting
to show the significance of
when he encountered YHWH. This would explain why E
has both the
calling and the revelation accounts at Horeb instead of
7 Julian Morgenstern, "The
Oldest Document of the Hexateuch," Hebrew
College Annual 4 (1927):1-138,
maintains that sections of Exod.
33-34; 4:24-26;
and Num. 10:29-33a are part of an original document
which he terms the Kenite
Document
(K). Harold Henry Rowley, From Joseph to
Joshua: Biblical Traditions
in the Light of Archaeology (London, England: Oxford University
Press, 1948),
pp.
143-161, has one of the best defenses of this theory. Martin Noth, Genesis: A
Commentary, The
Old Testament Library (London: S. C. M. Press, 1961), p. 104,
also supports this theory. But the Kenite hypothesis is by no means as certain.
This
has been pointed out by several scholars. E.g., William J. Phythian-Adams,
The Call of
Roland
de Vaux, "Sur l'Origine Kenite ou Madianite du
Yahvisme," in William
F. Albright Festschrift:
Eretz-Israel, ed. A. Malamat 9
(1969):32, makes this obser-
vation: "Nous ne savons
pas quelle divinite les Madianites adoraient, nous ne
savons rien
de leur culte ni de leur sacerdoce."
H. Brekelmans, ‘Exodus XVIII
and the Origins of Yahwism
in
224,
makes a strong case against the Kenite hypothesis by
noting that Jethro's
relationship with Moses was
political and not religious.
8 The exact etymological origin
of the tetragrammaton has
never been conclu-
sively determined. For some
possibilities, see William F. Albright, "Contributions
to Biblical Archaeology and Philology: The Name
Yahweh," Journal of Biblical
Literature 43 (1924):370ff.; and Roland de Vaux,
"The Revelation of the Divine
Name
YHWH," in Proclamation and Presence:
Old Testament Essays in Honour of
Goynne Henton Davies, eds. J. J. Durham and
J. R. Porter (
Press,
1970), pp. 48-75.
9 E.g., James Plastaras, The God of the Exodus:
The Theology of the Exodus Nar-
ratives (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce
Publishing Company, 1966), pp. 90-91. For an
overall description of P, see Curt Kuhl, The Old
Testament: Its Origins and Com-
position, trans. C. T. M. Herriott (
pp.
55-64. But see also Casper J. Labuschagne, "The
Pattern of the Divine Speech
Formulas
in the Pentateuch," Vetus Testamentum
32 (1982):286-296, who denies
the existence of a P source.
10 For a good summary of this view, see
Bernhard W. Anderson, "Names of
God,"
in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible,
ed. George Arthur Buttrick (New
traditions forming this alleged discrepancy.
138 RESTORATION
QUARTERLY
But it must be asked at this point, is it
necessary to attribute the
accounts of Genesis 4:26b (15:1-2, etc.); Exodus
3:13-15; and Exodus
6:3 into three different sources? In view of (1) the
historical background
of the Exodus passages in their ancient Near
Eastern setting, (2) the Hebrew
text and syntax of Exodus 6:3, and (3) the
theological significance of this
passage in the book of Exodus as a whole, it
would seem that such is not
necessary.11 Perhaps a discussion of these points will make
this conclusion
seem reasonable.
A study of the historical background of Exodus
6:3 and Exodus
3:13-15
reveals that neither passage suggests that this was when Moses
first learned of the name YHWH.12 But in
Exodus 3:13, this conclusion
seems to contradict this, for it speaks of Moses as
having the people of
suggest to the modern reader that
ton, this was not the case for the ancient Hebrew
reader. When a person
wished to know the simple name of someone or something
in Hebrew,
the interrogative pronoun mi was generally used (cf. Gen. 33:5; Num.
22:9;
Josh. 9:8).13 The interrogative pronoun mah, on the other
hand,
was generally used when one wanted to understand an
inner quality or
characteristic of someone or something
(e.g., Exod. 16:15).14
This understanding seems natural since the
explanation of the Name
which is given in verse 14 suggests that the tetragrammaton was commonly
known. Here Moses has just asked a question of
character, i.e. "What kind
of God are you?" The Lord responds paronomastically, "I am who I am."15
11 Michael Butterworth, "The
Revelation of the Divine Name?" Indian
Journal
of Theology 24 (1975):45-52, argues that Exod. 3 and 6 cannot be divided into
sources.
12 McNeile,
The Book of Exodus, p. 34, however,
says that both essays depict
God "revealing the Name for the first
time."
13 See Friedrich H. W. Gesenius, Gesenius' Hebrew
Grammar, ed. Emil Kautzsch,
2d
English ed., revised by Arthur E. Cowley (
reprinted., 1980), pp. 113, 443-444.
14 John Alexander Motyer, The Revelation of the
Divine Name (
Press,
1959), pp. 18-21, agrees with this conclusion. He has made an excellent
study of the use of the Hebrew interrogative
pronouns. Cf. Martin Buber, Moses:
The Revelation and Covenant (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1958), p. 48; and
Brevard
S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, Old Testament Library (
15 See Barry J. Beitzel, "Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name: A Case of
Biblical
Paronomasia,"
Trinity Journal, n.s.
1 (1980):16.
GLISSON/EXODUS
6:3 139
This
was not an evasive answer,16 but a
revelation of divine character.17
Perhaps
the emphasis is upon the ever-presence of the Lord: "I shall be
there for whatever help I am to be there."18 Or
perhaps the emphsis should
be upon the fact of his existence as in B. N. Wambacq's paraphrase: Je
suis, J'existe.
Au moment voulu, vous in aure' l'experience.
Croyez-moi!"19
It ought also to be noticed that the context of
Exodus 3 is against
the idea that Moses and
15-16).
As Sigmund Mowinckel accurately notes,
Yahweh is not telling
his name to one who does not know it.
Moses asks for some
"control" evidence that his countrymen
may know, when he returns
to them, that it is really the god
of their fathers that has
sent him.... The whole conversation
presupposes that the Israelites
know this name already.20
The language used in Exodus 6:2-3 also
presupposes a knowledge of
the name of Yahweh. This is made clear when one
understands the intro-
ductory phrase, ‘ani YHWH, in the
light of its ancient Near Eastern
setting. From the perspective of this time
period, this formula becomes
the introduction of the well-known God of Israel,
rather than a revelation
16 Bernardus
Dirk Eerdmans, ''`The Name Jahu,"
Oudtestamentische Studien 5
(1948):12,
thinks that this was an evasive answer. But against this view is Karl
Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley
and Thomas F. Torrance,
vol.
1, pt. 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God,
trans. G. T. Thompson (
T.
& T. Clark, 1961), pp. 386-391.
17 Moses Hirsch Segal, The Pentateuch:
Its Composition and Its Authorship
(Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1967), p. 5, correctly notes, "The
actual answer to the
question: ‘I am that I am’ (v. 14) does not give
the name of the Deity. It gives
the significance and the interpretation of the name
YHWH, but not the name itself."
18 Kaufmann Kohler, "The Tetragrammaton and Its Uses," Journal of Jewish
Lore and Philosophy 1 (1919):21, gives this
as a possible rendering among several
others.
19 ‘Eheyeh
aser 'eheyeh," Biblica 59
(1978):336. This also seems to be the
emphasis of the LXX in their rendering: Ego eimi ho on.
See also Edward Schild,
"On
Exodus iii 14 -"I Am That I Am," Vetus Testamentum 4 (1954) :296-302,
who translates it, "I am the One who is."
20 C. R. North, "Pentateuchal Criticism," in The Old Testament and Modern
Study, ed. Harold Henry
Rowley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), p. 54, quoting
Sigmund
Mowinckel, The Two Sources of Predeuteronomic Primeval History (JE) in
Genesis I -XI (Oslo, Norway: n.p., 1937), p. 55. Mowinckel
made this statement
in an attempt to justify his view that E uses YHWH
in Genesis.
140 RESTORATION
QUARTERLY
of the divine name.21 For example, the introdctory formula in Yehawmilk's
inscription is "I am Yehawmilk,
king of
of Y'dy, it is written,
"I am Kilamuwa, the son the Hayya."23
Azitawadda
begins, "I am Azitawadda,
the blessed of Ba'l, the servant of Ba,l."24
From
these examples it becomes clear that the use of the
first singular personal
pronoun was often employed as introductory
formulas by kings already
known by the people. It is very plausible that Exodus
6:2 is following this
custom.
The problem of Exodus 6:3 can also be approached
by examining
the syntax of the text. Several possibilities have
been suggested, which
would alter the general rendering of the text.25
But the explanation that
21 Umberto Cassuto,
A Commentary on the Book of Exodus,
trans.
(Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1967), pp. 76-77, gives four reasons
for this verse not
being a revelation of a new name not previously
known: (1) The custom of Eastern
monarchs was to begin with a similar introductory
formula; (2) if it was a new
revelation, it would read, "My name is
YHWH," not "I am YHWH"; (3) the
phrase "I am YHWH" is often used in the Old
Testament and it is not understood
as a revelation in these cases; (4) this formula
is also in Exod. 6:6, 7, 8 and it is not
understood as a revelation in these verses.
22 “Yehawmilk
of Biblos," trans. Franz Rosenthal, in Ancient Near Eastern
Texts Relating to the
Old Testament,
3d.
ed., edited by James B. Pritchard (
NJ:
23 "Kilamuwa. of Y'DY-SAM'-
655.
24 "Azitawadda of Adana," trans.
Franz Rosenthal, in ANET, p.655.
25 E.g., L. August Heerboth, "Was God Known to the Patriarchs as
Jehovah?"
Concordia Theological
Monthly
4 (1933):345-349, argues that Exod. 6:3 should be
a question, even though the he-interrogative is
absent from the verse. He renders
the verse, "I am Jehovah and have appeared
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto
Jacob as God Almighty. And regarding my name
Jehovah was I not known to
them?" This interpretation has difficulties
because (1) it does not fit the context of
Exod. 6 well, and. (2) it is not supported by any
Hebrew grammarian. See Hinckly
Gilbert
Mitchell, "The Omission of the Interrogative Particle," in Old Testament
and Semitic Studies in Memory of William Rainey Harper, vol. 1, ed. Robert
Francis
Harper,
Francis Brown, and George Foot Moore (
Press,
1908), pp. 115-129, who restricts the number of occurrences in the Old
Testament to 39, of which he attributes 12 or 17
to a corruption of the text.
Exod. 6:3 was not one of the 39 occurrences. Another
possible solution is offered
by William J. Martin, Stylistic Criteria and the Analysis of the Pentateuch (
Tyndale Press, 1955), pp. 16-17. He believes
that the lo’ in Exod.
6:3 should be
lo. He thus renders the
verse, "I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Issac,
and to Jacob as God Almighty, and verily (lo), by my name the Lord I did make
myself known to them." This idea, however, cannot
be proved. There is no indi-
cation of a corrupt text in
this verse. Yet a number still hold this view. Cf. Raymond
F.
Surberg, "Did the Patriarchs Know Yahweh?" Springfielder 36
(1972):125-126;
and Robert Dick Wilson, "Yahweh (Jehovah) and
Exodus 6:3," in Classical Evangel-
ical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, ed. Walter C. Kaiser (
MI:
Baker Book House, 1972), pp. 29-39.
GLISSON/EXODUS
6:3 141
can best be supported on an objective grammatical
basis is the following
rendering: "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob as God Almighty,
but as for my reputation as the Lord, I was not
known to them." This
translation is supported by at least three
grammatical reasons.
First, the b
in the phrase be'el shaddai may
mean "in the capacity of,"
"in the character of," or "as."26
Second, since the latter half of the verse
(i.e.,
wushemi
YHWH) has no governing preposition, the preposition from
the first half of the verse probably governs both
halves.27 And third, the
term shemi means "my reputation, fame, or character" in
Exodus 6:3.28
But
the problem would not be resolved if one stopped here. The
nagging question still persists: Why does Exodus
6:3 say that the patriarchs
did not know the character of YHWH?29
The answer comes when one
realizes the meaning of knowing YHWH in the
theology of the book of
Exodus
and in the theology of the Old Testament as a whole.30
To the Hebrew mind, knowledge and experience
were closely con-
nected. The Hebrew work yadae which is used in Exodus 6:3 in the
niphal, means "to
know," "to yearn to know," and "to come to know in
the process of things" (i.e., by experience).31
Therefore, when one speaks
26 See Gesenius,
Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, p. 379; and Raymind Abba, "The
Divine
Name Yahweh," Journal of Biblical
Literature 80 (1961) :323-324, both of
whom cite this verse as an example of this meaning.
27 See Gesenius,
Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, p. 384; and Motyer, The Revelation
of the Divine Name, pp. 14-15.
28 See Francis Brown, Samuel R.
Driver, and Charles Briggs, eds., A Hebrew
and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (
ed.,
1966), p. 1028;; Max Reisel,
The Mysterious Name of Y. H. W. H. (Assen,
The
Bruce
Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, ed. S.
D. F. Salmond (New
29 Unacceptable is the solution
of Fred G. Smith, "Observations on the Use
of the Names and Titles of God in Genesis," Evangelical Quarterly 40 (1968) :103-
109,
who argues that the Genesis writer inserted the tetragrammaton into the
Genesis text because at the time of its writing
it was the common name of God.
Smith,
however, offers no explanation for Gen. 4:26 and admits that he is
"baffled"
by it. Furthermore, he does not explain Gen.
22:14, which would seem to be even
more baffling to one who holds this view.
30 See Elmer A. Martens,
"Tackling Old Testament Theology," Journal of the
Evangelical Theololgical Society 20 (1977):123-132, who views the pericope of
Exod. 5:22-6:8 and the identity of Yahweh as the
unifying theme of Old Testament
theology. See also J. Gerald Janzen,
"What's in a Name? `Yahweh' in Exodus 3
and the Wider Biblical Context," Interpretation 33 (1979):227-239.
31 Rudolf Bultmann,
“ginosko, gnosis, epiginosko,
epignosis,” in Theological
Diction-
ary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel,
trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1964), 1:696-697.
142 RESTORATION
QUARTERLY
of knowing someone in the Old Testament, he is
implying some kind of
recalled experience (e.g., sexual--Gen. 4:1;
visual--Gen. 12:11; political-
Exod. 1:8).
In the book of Genesis the patriarchs knew God
in the character of
God
Almighty.32 John Alexander Motyer
accurately notes the significance
of this name in Genesis:
. . . it was the claim
of El Shaddai to be powerful where man
was weakest, and He exerts
this claim supremely by promising
to an obscure and
numerically tiny family that they should one
day possess and populate a
land which, in their day, was inhab-
ited and owned by people
immeasurably their superiors in
number and power.33
Motyer substantiates this
observation by pointing out three ways God
made known his character as an Almighty God to the
patriarchs. (1) He
took over human incapacity in the lives of the
patriarchs in order to raise
up a great nation; (2) he changed the name of
Abram and Jacob to
symbolize their transformed human nature; (3) he
promised to them
boundless posterity in the land of promise.34
In these important ways, the
patriarchs came to know God as El Shaddai by experience.
When one turns to the book of Exodus, he sees
that it was God's
desire to fulfill his promise which he had made to the
patriarchs. Before
he could do this with any meaning, however, God
had to show to the
people what kind of God he was. This meant acting in a
significant way,
because at this time no one knew YHWH, since no
one had experienced
his forthcoming actions. This is seen very cleary in Exodus. It is recorded
that Pharaoh did not know him (Exod.
5:2); the patriarchs had not known
him (Exod. 6:3);
know him (Exod. 7:5); even
Moses did not know him (Exod. 8:22).
Because of this widespread ignorance of
YHWH-ignorance of his
character, not of his name--something had to be
done in order to educate
the people. This first came in the form of the
plagues (Exod. 7:5,17;
8:10,
22; 9:14, 29, 30; 10:2; 11:7) and second by the exodus itself (Exod.
6:7;
14:4,18; 16:6, 12). After these experiences it could
then be said that
32
of this name, see Lloyd R. Bailey, "Israelite
'El Sadday
and Amorite Bel Sade,"
Journal of Biblical
Literature
87 (1968): 434-438; J. Ouellette, "More on 'El Sadday
and Amorite Bel Sade," Journal
of Biblical Literature 88 (1969) :470-471; William
F.
Albright, "The Names Shaddai and Abram," Journal of Biblical Literature 54
(1935) :180-193; and Norman Walker, "A New Interpretation of
the Divine Name
'Shaddai,' " Zeitschrift ftir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 72 (1960):64-66.
33 The Revelation of the Divine Name, pp. 29-30.
34 Ibid.,
p. 29.
GLISSON/EXODUS
6:3 143
the people knew YHWH (cf. Exod.
18:11; 29:46; Deut. 4:35, 39; 7:9;
29:2-6).
With this understanding in mind, the difficulty
of Exodus 6:3 no
longer seems to exist. This is so because knowing the
Lord, which is a
major theme of the book of Exodus,35 could
come only after the people
of
else for that matter) could not have possibly known
YHWH in this way.
Only
those who were able to recall the most significant event recorded in
the Old Testament were able to know YHWH in a fuller
sense. This is
not to say, however, that the patriarchs did not
know the name YHWH.
On
the contrary, they knew and used the name often, but without the
significance it took when God
delivered his people and kept his promise.36
35 This theme of knowing the
Lord is picked up by the prophets. They lament
the state of the people, since they do not know
YHWH (e.g., Isa. 1:3; Jer.
9:3, 6),
but they tell of a day when they would know the
Lord. It would come only after
they had experienced his judgment (e.g., Isa. 49:23, 26; 52:6; 60:16; Jer.
16:21;
Ezek.
6:7, 10, 13, 14; 7:4).
36 1 Sam. 3 provides the best
analogy for this point. Samuel was born to a
YHWH-worshipping family. His mother prayed (1
Sam. 1:10ff.), worshipped (1
Sam.
1:19), and sacrificed to (1 Sam. 1:24) YHWH. His father also sacrificed to
YHWH (1 Sam. 1:3, 21). When Samuel was young,
he was dedicated to YHWH
(1
Sam. 1:22) and he ministered before YHWH (1 Sam. 2:18) under Eli (1 Sam.
3:1),
who was a priest of YHWH (1 Sam. 1:9). Year by year Samuel grew in the
presence of YHWH (1 Sam. 2:21, 26). Yet, even
with this background, I Sam.
3:7a
says, "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord (YHWH) . . ." Obviously,
the meaning of this verse is that Samuel had not
yet come to know the Lord by
experience.
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