Study of Adonai

Now, I really understand what it means when “WE” say that “our finite minds cannot obtain an infinite God”. For the last three (3) weeks, I’ve been studying a name of God, “ADONAI”. This descriptive name of God has given me so much trouble in studying it that I’ve decided to abandoned it until a later time. When? Who knows but not right now!

My approach to studying the names of God is to study by it’s 1st mention of Scripture. This particular name is mentioned for the first time in Genesis 15:2; But Abram said, "Lord GOD (translation ADONAI), what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house [is] Eliezer of Damascus?". I’m not understanding how God reveals Himself has “Adonai” in the text.

I’ve researched in every resource possible to find a clear meaning of the name and its relation to Genesis 15. I did a Google search and not much came up that was understandable in my opinion. Here’s what I mean.

www.net.bible.com
ADONAI - a-do'-ni, ad-o-na'-i ('adhonay): A Divine name, translated "Lord," and signifying, from its derivation, "sovereignty." Its vowels are found in the Massoretic Text with the unpronounceable tetragrammaton YHWH; and when the Hebrew reader came to these letters, he always substituted in pronunciation the word " 'adhonay." Its vowels combined with the tetragrammaton form the word "Yahweh (Yahweh)."

Uh!!!!!!

www.blueletterbible.com
Use in the Bible: In the Old Testament Adonai occurs 434 times. There are heavy uses of Adonai in Isaiah (e.g., Adonai Jehovah). It occurs 200 times in Ezekiel alone and appears 11 times in Daniel Chapter 9. Adonai is first used in Gen 15:2.

Variant spellings: None

TWOT Reference: 27b

Strong's Reference: 0136

Adonai in the Septuagint: kurios — Lord, Master

Meaning and Derivation: Adonai is the verbal parallel to Yahweh and Jehovah. Adonai is plural; the singular is adon. In reference to God the plural Adonai is used. When the singular adon is used, it usually refers to a human lord. Adon is used 215 times to refer to men. Occasionally in Scripture and predominantly in the Psalms, the singular adon is used to refer to God as well (cf. Exd 34:23). To avoid contravening the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain" (Exd 20:7), sometimes Adonai was used as a substitute for Yahweh (YHWH). Adonai can be translated literally as, "my lords' " (both plural and possessive).

What???!!!!!

It appears that this particular name of God is based on statistics of usage and grammar structure. Am I missing something here?

Nevertheless, I’m struggling with the meaning and revelation of God to Abraham as Adonai in Genesis 15.

So, I thought I would write to see if I could make sense of my research thus far. These are scattered thoughts and nothing is definite as of yet.

OT meaning of Adonia: I’ve read just about every cross reference I could in my study. There are a couple of words that came out in my reading of Adonai: reverence. The OT use of Adonai was used in place of YHWH (YAHWEH) because the people held God’s name in high esteem. They lived in practice of Exodus 20:7 – “"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

I also see that Adonai means authority or sovereignty. This is seen throughout the Psalms.

Psa 2:4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Psa 8:9 O Lord , our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psa 16:2 I say to the Lord , "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you."
Psa 22:30 Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
Psa 35:17 How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their destruction, my precious life from the lions!
Psa 35:22 You have seen, O Lord ; be not silent! O Lord, be not far from me!
Psa 35:23 Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord!
Psa 54:4 Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.

There are many other OT passages that explain “Adonai” - God’s sovereign authority over our lives.

Did I just discover the meaning of Adonai? I’m not sure I’ll keep writing.

Adonai in the Septuagint means kurios — Lord, Master. Kurios means he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord. The possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner who has control of the person, the master. It is title of honour expressive with which servants greet their master.

The OT usage of Adonai is in dual and can refer to God when used with capital letter “L” or can be used for a human being when used with lower case “l”. This seems so technical trying to explain this name. Geeeeesh! But, I guess I have to dig through the technical in order to understand the meaning of Adonai. I hope those reading can follow my messy study.

In the NT Adonai (kurios) is used strictly referring to Jesus (God, the Messiah). It appears that the NT strips the dual reference of Adonai from referring to God and man to just referring to God, alone. Jesus makes it plain to His disciples in Matthew 10:24; “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.” Jesus also says in Matthew 23:8b – “…you have only one Master and you are all brothers.”

In the NT, I see two words of importance; master and servant. God might be many things to us, but He is always our master, and we are always His servants. Adonai reminds us of our place in God’s order.

When we put all this together, the question still remains what does Adonai mean? What is the relation of Adonai and Abraham in Genesis 15? Should I take another route to studying this name? Why is this one so hard to comprehend? Is it fear of discovering a great truth that’s causing me to abandoned this great name? Or is God so big that I’m not ready to receive Him to Him in this manner of Adonai? I don’t know. I have a bunch of question and it frustrates me to study a text for three weeks and still don’t have anything. I pray I become a better expositor on the other side of this study.

Everything within me says live it alone but I think that’s a cop-out move.

If I’ve gained anything from studying the names of God so far I think it’s this for certain, WE SERVE A BIG GOD AND HE DESERVES ALL REVERENCE!!!!!!!!!

Decisions, decisions, decisions, Sunday is here what is a preacha to do?