As with many common verbs, the meaning of “to say” in the Bible is highly dependent on context. Who is speaking? Who is hearing? What is it about? Is it a command, a message, an apology, instruction? All these things enter into the meaning of “say.” In general, though, “saying” has to do with sharing truth at various levels -- from the most exalted power people can have to perceive the Lord's desires directly to the most basic of orders issued to people at their lowest.

18. THE DIVINE BEING, WHICH IS JEHOVAH

The Divine Being (Esse) will be discussed first, then the Divine Essence. It looks as if these two are one and the same, but in fact Being (Esse) is more universal than Essence, since Essence presupposes Being, and comes into existence from Being. The Being of God, or the Divine Being, is indescribable, since it transcends all ideas of human thought. This cannot grasp anything except what is created and finite. What is uncreated and infinite, such as the Divine Being, is incomprehensible. The Divine Being is Being Itself, the source of all things and which must be in all things for them to exist. Some further conception of the Divine Being can be gained from the following propositions: viz.

(i) The one God is named Jehovah from His Being, that is, from the fact that He alone is, was and will be, and because He is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, Alpha and Omega.

(ii) The one God is substance itself and form itself, and angels and men are substances and forms derived from Him; to the extent that they are in Him and He in them, so far are they images and likenesses of Him.

(iii) The Divine Being is Being in itself, and at the same time Coming-into-Being in itself.

(iv) The Divine Being and Coming-into-Being in itself cannot give rise to another Divine which is Being and Coming-into Being in itself. Consequently another God of the same essence is impossible.

(v) The plurality of gods in ancient times, as well as to-day, was entirely the result of a failure to understand the Divine Being.

These propositions must be elucidated one by one.