title are alike obscure: see the footnote. In P it is the
signature of the patriarchal age (Ex. 63); or rather it
designates the true God as the patron of the Abrahamic
covenant, whose terms are explicitly referred to in every
passage where the name occurs in P (283 3511 483). That it
marks an advance in the revelation of the divine character
can hardly be shown, though the words immediately following
may suggest that the moral condition on which the
covenant is granted is not mere obedience to a positive
precept, but a life ruled by the ever-present sense of God as
the ideal of ethical perfection.—Walk before me (cf. 2440
4815)] i.e., 'Live consciously in My presence,' 1 Sa. 122,
Is. 383; cf. 1 Jn. 17.—perfect] or 'blameless'; see on 69.—2.
On the idea and scope of the covenant (
Hebrew characters), see p.
297 f. below.—4. father of a multitude (lit. tumult) of nations]
In substance the promise is repeated in 283 484 ((Hebrew characters))
and 3511 ((Hebrew characters)); the peculiar expression here anticipates
the etymology of v.5. While J (122 1818 463) restricts the
promise to Israel ((Hebrew characters)), P speaks of 'nations' in the
plural, including the Ishmaelites and Edomites amongst the
least some support in Is. 136, Jl. 115, and is free from difficulty if we
accept it as an ancient title appropriated by P without regard to its
real significance. The assumption of a by-form (Hebrew characters) (Ew. Tu. al.) is
gratuitous, and would yield a form (Hebrew characters), not (Hebrew characters). Other proposed
etymologies are: from (Hebrew characters) originally = 'lord' (Ar. sayyid), afterwards
= 'demon' (pointing (Hebrew characters) or (Hebrew characters) [pl. maj.]: Nö. ZDMG, xl. 735 f., xlii.
480 f.); from [root] (Hebrew characters) (Ar. ṯadā) = 'be wet' ('the raingiver': OTJC2,
424); from Syr. (Syriac characters), 'hurl' (Schwally, ZDMG, lii. 136: "a dialectic
equivalent of (Hebrew characters) in the sense of lightning-thrower" (Hebrew characters)). Vollers
(ZA, xvii. 310) argues for an original (Hebrew characters) ([root] (Hebrew characters)), afterwards, through
popular etymology and change of religious meaning, fathered on [root] (Hebrew characters).
Several Assyriologists connect the word with šadû rabû, 'great
mountain,' a title of Bêl and other Bab. deities (Homm. AHT, 109 f.;
Zimmern, KAT3, 358): a view which would be more plausible if, as Frd.
Del. (Prol. 95 f.) has maintained, the Ass. [root] meant 'lofty'; but this is
denied by other authorities (Halevy, ZKF, ii. 405 ff.; Jen. ZA, i. 251).
As to the origin of the name, there is a probability that (Hebrew characters) was an old
(cf. Gn. 4925) Canaanite deity, of the same class as 'El 'Elyôn (see on
1418), whom the Israelites identified with Yahwe (so Gu. 235).—4. (Hebrew characters) is
casus pendens (Dri. T. § 197 (4)), not emphatic anticipation of following
suff. (as G-K. § 135 f).
