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  • “Hallowed Be Your Name”—What Name?
    The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever
    • Jehovah God evidently put in man a desire to name things. The first human had a name, Adam. In the story of creation, one of the first things Adam is reported as doing is naming the animals. When God gave Adam a wife, immediately Adam called her “Woman” (’Ish·shahʹ, in Hebrew). Later, he gave her the name Eve, meaning “Living One,” because “she had to become the mother of everyone living.” (Genesis 2:19, 23; 3:20) Even today we follow the custom of giving names to people. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how we could manage without names.

  • “Hallowed Be Your Name”—What Name?
    The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever
    • The fact that God views names as important is seen in that, through an angel, he instructed the future parents of John the Baptist and Jesus as to what their sons’ names should be. (Luke 1:13, 31) And at times he changed names, or he gave people additional names, to show the place they were to have in his purpose. For example, when God foretold that his servant Abram (“Father of Exaltation”) would become father to many nations He changed his name to Abraham (“Father of a Multitude”). And he changed the name of Abraham’s wife, Sarai (“Contentious”), to Sarah (“Princess”), since she would be the mother of Abraham’s seed.​—Genesis 17:5, 15, 16; compare Genesis 32:28; 2 Samuel 12:24, 25.

  • “Hallowed Be Your Name”—What Name?
    The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever
    • Yes, names are important in God’s eyes, and he put in man the desire to identify people and things by means of names. Thus angels, people, animals, as well as stars and other inanimate things, have names. Would it be consistent for the Creator of all these things to leave himself nameless? Of course not, especially in view of the psalmist’s words: “Let all flesh bless [God’s] holy name to time indefinite, even forever.”​—Psalm 145:21.

      The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 649) says: “One of the most fundamental and essential features of the biblical revelation is the fact that God is not without a name: he has a personal name, by which he can, and is to be, invoked.” Jesus certainly had that name in mind when he taught his followers to pray: “Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.”​—Matthew 6:9.

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