What is the meaning of ‘I AM WHO I AM’ in Exodus 3:14?

TL;DR:

In Exodus 3:14, God declares “I AM WHO I AM” to reveal His eternal, unchanging, and self-existent nature—completely distinct from all created things. I AM WHO I AM affirms God’s sovereign authority, His presence with His people and His identity as the one true God, fulfilled and echoed by Jesus in the New Testament.

what does the bible say?

In Exodus 3, God called Moses to go to Egypt and rescue His people from captivity. Every known god had a name and a limited domain. So, Moses asked what God’s name was so that He could tell the people by what authority he was taking them out of Egypt. God’s reply was, “I AM WHO I AM.”

By calling Himself “I AM,” God was declaring that He is. He was saying that He never changes, has always existed, and is self-existent. This set God apart from and above every false god, as He was claiming to exist before anything and, therefore, to have dominion over everything. Because He is the “I AM,” God could take the Israelites out of Egypt because everything was His domain.

“Yahweh,” God’s proper name, is a derivative of the verb translated as “I AM.” Throughout the Old Testament, He regularly used it to remind us Who He is. Later, in the New Testament, Jesus applied the “I AM” statement to Himself, saying that He was the same eternal, self-existent God that had first rescued the Jews out of captivity thousands of years earlier (John 8:58).

from the old testament

In Exodus chapter 3, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and told him He was sending Moses to free the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. Moses worried that the people would not believe that God had sent him, so he said, “Then Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14).

from the new testament

Jesus identified Himself as Yahweh. In John 8:58, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Like in Exodus, Jesus used the Greek “being” verb without any description. Jesus was saying, “I am” like God said in Exodus 3:14.
The Jews understood what Jesus was saying. In the next verse we read, “Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him” (John 8:59a). To claim to be God while not being God, was blasphemy. They did not believe Jesus was God, so they prepared to stone Him to death. Though He escaped (John 8:59b), their attempted murder proved that they understood the significance of Jesus’ “I am” statement.
Because Jesus is fully God, it was not blasphemy for Him to claim the name I AM. As God, He is self-existent (Colossians 1:17). eternal, existing before Abraham and now seated at the right hand of God the Father for eternity (Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 8:1). He is self-sufficient and self-directed, doing His will as He sees fit (John 5:26). He is also unchanging, “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

implications for today

YHWH being the great “I AM” has several implications for us, today.

First, because He is the “I AM,” He is eternal and existed before anything existed. In fact, He created everything that is (John 1:1–3). That means that He, alone, deserves all glory and honor (Revelation 4:11).

Second, because He is the “I AM,” He is self-existent, needing nothing outside of Himself to continue to exist. That means that there is nothing in creation that He needs. He was perfectly satisfied within Himself for all eternity. We do not add to God or complete Him. This means that the fact that He created us, placed us over the rest of His creation, and personally cares for us is an unfathomable display of love on His part (Psalm 8).

Third, because He is the “I AM,” He can do whatever He wants. He does not accommodate His will for us, nor does He wait to see what we will do and then respond. Instead, He is in heaven, doing whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3).

Fourth, because He is the “I AM,” His state never changes. He “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). This means that we can bank on His promises and His character. It also means that He is perfect. We can be assured that He will not change. Instead, He is the same holy, gracious, merciful, just, and good God that He was in eternity past. He will also be the same in eternity future.

God is. Let us praise and worship Him (Psalm 30:4)!

understand

I AM WHO I AM means God is eternal and self-existent.
I AM WHO I AM means God is unchanging and sovereign.
Jesus’ use of “I AM” in John 8:58 confirms He is Yahweh, the same eternal God who revealed Himself to Moses.

reflect

How does knowing that God is eternal and unchanging affect the way you trust Him in uncertain situations?
How have you tried to define God by your own expectations, rather than worshiping Him as the self-existent “I AM”?
What would need to change in your life if you lived with a greater awareness that God is?

engage

What does God's name “I AM WHO I AM” reveal about how He is different from man-made gods or our modern ideas of power?
How does Jesus’ use of “I AM” in the New Testament deepen our understanding of His identity and mission?
What encouragement do we receive from relying on God’s unchanging nature in a world that is always shifting?