Wikipedia: I Am that I Am From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am#mw-navigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am#p-search For other uses, see I Am What I Am (disambiguation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_What_I_Am_(disambiguation) and I Am (disambiguation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_(disambiguation). "Hayah" redirects here. For the village in Iran, see Hayyeh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayyeh. I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ʾehyeh ʾašer ʾehyeh [ʔehˈje ʔaˈʃer ʔehˈje] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Hebrew) is a common English translation (JPS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Publication_Society_of_America_Version among others) of the response God http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God used in the Hebrew Bible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible when Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses asked for his name (Exodus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus 3:14). It is one of the most famous verses in the Torah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah. Hayah means "existed" or "was" in Hebrew; "ehyeh" is the first person singular imperfect form and is usually translated in English Bibles as "I will be" (or "I shall be"), for example, at Exodus 3:12.Ehyeh asher ehyeh literally translates as "I Will Be What I Will Be", with attendant theological and mystical implications in Jewish tradition. However, in most English Bibles, this phrase is rendered as I am that I am." Verb tenses in Hebrew Hebrew denote action, not time: the perfect tense denotes completed action, and the imperfect denotes incomplete action. Thus, the imperfect tense can be translated as present or future and this can cause problems in translation. The difficulty is that for the Hebrew mind, even something completed can be in the future: "For example I can say 'my father taught me about life' which is written in the past tense. While my father taught me many years ago, we see this as past tense and in the Hebrew mind it is a completed action. But, in the Hebrew mind this completed action exists in the past, present and future. I still learn from my father today by remembering all that he taught me and I will continue to learn from him even after he is dead."[incorrect template use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ce]
