Exo 20:7 - "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."
Deut 5:11 - "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."
While the general tenor of this commandment against "taking Yahweh's name in vain" is clear, its specific signification is difficult to determine. Translated quite literally from the Hebrew text, the first half of the commandment reads, "Do not lift up the name of Yahweh your God in vain." What is implied by the verb nasa', 'to lift up,' 'to carry,' in the clause "do not lift up the name of Yahweh"? The root word is simple enough. The specific meaning of the word, however, is extremely diverse, and depends on the object associated with it. Through common usage its meaning is usually self-evident. So, e.g., 'to lift up one's eyes' can mean 'to look up,' 'to survey,' 'to look with longing,' or 'to set one's hope on.' Even in a rare use of the verb with 'the place' as object in Gen 18:24 & 26, the context enables us to decode it to mean "to spare the place [from the coming destruction]." The use of 'name' as its object, however, occurs only in this commandment. We, therefore, lack a concrete real-life context in which we may anchor our understanding of the verb. There is thus no ground for commentators insisting that the commandment seeks to prevent God's name being used in magic, or that it has anything to do with blasphemy or swearing falsely, such as averred by A. Phillips and approved by D. Christensen.1
This imprecision makes it likely that the prohibition is directed against any kind of behaviour that abuses the name of Yahweh, whether this is in an oath, blasphemy, or magic. Similarly, Tigay's reading of this verse in the light of Lev 19:12 to mean 'swearing,' while more reasonable, is still too restrictive. Set immediately after the Second Commandment, this prohibition should probably be understood as prohibiting any form of verbal misrepresentation of Yahweh, just as the former prohibits the visual misrepresentation of Yahweh. As already noted, the name of a person or object signifies who or what it is. The noun shaw' in the adverbial phrase lashshaw', 'in vain,' refers to 'emptiness,' 'vanity,' and 'what does not amount to anything.' Surely such 'lifting up of the name to pointlessness' would encompass any investment of Yahweh's name that robs the name of its significance. From a Christian point of view this will include using the name of our Lord Jesus, or such phrases as "O my God!" to punctuate small-talk, to give credence to an oath when there is never any intention of keeping it or, as happens so often these days with visiting "charismatic" preachers to floss a gossamer of divine authority upon some self-serving "prophetic" proclamations for which the preacher knows he/she would not be around to be held accountable!
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2013