Exodus 20:7 says, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (NKJV). When I was a kid, I always understood the third commandment as a prohibition against speaking the Lord’s name in an exclamatory manner in which I was not intending to talk to Him. I understood it only to involve speech: not saying God’s name in a flippant way. I don’t think this limited understanding of taking God’s name in vain is unique to me. It’s even reflected in some of the Bible paraphrases such as the CEB and the Message. Exodus 20:7 in the CEB says, “Do not use the LORD your God’s name as if it were of no significance; the LORD won’t forgive anyone who uses his name that way.” Similarly, the Message says, “No using the name of GOD, your God, in curses or silly banter; GOD won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.”
While this interpretation of the commandment is not incorrect, a closer look at what it means to “take a name” can give us a more robust understanding of how to live in obedience to the third commandment.
Where do we get the word take?
The Hebrew word nśʾ conveys much more than our English word take, as most translations render it in Exodus 20:7. Take is the most common English translation for nśʾ as seen in the Geneva Bible, the KJV, NASB, and the ESV. Other translations such as the NIV, CSB, and NLT render nśʾ with misuse, which may be more interpretive but still in line with the other more formal equivalent translations. Similarly, the NRSV renders it with the phrase make wrongful use of.
Even the Greek Septuagint, the oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible, renders nśʾ in Exodus 20:7 with a similar word to our English word take. The translator uses the Greek word λαμβάνω (lambanō), which in English is often translated as take, receive, or choose. But out of the thirty-one occurrences of nśʾ in the book of Exodus, the translator renders nśʾ with a form of λαμβάνω (lambanō) only two times other than Exodus 20:7. In Exodus 28:29 the verb is used when Aaron is said to “bear the names of the sons of Israel on the breastplate of Judgment,” and in Exodus 30:12, the verb is used in the context of taking a census.
The idea of “taking a name” is certainly an interesting way to translate nśʾ in the context of the third commandment in Exodus 20:7. The translation is somewhat abstract, which I think is fitting for the many possible uses of this Hebrew term.
The many glosses listed in The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament illustrate just how broad the range of meaning this word can have. The glosses include: 1) carry; 2) lift up; 3) raising of the hand; 4) lift up the head; 5) raise his face; 6) receive someone in a friendly manner; 7) look upwards to; 8) raise the voice; 9) to begin to sing; 10) to pronounce; etc.[1] The list goes on to provide eighteen different glosses for only the qal stem, which is only one of five different stems in which nśʾ occurs. With such a broad meaning, surely, we cannot limit our understanding of the third command to how we use God’s name in speech.
Nśʾ is clearly a Hebrew word that conveys an action too complex to fully capture its meaning when translating it into another language. The word take is adequate, but for some reason people have limited our interpretation of this commandment to speech.
What does it mean to “take a name”?
In light of the many connotations for the word nśʾ, one could argue that “taking a name” involves representing that name in everything we do. The commandment is telling us that when we associate ourselves with the name of God, we should do so with reverence and be certain that nothing we do could possibly tarnish that name. Peter J. Leithart says, “We bear God’s Name on our tongues when we swear, but the Name is also imprinted on our head, hands, and feet. We bear the Name lightly with indifferent or disobedient worship (Exod. 20:22–26), with casual sex (Amos 2:7), or when we steal (Lev. 6:2–5).”[2]
As believers, we bear God’s name at all times. It’s not something we do just on Sundays. It’s not something we turn on and off throughout the week. We represent the Lord our God at all times, so that if we want to avoid taking God’s name in vain, we must strive to live consistently in obedience to Him. In other words, “Speaking or silent, active or passive, we bear the name all the time in everything we do.”[3]
To illustrate this concept, my childhood days in karate come to mind. There was a big tournament in Panama City in which we would always compete. There were many different styles of karate represented at this tournament. There was Shotokan, Tai Quan Dao, Yoshukai, and many others. I was part of the Yoshukai style, and before we went to these major tournaments, our sensei would remind us that, when we were at the tournaments, we needed to be at our best in everything we did because we were representing Yoshukai as a whole. He told us that whether or not we were actively competing, we needed to be on our best behavior. We were to be respectful to the judges and other competitors. And when we were competing, we were told to do all things to the best of our ability. He told us all these things because we were representing Yoshukai at all times when we were there.
On a much greater level, we represent the Lord at all times if we are one of His followers. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 that we are ambassadors of Christ. When we take the Lord’s name, we are representatives of who He is, what He stands for, and what He stands against. So, if we were to take His name in vain as the third commandment forbids, we wouldn’t concern ourselves with acknowledging that, in everything we do with our lives, we are representing our Lord. We would be flippant about living for Him and not worry over how unbelievers may misunderstand who this God is that we claim to worship.
Living Out the Third Commandment
Thomas Watson, a puritan theologian, does an excellent job expounding on the fullness of the third commandment. He acknowledges that, to some extent, speech is a big part of this commandment. He suggests that we break this commandment “when we speak lightly or irreverently of God’s name; when we use God’s name flippantly in idle discourse; when we speak scornfully, jestingly, or perversely of his Word; when we use our tongues to dishonor his name.”[4] This popular interpretation of the third commandment is an important part of our obedience to it. But as Watson points out, it involves more than just speech because we also take the Lord’s name in vain “when we profess his name but do not live consistently as his follower; When we worship him with our lips but not with our hearts; When we pray to him but do not believe him.”[5]
On the other hand, when we successfully follow the third commandment, we are serious about our faith. We live with an appropriate, reverent fear of the Lord that leads to faithfulness in our everyday lives. Leithart says, “In the new covenant, we bear the Name because we’re baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. With that gifted name comes a new identity, a new history, and membership in a new family.”[6] We should recognize that we will not always be the best representatives of this name since we are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God, but because of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in us, we will be better representatives as we submit our lives to him.
[1]L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson, 2 vol. (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 724–27.
[2]Peter J. Leithart, The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty (Bellingham: Lexham, 2020), 47.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Thomas Watson; quoted in Ben C. Mitchell, Ethics and Moral Reasoning: A Student’s Guide, Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition, ed. David S. Dockery (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 43–44.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Leithart, 48.
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