In the last days of Judah, the Pharaoh defeated and killed King Josiah in battle. The Kingdom of Judah was put under tribute to Egypt and became a vassal state, with Judah’s new ruler sitting on the throne as an Egyptian puppet:
“Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim” (II Kings 23:34).
The text doesn’t explain why Pharaoh changes Eliakim’s name, but the difference in meaning between Eliakim and Jehoiakim may suggest the reason. The original name “Eliakim” means something like “My God Will Rise,” (using El or Elohim) while “Jehoiakim” means “Yahweh will Rise” (using the proper divine name). The important difference is the move from the general elohim, a generic word for any spiritual being, to the specific name of the God of Judah: Yahweh. Why this change?
Considering that Pharaoh had killed Eliakim’s father Josiah and laid his kingdom under tribute, it seems that Pharaoh is highlighting what looks to him as a victory of Egypt’s gods over Yahweh, in a kind of grotesque reversal of the Exodus (cf. Exodus 12:12). Adding insult to injury, Pharaoh wants the whole world to know which God it is that he has brought so low. Eliakim’s name is thus changed in mockery of Yahweh, as a reminder that Yahweh has been defeated by Egypt. If this is what’s going on, it’s a literal case of what Paul says to his fellow Jews in Romans 2:24, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
The Third Commandment: Bearing God’s Name In Vain
Bringing disrepute on the name of God is no small thing. This is the focus of the Third Commandment, and it’s worth taking some time to consider this command and its far-reaching implications. The commandment is this:
“You shall not lift up the name of Yahweh your God for nothing; for Yahweh will not hold guiltless the one who lifts up his name for nothing” (Exodus 20:7; my literal translation).
The Hebrew verb “lift up” (נשׂא) is the common word for lifting, bearing, or carrying. Perhaps here “take upon the lips” gets the sense across, as when one swears an oath in God’s name or calling God as witness, either falsely or as a cover for sin. The specific focus of the command might then be swearing falsely in court, or testifying falsely in God’s name. The command is often discussed in the context of the ethics of oath-making.
But the commandment’s reach is much further and deeper than this. After all, there is another commandment that deals specifically with bearing false witness (the 9th). Again, the verb “lift up” is quite generic, and the phrase “for nothing” (לַשָּׁ֑וְא) is generic as well, often used to describe an action taken for a specific purpose but then failing to achieve it.1
So while the Third Commandment prohibits false oaths, it prohibits this as an extreme case of a more general principle, that God’s name is not to be defamed or debased in any way, that God’s name not be carried for nothing. What the commandment requires, positively, is that God’s name—his honor and reputation—be upheld truly, with all the reverence due to it. It’s what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be Thy Name.”
But consider further: God’s name is his self-revelation, and God is revealed in all that he has made. So the commandment actually requires an appropriate reverence for God himself and a proper regard and use of all of God’s works.
The Westminster Larger Catechism recognizes this:
“The third commandment requires, That the name of God, his titles, attributes, ordinances, the Word, sacraments, prayer, oaths, vows, lots, his works, and whatsoever else there is whereby he makes himself known, be holily and reverently used in thought, meditation, word, and writing; by an holy profession, and answerable conversation, to the glory of God, and the good of ourselves, and others” (Q112).
The Third Commandment is in fact about our entire stance toward God and toward the world he has made.
God’s People Always Bear His Name
The commandment was given to Israel when God claimed them for his own and delivered them from Egypt. It is especially they who are not to “carry” his name for nothing.
God’s covenant with his people is that “I will be God to you and your descendants after you” (Genesis 17:7). This is why the saints in the Old Testament plead with God in prayer on the ground that God’s own name is at stake in what becomes of his people.
In Joshua 7:9 for example, after being defeated at Ai, Joshua prays:
“O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?”
Again in Daniel 9:19,
“O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
God’s people bear his name because they are his covenant people, and God makes this name-bearing explicit when he prescribes the benediction with which Aaron was to bless the people in Numbers 6:22-27:
“The Lord bless you and keep you…”
What is the effect of this blessing?
“Thus shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
This is not just an Old Testament reality. If you are baptized, you also bear God’s name: You are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), and by that action God places his name upon you. You become a name-bearer. You carry it around with you, literally in fact, since if you are a believer you are called a “Christian.” You have the name of God, the name of Christ, right there in your own self-description.
This name-bearing function of God’s people is clear also in the theology of the temple. How is the temple described in the Old Testament? It’s “A House for my Name,” (II Samuel 7:13) a house to be the place where God’s presence would be manifest. But what is that temple now? It’s you and I. Paul says to the Corinthians, “You are the temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Christians are a House for God’s Name, the center of God’s saving presence and work in the world. When God’s great work of redemption is finally fulfilled, Revelation 22:4 tells us that “God’s name will be on our foreheads.”
Seen in this light, the Third Commandment is really nothing less than a call to never sin, to never dishonor God in our speech, deeds, heart, or mind. To sin in any way is to be a living, breathing breech of the command to not carry God’s name in vain.
Jesus: The Name of God
The name of God, supremely and ultimately, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), he is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:2-3). Jesus is the perfect revelation of God—God in the flesh, the glory of God incarnate. He is God the Son, the Word of the Father. God is righteous, and does not bear his own name in vain. In God the Son, the name of God is upheld and honored perfectly.
Upholding the name of God was Jesus’ very mission. In his high priestly prayer in John 17, he says:
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”
This was to fulfill Psalm 22:22, “I will tell of your name to my brothers, in the midst of the assembly I will sing your praise.”
Jesus came to fulfill Israel’s calling, to carry and to truly honor the name of God. That is where Israel failed, and that is what Jesus rectified by his perfectly faithful life and death. His life vindicated God’s name, as he bore true witness to who God is. His death also was a vindication of God’s name, as he died bearing the curse for his people in order to display God’s righteousness against sin (Romans 3:25-26).
Believers today carry God’s name by their profession and their baptism, and should remember that they are called to live worthy of it in all that they do.
“In vain have I struck your children; they took no correction” (Jeremiah 2:30); “In vain you beautify yourself. Your lovers despise you…” (Jeremiah 4:30); etc.