"I Am that I Am" is a common English translation of the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

phrase (; )– also "I am who (I) am", "I will become what I choose to become", "I am what I am", "I will be what I will be", "I create what(ever) I create", or "I am the Existing One".

Etymology

() is the first of three responses given to

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

when he asks for

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

's name in the

Book of Exodus The Book of Exodus (from ; ''Šəmōṯ'', 'Names'; ) is the second book of the Bible. It is the first part of the narrative of the Exodus, the origin myth of the Israelites, in which they leave slavery in Biblical Egypt through the strength of ...

.. The word () is the first person singular imperfective form of (), 'to be', and owing to the peculiarities of Hebrew grammar means 'I am' and 'I will be'. The meaning of the longer phrase is debated, and might be seen as a promise ('I will be with you') or as statement of incomparability ('I am without equal').

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

did not distinguish between

grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses found ...

s. It instead had an aspectual system in which the perfect denoted any actions that have been completed, and

imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was doing (something)" o ...

denoted any actions that are not yet completed. Additionally, if a verb form was prefixed by (''wa-''), its aspect was inverted; a verb conjugated in the imperfect and prefixed by would read as the perfect, while a verb conjugated in the perfect and prefixed by would read as the imperfect. The word () is the first-person singular imperfect form of , 'to be', which in Modern Hebrew indicates the future tense 'I will be'; however, it lacks the prefix which would necessitate this reading in Biblical Hebrew. It therefore may be translated as 'I am', but also as a modal form such as 'I may be', 'I would be', 'I could be', etc. Accordingly, the whole phrase can be rendered in English not only as 'I ''am'' that I am' but also as 'I ''will be'' what I will be' or 'I will be who I will be', or 'I shall prove to be whatsoever I shall prove to be' or even 'I will be because I will be'. Other renderings include: Leeser, 'I Will Be that I Will Be'; Rotherham, 'I Will Become whatsoever I please', Greek, (), 'I am The Being' in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, and

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

, and the Book of Revelation or, 'I am The Existing One'; Latin, , 'I am Who I am'. The word () is a

relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the relative pronoun ''which'' introduces the relative clause. The relative clause modifies th ...

whose meaning depends on the immediate context, therefore 'that', 'who', 'which', or 'where' are all possible translations of that word.Seidner, 4.

Interpretation

According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...

(),

asks what he is to say to the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

when they ask what gods ( 'Elohiym) have sent him to them, and YHWH replies, "I am who I am", adding, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you. Despite this exchange, the Israelites are never written to have asked Moses for the name of God. Then there are a number of probably unanswerable questions, including who it is that does not know God's name, Moses or the Israelites (most commentators take it that it is Moses who does not know, meaning that the Israelites will ask him the name in order to prove his credentials), and just what the statement means. The last can be approached in three ways: * "I am who I am" – an evasion of Moses' question; * "I am who am" or "I am he who is" – a statement of the nature of Israel's God. Scholars believe it refers to God's eternal nature, which is common in ancient Near Eastern cultures and not restricted to Hellenistic philosophy. It might be a reaction to the motif of gods arbitrarily disappearing in Canaanite mythology; * I Am' is who I am", or "I am because I am" – this version has not played a major part in scholarly discussion of the phrase, but the first variant has been incorporated into the

New English Bible The New English Bible (NEB) is an English translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1961 and the Old Testament (with the Apocrypha) was published on 16 March 1970. In 1989, it was significantly revised and republished as the ...

Roman Catholicism

St.

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

and St.

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

, Doctors of the Church, identified the Being of Exodus 3:14 with the ''Esse ipsum subsistens'', who is God Himself, and, in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

, the Being in the strong or intensive sense in whom one has all the determinations of every being in their highest degree of perfection. Therefore, this Being is actuality of every actuality (or pure Act) and perfection of all perfections. In Him, solely

essence Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...

and

existence Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does ...

(in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: '' Actus essendi'') are identified. While St. Augustine had a general intuition of Him, His philosophical formulation came only with St. Aquinas.

Other views

In the

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

Advaita Vedanta, the South Indian sage

Ramana Maharshi Ramana Maharshi (; ; 30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) was an Indian Hindu Sage (philosophy), sage and ''jivanmukta'' (liberated being). He was born Venkataraman Iyer, but is mostly known by the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was b ...

mentions that of all the definitions of God, "none is indeed so well put as the biblical statement 'I am that I am. He maintained that although Hindu scripture contains similar statements, the Mahavakyas, these are not as direct as given in Exodus. Further the "I am" is explained by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj as an abstraction in the mind of the Stateless State, of the Absolute, or the Supreme Reality, called

Parabrahman ''Para Brahman'' or ''Param Brahman'' () in Hindu philosophy is the "Supreme Brahman" that which is beyond all descriptions and conceptualisations. It is described as beyond the form or the formlessness (in the sense that it is devoid of May ...

: it is pure awareness, prior to thoughts, free from perceptions, associations, memories. Parabrahman is often considered to be a cognate term for the Supreme Being in Hinduism. Victor P. Hamilton suggests "some legitimate translations ..: (1) 'I am who I am'; (2) 'I am who I was'; (3) 'I am who I shall be'; (4) 'I was who I am'; (5) 'I was who I was'; (6) 'I was who I shall be'; (7) 'I shall be who I am'; (8) 'I shall be who I was'; (9) 'I shall be who I shall be'." The Bahá'í Faith reference to "I Am" can be found on page 316 of '' The Dawn-Breakers'':

References

Works cited

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External links

{{Book of Exodus navbox Book of Exodus Hebrew Bible words and phrases Names of God in Christianity Names of God in Judaism Ramana Maharshi