(All Scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated)
This name of God was revealed when Abraham was divinely prevented from offering his son Isaac as a burnt offering on “…the mountains…of Moriah…” (Genesis 22:2). God provided a ram in Isaac’s place for the burnt offering. Here is more of the context in Genesis 22:9 through 14:
Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And
Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order;
and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon
the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the
knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to
him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham....Do not lay
your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know
that you fear God, since you have not withheld...your only
son...from Me. Then Abraham...looked, and there behind him
was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham...
offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And
Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-WILL-PROVIDE;
as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the LORD it
shall be provided.
The-LORD-WILL-PROVIDE, as it is written in the New King James Version above, is translated in the King James Version; the American Standard Version; and Young’s Literal Translation as Jehovah Jireh!
- Jehovah in Hebrew is יְהֹוָה (pronounced yeh-ho-vah’ ) and meaning “…self Existent or eternal One.” (Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary).
- Jireh in Hebrew is יִרְאֶה (pronounced yir-eh’ ). From the website The God Behind the Names, www.myredeemerlives.com/namesofgod/yhwh -jireh – I found the following:
The word “jireh” is a transliteration of a Hebrew word which
means “to see” or “to foresee”. In the Hebrew Bible, it is
translated “to see” or “to appear,” and it is often used to
refer to certain people who could foresee – prophets....Ob-
viously, there might be some confusion as to how the word
“to see” can then also be translated to “provide”, unless we
consider the nature of Almighty God....As the 19th Century
Anglican pastor H. W. Webb-Peploe wrote in “The Titles of
Jehovah”: ...with God, to see is also to foresee. As the One
who possesses eternal wisdom and knowledge, He knows the end
from the beginning....From eternity to eternity He foresees
everything....Thus with God foreseeing is prevision. As the
Jehovah of righteousness and holiness, and of love and redemp-
tion, having prevision of man's sin, and fall, and need, He
makes provision for that need. For provision, after all, is
merely a compound of two Latin words meaning “to see before-
hand.” And we may learn from a dictionary that “provide” is
simply the verb and “prevision” the noun of seeing beforehand.
Thus to God prevision is necessarily followed by provision,
for He certainly will provide for that need which His foresee-
ing shows Him to exist. With Him prevision and provision are
one and the same thing." (emphases added).
How does this apply today to followers of the Lord Jesus Christ?
- Isaac was a pre-figure of Jesus Christ! How so? Hebrews 11:17 through 19 says this about it:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and
he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten
son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,”
accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the
dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Was Isaac resurrected? Technically, no! But expecting his son to be resurrected was the only way Abraham could have gone through with this sacrifice! And so…
✡ ...the father allowed his son to be a sacrifice – just like
Christ was made a sacrifice! “For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son [Jesus], that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life.” (John 3:16).
✡ ...the son was ‘resurrected’ from certain death – as Christ
was actually resurrected! “...knowing that Christ, having
been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer
has dominion over Him.” (Romans 6:9).
✡ ...all God’s blessings to the world were to come through
the ‘resurrected’ son, Isaac (see Genesis 26:2-4) – and
His blessings are all through Christ! “Praise the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through Christ, God has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing that heaven has
to offer.” (Ephesians 1:3 – God’s Word to the nations). - Ephesians 2:1 – “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
✞ Like Isaac, we are ‘resurrected’ from death to life!
✞ Because of sin permeating the life of every one of us, we
are spiritually dead before God! And we are heading for
eternal death in Hell!
✞ This instantaneous ‘resurrection,’ when we accept Jesus
as our Savior, is beautifully recorded in Colossians 2:13;
1:13 (in that order):
And you, being dead in your tresspasses...He has made
alive together with [Jesus]...having forgiven you of
all trespasses....He has delivered us from the kingdom
of darkness [Satan’s realm] and translated us into the
kingdom of the Son of His love.
✞ Someday, like Jesus, we will experience an actual resur-
rection, if we die physically before the Rapture! (see
I Thessalonians 4:13-18).- Genesis 22:17 and 18 – After Abraham was stopped in the midst of sacrificing Isaac, God said to him:
In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will mul-
tiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand
which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess
the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.
✡ I have always been impressed by the phrases God used: “In
blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will mul-
tiply your descendants....” Could God have said it in a
more ample form?
✡ And, yes, it was God speaking to Abraham! For “...the
Angel of the LORD...” (Genesis 22:15) is recognized by
conservative biblical scholars as the pre-incarnate
Christ!
✡ In Psalm 68:19, this praise is given: “Blessed be the
Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our
salvation.”
✞ The New Testament equivalent is Philippians 4:19: “And
my God shall supply all your need according to His riches
in glory by Christ Jesus.”
✞ And here is II Peter 1:3: “...His divine power has giv-
en to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of Him [Jesus Christ] who has call-
ed us to glory and virtue....”
We have it all in Jesus Christ, prefigured by Isaac, and both of these personages are descended from Abraham!
But there is one other thing I want to point out. This is what it says in II Chronicles 3:1:
Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem
on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father Dav-
id, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor
of Ornan the Jebusite.
Apparently, Ornan the Jebusite owned a prime spot that was his threshing floor. It was at the very peak of Mount Moriah, where the breeze would carry away the chaff as the harvest was tossed into the air, letting the grain fall back to the ground.
- This place was the where, it is thought, Abraham offered Isaac!
- This is also the place where King Solomon would build the temple!
But who was Ornan? He was a Jebusite! And this is what God says in Deuteronomy 20:17 and 18 concerning the Jebusites:
...you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the
Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite
and the Jebusite..., lest they teach you to do according to
all their abominations which they have done for their gods,
and you sin against the Lord your God. So how is it that a Jebusite was still around in David’s day? And he was the owner of prime real estate! It may be because of what is recorded in Joshua 15:63: “As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.” So, not only did Ornan’s ancestors survive the Jebusite purge – but, apparently, Ornan was a convert to the One true God of the Jews (see II Samuel 24:22, 23), and a respected member of the community!
I call it ‘the Ruth factor’!
- Ruth was a Moabite, and God said in Deuteronomy 23:3, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter….”
✡ But Ruth entered in the first generation!
✡ Not only that, but she was King David’s Great-Grandmother;
which makes her a human ancestor of Jesus Christ! (see
Matthew 1:5).- Godliness, a firm lived-out belief in Jehovah God of Israel, negates the prohibition of entering into God’s family!
Thank and praise God
that He prohibits no one
from being His child,
through belief in Jesus Christ!