- Name 26 of 70The LORD Is There
- HebrewYHWH Shammah
- In plain wordsThe LORD is there
- Where to find itEzekiel 48:35, the last verse of Ezekiel
Jehovah Shammah means "the Lord is there." It is the very last phrase of the book of Ezekiel, the new name of a city in a vision: the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there
(Ezekiel 48:35). Ezekiel spoke it to people who had lost their homes, their capital city and their temple. After all that loss, the one promise that mattered most was that God Himself would be present with them again.
A priest far from the temple
Ezekiel was a priest, the son of a man named Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3). Priests were trained to serve in the temple in Jerusalem. But his book never shows him serving there. He was carried off to Babylon with a group of captives when King Jehoiachin was taken there, and his book counts its dates from that event (Ezekiel 1:2).
He lived among the exiles beside a waterway called the river Chebar, in the land of the Chaldeans (another name for the Babylonians). That is where his story begins:
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
Ezekiel 1:1
Notice where God showed up first. Not in the temple, but in a foreign country, by a river, among homesick people. That detail matters for the end of the book.
The glory leaves, and the glory returns
About a year later, in a vision, God took Ezekiel back to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:1 to 3). What he saw was heartbreaking. Idols had been set up in the temple courts, and leaders were worshiping images in secret. Then came the scene no priest ever wanted to see. The glory of God, the bright, visible sign of His presence, began to move away.
Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.
Ezekiel 10:18
The threshold is the doorway. From there the glory rose and paused over the mountain on the east side of the city (Ezekiel 11:23). Then it was gone. Some years after that, a survivor reached Ezekiel in Babylon with the news he had dreaded: The city is smitten
(Ezekiel 33:21). Jerusalem had fallen.
Ezekiel's book could have ended there. Instead, in the closing chapters (40 to 48), God gave him a long vision of a restored temple, land and city, with careful measurements. And in the middle of it, Ezekiel watched the scene from chapter 10 run in reverse:
And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.
Ezekiel 43:4-5
"Prospect" here means the direction a gate faces. The glory had left toward the east, and it came back from the east. God was returning by the same road He had taken out.
The vision ends by measuring the walls and listing the twelve gates of the city. Then, in the last line, comes the name.
It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.
Ezekiel 48:35
Shammah: a small word with a big promise
The first word of the name is God's personal name, YHWH, which the King James Bible prints as LORD and older English spelled Jehovah. The second word is shammah. It comes from sham, one of the most ordinary words in Hebrew. Strong's dictionary defines it simply as "there." The form shammah can carry the sense of "there" or "to that place."
The King James translators put the English words in the main text. Many King James printings add a note in the margin with the Hebrew, Jehovah-shammah. That is why you will not find the Hebrew spelling inside the verse itself.
It is striking that this great name rests on such a plain word. There is no word for power, wisdom or glory in it. People who had lost everything did not need a new fact about God's strength. They needed to know He would be with them.
More verses about God's presence
The same little Hebrew word turns up in one of the best-known psalms about God's presence:
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Psalm 139:7-8
"Whither" means where. The psalm says there is nowhere you can go that God cannot reach. Hell in this verse stands for the Hebrew word sheol, the grave or the world of the dead.
Centuries before Ezekiel, Moses understood how much God's presence mattered. After the golden calf, Moses told God If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence
(Exodus 33:15). In other words, the promised land was worthless without God. Ezekiel's final name is the answer to that kind of prayer.
God had already promised it through Ezekiel himself: My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(Ezekiel 37:27) A tabernacle is a tent, the kind of dwelling God used when He first lived among Israel in the desert.
When you feel far from home
Most of us learn sooner or later that a place is only as good as who is in it. A big house can feel empty. A small apartment, a hospital room or a dorm can feel like home when the right person is there. Jehovah Shammah says the best thing about any place is God's presence in it.
You may feel like you are living in your own Babylon right now. Maybe you moved to a new school, your family is splitting up, or the things that used to make faith feel easy are gone. Ezekiel's story says God met him in exile first, by a foreign river. He did not wait for Ezekiel to get back home.
There is a challenge in this name too. Moses wanted God more than the land, and Ezekiel cared more about the glory than the building. It is easy to want what God gives, like answers, success or comfort, without wanting God Himself. This name invites you to treasure His company most of all.
Feelings come and go, so you will not always sense God near. The promise in this name does not depend on your mood. It depends on God, who said He would be there.
- Read Ezekiel 10:18 to 19 and then Ezekiel 43:1 to 5, and compare how the glory leaves and comes back.
- Think about the place you spend most of your time. Ask God to make it a place where He is welcome.
- Text or visit someone who is lonely this week. Being present for them is a small picture of what God promises.
Jehovah Shammah is name 26 of the 70 in the book. The next name shows the God who commands heaven's armies: the LORD of Hosts. Or step back to Jehovah Tsidkenu and browse all the Jehovah names of God.
