What Does Exodus 3:15 Mean?

God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel: 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations." The covenant name YHWH (the LORD) is formally declared as God's permanent name in verse 15: "this is my name forever." The declaration has two dimensions: the name is YHWH, and this name carries forward the covenant identity introduced through the patriarchal chain.

The LORD is not a new God with no history; he is the God who walked with Abraham in Canaan, appeared to Isaac at Beersheba, and wrestled with Jacob at the Jabbok.

The name YHWH is connected etymologically to ehyeh in verse 14 through the shared root hayah. Where ehyeh is first-person (I AM / I WILL BE), YHWH is the third-person form (HE IS / HE CAUSES TO BE). The covenant community's name for God reflects the divine self-declaration translated into the relational register: the God who calls himself "I AM" is addressed by his people as "he is," "the one who is," "the ever-present, self-existent one." The name preserves the theology of the self-disclosure in the form available for communal address and worship.

The triad "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" at the end of verse 15 closes the circle opened in verse 6: the God of the fathers is the God who now acts for their descendants. The chain of covenant relationships that runs through the patriarchal period is the continuous identity claim that grounds the Exodus: God acts for Israel because he is the God of Israel's fathers, and the God of Israel's fathers is YHWH, the self-existent, covenant-keeping, always-present God whose name is "forever" and whose memorial is "throughout all generations."