- Name 18 of 70The Living God
- HebrewEl Chai
- In plain wordsThe God who is alive and active
- Where to find itDeuteronomy 5:26 and Joshua 3:10
The living God is the name Israel gave to a God who talks back. It means He is truly alive, not a carved statue or an idea in a book. The phrase first appears in Deuteronomy 5:26, in words the people spoke after they heard God's voice at Mount Sinai, and it runs through the whole King James Bible, from Moses to David to Daniel to Peter.
A voice out of the fire at Sinai
Nearly forty years after the great day at Mount Sinai, Moses retold it to the next generation. He described a mountain on fire, a thick dark cloud, and a voice so loud that everyone heard it. God spoke the Ten Commandments to the whole crowd at once, then wrote them on two tablets of stone (Deuteronomy 5:22).
The leaders of the tribes came to Moses shaking. They had just learned something that turned their world upside down: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth
. Then they asked the question that gave us this name.
For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?
Deuteronomy 5:26
Think about where these people had come from. Egypt was full of temples and carved images of gods. People bowed to those images, but none of them ever said a word. Now the former slaves had met a God who spoke in a voice they could hear. They were so overwhelmed that they asked Moses to go near and listen for them (Deuteronomy 5:27).
Elohim chayyim: what the words say
In Deuteronomy 5:26 the Hebrew is Elohim chayyim. Elohim is the common word for God in the Hebrew Bible. Chayyim comes from chai, the word for alive. Strong's dictionary, a standard word list for the King James Bible, says it can also mean fresh or strong, and the King James sometimes translates it "running," as in the running water of Leviticus 14:5. Fresh water from a spring was pictured as living, the opposite of a still, stale pool.
That picture helps. A living God is not stuck or stale. He moves, He notices, and He does things. In Deuteronomy both Hebrew words have a plural ending, the same way Elohim does, but the meaning is one God who is fully alive.
A generation later, when Joshua led Israel to the Jordan River, he used a shorter form, El chai. He told the people how they would know God was alive among them.
And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
Joshua 3:10
The proof came that same week. The river was flooding over its banks, yet when the priests carrying the ark of the covenant stepped into the water, the flow stopped upstream and the whole nation crossed on dry ground (Joshua 3:15 to 17). A living God is known by what He does.
That idea runs under every use of this name. In the Bible, God does not prove He is alive with an argument. He shows it by speaking, by stepping in and by keeping His word. Joshua did not ask the people to feel something first. He told them to watch the river.
David, Goliath and a God who hears insults
The name shows up again in one of the best known stories in the Bible. The Philistine army had a champion named Goliath of Gath, a giant who came out each day and dared Israel to send a man to fight him. King Saul's soldiers were terrified. A young shepherd named David arrived with food for his brothers, heard the giant's taunts, and saw the problem differently.
And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?
1 Samuel 17:26
Reproach means shame or disgrace. To defy is to challenge someone openly. The soldiers were comparing Goliath to themselves, and they kept coming up short. David compared Goliath to God. In his mind, the giant was not just insulting an army. He was mocking Someone who was alive and listening. David repeated the name to King Saul, reminding him that God had already saved him from a lion and a bear (1 Samuel 17:36).
Alive, unlike the idols
Again and again the Bible uses this name when God's reality is being challenged. Centuries after David, the Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem, and its spokesman mocked the God of Israel. King Hezekiah prayed and asked God to hear the words sent to reproach the living God
(2 Kings 19:16).
The psalms draw the contrast with a touch of humor. Idols are made of silver and gold by human hands, and the psalm lists what they cannot do:
They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
Psalm 115:5
The prophet Jeremiah said the same thing about the God of Israel from the other side:
But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
Jeremiah 10:10
To abide something is to stand up under it. Indignation is strong anger at what is wrong. The point is simple: a statue can be knocked over, but the living God cannot be moved. Even a foreign king learned it. After Daniel came out of the lions' den unharmed, King Darius ordered his whole empire to honor Daniel's God, for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever
(Daniel 6:26). In the New Testament, Peter used the same words when Jesus asked who he was: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God
(Matthew 16:16).
Facing your own giant with the living God
It is possible to believe the right things about God and still treat Him like a picture on the wall: nice to have, but not someone you expect to answer. This name pushes against that. If God is alive, prayer is a real conversation, His Word is a real voice, and your problems are not only measured against your own strength.
Maybe your giant is a class you are failing, a habit you cannot break, a family fight or a fear that keeps you up at night. David did not pretend Goliath was small. He just refused to leave God out of the math. You can do the same.
- Write down the one thing that feels biggest in your life right now. Then write next to it, "the living God is bigger than this."
- Read 1 Samuel 17 from start to finish and notice how often David talks about God before he picks up a stone.
- When you pray, talk the way you would to someone in the room, because the Bible says He is listening.
The Living God is name 18 of the 70 in the book. The next name comes from a mountain where Abraham learned that this same God sees ahead and provides: Jehovah-jireh, the LORD will provide. You can explore more of the Hebrew titles on the Hebrew names of God page.
