What’s In A Name?, Pt 2: Adonai
Deuteronomy 10:17 17For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, ….
Psalm 8:1 1LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.
NOTE: Adonai, (pronounced ah-doe-nigh), is used 434 times in the Bible. Mostly it is used as a substitute for YHWH which was considered too holy to be spoken or even written. When we see LORD in our Bibles it usually is a translation YHWH while Lord refers to Adonai.
In 1510 an anonymous author published a morality play called The Summoning of Everyman in which the character Everyman, representing all of mankind, endeavored to find value and meaning through interaction with other characters, all of which were allegorical, with names like Messenger, Wisdom, Confession, and Beauty. It was a secular play exploring spiritual values and concluded that at the end of one’s life all one has as testimony before God is his character and good deeds. Further, Everyman concludes that each person is essentially alone throughout his life and that friends, values, and character are what we individually make of them. We studied that play in high school and it must have had significant impact as I remember it even these 60 years later. We who follow Jesus as our Savior accept that conclusion in part but add that it is the love of Jesus, both given and received, which drives one to perform good deeds.
Ancient Hebrew thought arrives at the same conclusions but through an entirely different process. When considering the word Adonai we have to understand its meaning in ancient Hebrew. In our western culture, for much of the last 2000 years, Adonai, Lord, meant “sir”, or “master”, or “boss”. None of these bear relation to the Hebrew meaning. The problem is that our modern Western minds think of things in terms of their description. Ancient Eastern minds thought of things in terms of their function. So the meaning of Lord is not one of relationship but one of function. The root word of Adonai, adon, has the functional meaning of “to enter perpetual life” or “the door of life”, not the relational meaning of master. Also in Jewish culture the Lord was master over all he created, so just as God is Lord over all of creation, the Jewish patriarch was Lord over his family. And while not so much in our society, in the ancient Hebrew society the patriarch, the lord, was the one who named all the descendants and by so doing described their function and character.
So in combination Adonai is the Lord and master of us, his children, but he is also the giver of our life, our very existence. While YHWH is God’s personal name, Adonai is his functional name. It describes the way he relates to us and us to him.
There are several functional relationships which are contained within the word Adonai. One is possession. Jesus paid the ultimate price by giving his life to purchase us (1Corinthians 7:23), and further when we were created it was for the purpose of worshipping God (Colossians 1:16). In other words Jesus, our Lord, purchased us through his sacrifice. Another is authority. By our willing acceptance of Jesus as Lord we have willingly allowed Jesus to direct our lives. That means our walk must agree with our talk. We must not be hypocrites. Our family and friends know we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, so when we sin they see us rebelling against God.
So our attitude must reflect our worship of the King. You know that old cliché about the difference between cats and dogs? It says,
A dog says: “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me… you must be God.”
A cat says: “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me…I must be God.”
All too often we follow the feline way of thinking when we ought to be following the canine.
Adonai is a plural word coming from the singular noun adon. Adon almost always refers to men, Adonai never does. And although its plural structure is significant in itself there’s more. R. C. Sproul, a renowned 20th Century pastor and theologian, points out that the ai ending is an intensifier so that Adonai ought to be translated ‘supreme Lord’. This was news to me too guys and here is a point of confession: In reading LORD I always understood it to refer to God himself, but I would read Lord and think, “That just refers to Jesus.” Just?
My point in all of this is that the function of Lord is significant. We Western believers act as if we must in all and every circumstance be master of our own lives. We mostly were our own master when in the world, but we chose to leave the world for a reason: It simply does not work to attempt mastery of our own lives. We are weak and frail and we mess things up time and time again. The only solution is to let Jesus be Lord of our lives. This requires submission and obedience.
Also it requires the correct attitude: We should choose to allow Jesus to be lord of our lives, not doing it because we feel we must. Look at Matthew 7:21-23:
21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Here were disciples, not the 12, who were attempting to do the Lord’s work without being in true relationship with him. We see that doesn’t work very well.
He is wiser than we can ever hope to be and knows what’s best for us. We on the other hand get caught up in the moment and we want that thing that’s immediately in front of us without considering the potential ramifications and consequences. So my friend what is it in your life that seems to be a total kerfuffle. Maybe you should just go to God about it. This is called prayer. But you know what? It’s just conversation. It doesn’t have to be a choreographed liturgical event. It’s enough to get in your quiet place and just ask God what he thinks about the situation. But then the important thing is to be quiet and listen for the answer. He wants good things for you, and he knows the correct path. You have to let him tell you. Let him be Lord, and let him guide his subject, that’s you, into the correct response.
Benner, J.A. (2018). His Name Is One. An Ancient Hebrew Perspective of the Names of God. Kindle Edition.
Simms, J. (2003). Adonai. Retrieved from Adonai Sermon by Jeff Simms, Genesis 15:2 - SermonCentral.com