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Abraham, Jacob, and Moses Each Called God the Same Name

Abraham, Jacob, and Moses each called God the same name without knowing the others had done it. Three men, one convergence, one proof.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Name Jacob Spoke Into Darkness
  2. Moses Writes the Proof
  3. What Three Men Arrived At Separately
  4. The Direction of Dependence
  5. The Names That Blurred Together

Abraham pulled the knife away from his son's throat and stood there on Mount Moriah, the ram still struggling in the thicket nearby, his hands shaking. He had to call the place something. What name do you give a mountain where your hand was stopped by heaven? He named it: the Lord will see. Not a prediction. Not a hope. A recognition that the seeing had already happened, that something had witnessed the moment from inside the moment itself (Genesis 22:14).

He did not know what he had started.

The Name Jacob Spoke Into Darkness

A generation later, Jacob woke on a stone pillow. He had been dreaming of a ladder, angels climbing and descending between earth and heaven, and God standing at the top of it. He sat up in the dark, on ground that looked like any other ground, and felt the hair on his arms rise. "How awesome is this place," he said (Genesis 28:17). Not a prayer. Something more involuntary than a prayer. The word broke out of him the way a cry does. He was not describing geography. He was naming what he had fallen asleep inside of without knowing it.

He poured oil on the stone and walked on. He did not know, either, what he had added to.

Moses Writes the Proof

Centuries later, Moses was somewhere in the wilderness, writing. The psalm he set down began like this: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations (Psalm 90:1). He did not say God lives in a dwelling place. He said God is the dwelling place. The distinction is precise. A dwelling place is where you go. What Moses was saying was that there is nowhere to go to that is not already inside God.

He, too, did not know he was completing something.

What Three Men Arrived At Separately

The rabbis who came after all three of them noticed what none of the three had seen. Abraham naming the mountain, Jacob naming the ground, Moses naming the shelter of all generations, they had all arrived at the same word. In Hebrew, one of God's names is HaMakom, the Place. Not a place among other places. The Place that contains all other places. God is the space in which everything that exists exists.

How do we know this? The question took centuries to answer properly. Rabbi Yitzchak pointed toward a verse in Deuteronomy: which are the abode for the God who precedes all (Deuteronomy 33:27). But the verse was ambiguous. It could mean God dwells in the world, or the world dwells in God. Two completely different theologies, and the grammar could support either one.

Moses settled it. You have been our dwelling place. Not: you have a dwelling place. Not: you live in a dwelling place among us. You are our dwelling place. The world does not house God. God houses the world.

The Direction of Dependence

Rabbi Yosi bar Halifta sharpened the argument further. Even granting that God is the Place of the world, you might still ask: does the world need God, or does God need the world? He pointed to a verse where God says to Moses: behold, there is a place with Me (Exodus 33:21). The word order matters. God has a place. Not: the world has God. God is not contained by the world. The world is contained by God. Dependence runs one direction only.

Rabbi Huna, quoting Rabbi Ami, drew the final arc: God is called Place because wherever the righteous stand, God is found standing with them (Exodus 20:21). This is not a metaphor about prayer. It is a claim about location. The righteous do not travel toward God. God is the location the righteous are already inside.

The Names That Blurred Together

There is one more wrinkle the tradition preserved, and it comes from a different direction entirely. The patriarchs did not only arrive at the same name for God. Their own names overlapped and merged in ways no single lifetime could explain. Abraham was called Abraham. But Isaac was also called Abraham, as his story begins: this is the legacy of Isaac, Abraham's son, Abraham. Jacob was renamed Israel. So was Isaac. And Abraham, in a remarkable reading of how the phrase the children of Israel carried more weight than the grammar alone could hold, was drawn into that name too.

The dwelling of the children of Israel in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years (Exodus 12:40). That clock started not with Jacob entering Egypt, but with Abraham. The phrase reaches back past Jacob, past Isaac, and names all three as a single continuing presence. They shared a name the way they shared a recognition: separately, without planning it, and more precisely than they could have arranged.

Abraham called the mountain Place. Jacob called the ground Place. Moses called God Place. None of them knew the others had done it. The rabbis laid the three moments side by side and saw what they pointed to: that God is not somewhere you arrive at, but somewhere you already are.

AbrahamMosesJacobDivine PresenceMakomMidrash
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From the tradition

Sources

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Midrash Tehillim 90:6Midrash Tehillim

The Midrash Tehillim, a fascinating collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, wrestles with this very idea. Rabbi Yitzchak points to (Deuteronomy 33:27), which speaks of God as "the abode for the God Who precedes all." But, the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asks, how do we know if God is the dwelling place for the world, or the world is God’s dwelling place? The answer, they suggest, comes from Moses. It is God who is our dwelling place.

Rabbi Yosi bar Halifta takes this even further. How can we know if God needs the world, or the world needs God? Is God dependent on us, or are we dependent on God? He points to (Exodus 33:21), where God says, "...Behold, there is a place with Me…" The implication? God is the place of the world, but the world is not God’s place. In other words, we are dependent on God, but God is not dependent on us. It flips our perspective, doesn't it? ourselves is often remembered as offering something to God, but the Midrash suggests that God is offering us a home.

Rabbi Huna, quoting Rabbi Ami, asks a simple question: why is God called "place" – Makom in Hebrew? Because, he answers, God is the place of His world, as it says in (Exodus 33:21). It's a beautiful, almost circular definition, but it highlights the all-encompassing nature of God. God isn't just in a place; God is the place.

It doesn’t stop there! The Midrash goes on to show how Abraham, Jacob, and Moses all refer to God as "place." When Abraham names the spot where he offered the ram instead of his son, Isaac, "The Lord will see" (Genesis 22:14), the Midrash sees him naming the place after God – calling God “place.” Similarly, when Jacob awakens from his dream of the ladder and proclaims, "How awesome is this place!" (Genesis 28:17), he, too, is recognizing God's presence and essentially calling God "place."

But there's another layer to this concept of "place." The Midrash offers another explanation for why God is called "place": Because wherever the righteous are standing, there God is found with them, as it says in (Exodus 20:21), "Wherever I allow My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you." It’s almost as if our acts of righteousness, our dedication to justice and kindness, create a space where God's presence can dwell.

Consider Jacob's journey in (Genesis 28:11), "And he arrived at the place and lodged there…" The Midrash hints that the place itself wasn't inherently special until Jacob arrived. It was Jacob's presence, his righteousness, that transformed it into a sacred space.

So, what does all this mean for us? Perhaps it means that we are not just searching for a physical place to call home, but for a spiritual one. A place within ourselves and within the world where we can connect with the Divine. And perhaps, just perhaps, by living righteous lives, by striving to be better, kinder, and more just, we can create that place – not just for ourselves, but for others as well. We can make the world a dwelling place for the Divine.

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Bereshit Rabbah 63:3Bereshit Rabbah

They saw more than just stories; they saw patterns, echoes, and hidden depths. to one of those fascinating explorations, found in Bereshit Rabbah, the great collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis.

The rabbis noticed something intriguing: names seemed to blur, to overlap. Abram, of course, becomes Abraham. But did you know that, according to some interpretations, Isaac and even Abraham himself were also called Israel?

It's a bit mind-bending. Bereshit Rabbah 63 digs into this. It points out the verse in (Genesis 32:29), where Jacob's name is changed: "He said: No longer will Jacob be said to be your name, but rather, Israel." Okay, that's clear enough. Jacob becomes Israel. But then it gets interesting. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asks: Could Isaac also have been called Israel? They find support for this idea in (Exodus 1:1): "These are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob [et Yaakov]." The rabbis cleverly interpret the phrase "with Jacob" to mean that Jacob is included among the children of Israel. If so, then who is Israel in this verse? According to this interpretation, it must be Isaac!

What about Abraham? Could he possibly have been called Israel too?

Rabbi Natan weighs in, calling it "a profound matter." He brings up the verse in (Exodus 12:40): "The dwelling of the children of Israel that they dwelled in Egypt... in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Goshen was four hundred and thirty years." Now, here's the key: those 430 years aren't just the time spent in Egypt. They start all the way back with the Covenant of the Pieces (Brit Bein HaBetarim), the covenant God made with Abraham before Isaac was even born! (Genesis 15) So, the Torah refers to this entire period, beginning with Abraham, as "the dwelling of the children of Israel."

What's going on here? Why this blurring of names?

Perhaps it's about more than just labeling individuals. Maybe it's about a shared destiny, a collective identity that transcends generations. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – they are all links in a chain, each contributing to the unfolding story of the Jewish people. The name Israel, then, isn't just a label but a symbol of that ongoing covenant, that shared journey. As we learn in Legends of the Jews, Ginzberg retells many stories that highlight the interconnectedness of these patriarchs and the unfolding covenant.

It makes you wonder: what names do we carry? What legacies do we inherit? And how do we contribute to the ongoing story of our own communities, our own families, our own lives? The rabbis of Bereshit Rabbah invite us to consider the profound weight and the beautiful ambiguity of a name. It's a question worth pondering, even today.

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