When translating the Hebrew name of God into the English language, most translators translate Yahweh as I am. To them it was blasphemy, as Christ took the Divine name for Himself. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.” The Jewish people took this law seriously, and reacted to Christ invoking I AM by trying to carry out the punishment of the Levitical law. Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. Second, the Jewish people reacted to this statement by trying to stone Jesus, as prescribed in Leviticus 24:15-16, “And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. First, He is claiming to pre-exist Abraham, a feat rather difficult for an ordinary man. While the original statement in the Book of John comes to us in Greek, the context does indicate that Jesus is invoking the Divine Name of God. When asked by the crowd how He speaks as if He knows Abraham, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’” ( John 8:58). Jesus tells them how glad Abraham is to see the day of the Lord. In John 8, the Jewish people challenged his authority, and they brought up Abraham. The religious leaders would often try to catch Jesus in heresy, in a lie, or blaspheming so they could be rid of him. Perhaps the most significant use of the name I AM in the Bible comes from Jesus Christ. Today, any time a translator wants to acknowledge where YHWH is in the original Hebrew text, they use the word LORD in all capital letters. They put the vowels of Adonai into the consonants of Yaweh to get YAHOWAH, which English Christians translated into Jehovah. Instead they would put it in all capital letters, and say Adonai. The Hebrew scribes were very careful to neither say aloud, nor fully spell out the holy and sacred name of God, Yahweh. The Tetragrammaton appears over six-thousand times in the Bible, even in modern English translations. Where Else Is the Name I AM in the Bible?
This video from the Bible project explains this topic more. Yahweh could also be translated as He will be. The first time God says I AM (“I AM WHO I AM”), the Hebrew says, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh”, which translates as “I will be what I will be.” When God then tells Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent you” ( Exodus 3:14), it is “Yahweh.” Yahweh is the third person version of Ehyeh, which is first person. This eternal nature is conveyed better in the Hebrew than in the English. He is the self-sufficient, self-sustaining God who was, who is, and who will be. When God gives a name for His people to call Him it conveys His dominion over all things, the source of His power, and His eternal nature: I AM.
Prior to this moment with Moses, the Israelites called their god Elohim or El – is a title, not a personal name – or “El Shaddai”, often translated as God Almighty. Her name identified her with specific characteristics, and she held sway only over a few elements of life. For example, the goddess Isis had dominion over women, children, and medicine. Most significantly, they had names and dominion over certain aspects of life. The Israelite nation lived surrounded by temples dedicated to deities with faces, bodies, birth stories, and death stories. To understand the power and weight of this name, compare this answer to the Egyptian pantheon. This name is known as the Tetragrammaton. In English, God’s answer is translated as “I AM WHO I AM … tell them I AM has sent me to you” ( Exodus 3:14). Moses asks God for His name, so he will have an answer when the people of Israel ask. Near the end of this time, Moses fled Egypt and lived in Midian for forty years when God came to him and spoke through a burning bush. The Israelites had been in bondage in Egypt for four centuries. In context, the introduction of the name I AM comes early in Exodus. The first five books of both the Jewish and Christian Bibles, called the Pentateuch, are historically attributed to Moses. The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Bible.
What Is the Context and Significance of the Name I AM? The significance of God’s self-given name encompasses all that He is, and how we are to relate to Him. The name of I AM is how God chose to introduce himself, becoming so sacred that in Judaism, the name is not to be spoken.