Jehovah Jireh: the LORD will see to it

Jehovah Jireh is the name Abraham gave to a mountaintop after the hardest test of his life. In Hebrew it means the LORD will see, and because God's seeing always turns into action, it is usually explained as the LORD will provide. The King James Bible records it once, in Genesis 22:14, at the end of the story of Abraham and his son Isaac on a mountain in the land of Moriah.

Three days to Moriah

Abraham was 75 when God first called him and 100 when Isaac was born (Genesis 12:4 and 21:5). God had promised him a son when he and Sarah were far too old to have children, and every other promise God made him, about land, a great family and a blessing for the whole world, depended on that boy. Then one day God spoke words that must have stopped his heart.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Genesis 22:2

The chapter tells the reader something Abraham did not know. The first verse says that God did tempt Abraham. In the English of 1611, "tempt" meant to test or prove. This was a test of trust, and God already knew how it would end.

Abraham got up early, split the wood, saddled his donkey and set out with Isaac and two servants. On the third day he saw the place in the distance. He left the servants behind and told them that he and the boy would go and worship and then come back (Genesis 22:5). Isaac carried the wood on his back. His father carried the fire and the knife.

Somewhere on the climb Isaac asked the obvious question: Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham's answer is where this name begins.

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

Genesis 22:8

The ram in the thicket

At the top Abraham built an altar, laid the wood in order, bound Isaac and placed him on it. He raised the knife. Then the angel of the LORD called his name twice from heaven and told him to stop: Lay not thine hand upon the lad. God had seen that Abraham trusted Him completely and held nothing back.

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Genesis 22:13

A thicket is a patch of thick bushes. "In the stead of" means in place of. The ram died so that Isaac could live. Then Abraham named the spot, and the name stuck for generations.

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.

Genesis 22:14

Look at the words as it is said to this day. By the time Genesis was written down, Abraham's experience had become a saying that people repeated. When someone was stuck and could not see a way through, they could remind each other what had happened on that mountain. The story had turned into a common phrase of hope.

Notice, too, what Abraham did not name. He did not name the place after his own obedience, or after the knife, or after how close he came to losing his son. He named it after what God did. That is a habit worth copying: when help comes, give the place, the day or the memory a name that points back to the One who sent it.

Jireh means "will see"

The name has two parts. Jehovah is an English form of God's personal name, the four Hebrew letters YHWH that the King James usually prints as LORD in capitals. Jireh (Hebrew yir'eh) comes from ra'ah, the everyday Hebrew verb "to see." Strong's dictionary, a standard word list for the King James Bible, explains the whole name as "Jehovah will see," with the sense of "will see to it."

Here is a detail English readers often miss. When Abraham told Isaac that God would provide a lamb in verse 8, the Hebrew word behind "provide" is the same verb. Abraham said it on the way up, in faith, and the name at the top repeats it. What he believed on the climb became what he could tell everyone afterward.

So why do English Bibles say "provide"? Because in Hebrew thinking, when God sees a need He does not just notice it. He takes care of it. Our English word "provide" comes from a Latin word that means to see ahead, so the two ideas are closer than they look. Verse 14 adds a second twist with the same verb: on the mountain of the LORD it shall be seen. The God who sees also makes Himself seen.

The same mountain, years later

Moriah did not fade from the story. Centuries after Abraham, King Solomon built the temple, the house of worship for Israel, on a mountain the Bible also calls Moriah. Jewish and Christian tradition has long taken it to be the same high ground.

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

2 Chronicles 3:1

If that is right, then for generations sacrifices were offered in the region where a ram once took Isaac's place. The New Testament also looks back at Abraham's climb and says he trusted God so fully that he was Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). Christians see a bigger answer to Isaac's question in Jesus, whom John the Baptist called the Lamb of God (John 1:29).

Trusting Jehovah Jireh on your own climb

Many people say "Jehovah Jireh" when money is short, and it is right to bring every need to God. But the story is bigger than bills. Abraham was not climbing to get something. He was climbing ready to give up the thing he loved most, and God met him at the top with exactly what that moment needed.

That is honest comfort. The name does not promise that you will get whatever you ask for. It promises that God sees your situation before you explain it, and that He will take care of what truly matters, often on the far side of obedience. Jesus said the same about our Father in heaven: He knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him (Matthew 6:8).

• Think of one where is the lamb? question in your life right now, a need you cannot see the answer to yet. Tell God about it in plain words.
• Keep doing the next right thing while you wait, the way Abraham kept walking.
• Look back on one time when help came just in time, and thank God for seeing it before you did.

Jehovah-jireh is name 19 of the 70 in the book. The next name was spoken beside a pool of bitter water in the desert: Jehovah Rapha, the LORD who heals. For the whole family of Jehovah names, visit the Jehovah names of God page.