Holy Father

Holy Father is a name of God that simply highlights His characteristic of holiness. Jesus (Yeshua‘) knew Him as His Father and so it was natural for Him to pray to God in this way. The name is a variation on the way that Jesus taught us to pray to “Our Father.”

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Holy Father in Greek:

Patēr hagios

Bible reference: John 17:11

I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17:11)

Similar names for God are the Holy One and Holy God. Jesus is called the Holy and righteous one and the Holy One of God.

Jehovah rohi – The LORD is my Shepherd

Jehovah Rohi – The LORD is my Shepherd

Strictly speaking, Jehovah rohi is the beginning phrase of Psalm 23, the LORD is my shepherd. It combines the personal name of God, Yahweh (or Jehovah), with the descriptive name of God, rohi or ro‘i, meaning, “my Shepherd.” Elsewhere God is simply called the Shepherd.

The root word ra‘ah means to feed and tend domestic animals by pasturing them. This name speaks of God caring for His people in practical ways as well as providing spiritual sustenance.

Jehovah rohi, like many of the Hebrew names for God, can be written in different ways. Yahweh ro‘i is another option. The differences have to do with the way the languages of the Bible are written in English and the choice we make about how to pronounce YHWH, the letters of the personal name of God.

LORD is my shepherd in Hebrew:

Jehovah Rohi or Yahweh ro‘i

Bible references: Gen. 48:15; Ps. 23:1; Zech. 13:7

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  

(Ps. 23:1-3 KJV)

David was not the first person to call God, “Shepherd.” Israel (Jacob) called God “my Shepherd” and “the shepherd, the stone of Israel” (Gen. 48:15; 49:24). Another psalmist called God “Shepherd of Israel” (Ps. 80:1). Ezekiel combined the roles of the shepherd, servant, and prince in his prophecy of the coming Messiah (Ezek. 34:23-24; 37:24-25).

Matthew reminded his readers of the prophecy in Micah in which God said to Bethlehem, “out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Matt. 2:6 from Mic. 5:2). Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of the line of David. He was the last great shepherd-ruler.

God, through Zechariah the prophet, foretold of the time when Jesus’ disciples would scatter because of Jesus’ arrest. It was the beginning of the punishments that Jesus would bear in our place.

“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,
And against* the man, My Associate,”
Declares the Lord of hosts.
“Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered;

And I will turn my hand against the little ones.” (Zech. 13:7)

The New Testament gives a few shepherd names to Jesus: Good Shepherd, Great Shepherd of the sheep, Shepherd, and guardian of our souls, and Chief Shepherd.

Our Redeemer

For you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us,
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our Father,
your Redeemer from of old is your name.
Isaiah 63:16

These words express a deep longing of the human heart. With all its folly, and frivolity, and sin, the heart of man has been made to feel after these words: "Our Father—our Father which art in heaven." When we look at the length and breadth of man's history, it tells us that this cry constantly returns, sometimes exceeding great and bitter, sometimes sinking to a low moan or a suppressed whisper. "O that I knew where I might find Him."

II. And yet it is often difficult to speak these words with full assurance. The struggle to reach them is evident in the men who use them here and is felt in the very word "doubtless" with which they begin their claim. The mind, the heart, the conscience, all find difficulties.

III. But, with all these difficulties, it is a feeling which can be and has been, reached. We could never believe that such a deep longing had been implanted in man, to be forever unanswered—a cry pressed from his heart to be mocked with endless disappointment. In view of all the difficulties of mind, and heart, and conscience, there have been men who could look up and say, "Doubtless Thou art our Father."

IV. But this full sense of God's Fatherhood is not generally gained at once. There are three chambers by which we advance to the assurance of Fatherhood in God. The first is the upper chamber of Jerusalem, which comes to us ever and again in the Lord's table, with its offer of pardon and peace. The second is the chamber of the heart, to which we give him admission in love and obedience. The third is the home, where the Holy Spirit teaches us to cry, "Abba, Father."

The Lord is the everlasting God,The Creator of the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 40:28

Of the ends of the earth; of all the earth, and the inhabitants thereof, from one end to another. He seems to mention the ends or utmost bounds, because they might seem to be more out of the reach and care of God’s providence, as being most remote from Jerusalem, the only place of God’s solemn and public worship in the world, and is then thought to be uninhabited. The argument is clear and strong: God, who made all, even the most desolate and barbarous parts of the earth, and consequently takes care of them, will not neglect his own land and people.

Fainteth not, neither is weary; he is not by age or hard labour become weak and unable to help his people, as men are apt to be.

There is no searching of his understanding; his counsels, by which he governeth all the world, and in a most particular manner thine affairs, are far above the reach of thy understanding; and therefore thou dost ignorantly and foolishly in passing so rash a censure upon the ways and works of the infinitely wise God.

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