The Ten Commandments

The 3rd Commandment

“You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

Exodus 20:7, Deuteronomy 5:11, NLT

This 3^rd Commandment has puzzled me the most of them all. Not so much that it is puzzling in and of itself, but how it has been interpreted in America my whole life.  I’m not entirely sure that we have been looking at this command the right way. 

Let us again look at the original Hebrew and see what it says. 

For me, the two main words are translated as “Name” and “in vain” (some versions say “misuse”). 

Name: שֵֽׁם־ transliterated as šêm. 

When the Bible talks about “name”, it can often speak to the image, personality, power, office, reputation, actions, and other attributes of the one referred to by the name. A person’s title could certainly be meant as well when talking about their name. 

What is God’s name? His official name, given to Moses when he asked God for His name, is Yahweh. In fact, it’s what is shown above in the biblical text quoted. 

Personally, I’ve never used God’s actual name, Yahweh, in the wrong way (as if it were an exclamation of surprise, for example). But I have used the word “god” in such ways (not saying that it’s okay; just that I’ve done it). Is this the misuse that is cited above? Maybe. Maybe not. Like many things in the Bible, this one is a little confusing. So we should look into the word used for “misuse” and see what it really means. 

Misuse: לַשָּׁ֑וְא transliterated as laš·šāw. 

Strong’s Concordance (a tool everyone should learn how to use) discusses this word as it is used in the Bible. According to Strong’s, it’s pronounced as “shav”. They define it as emptiness, or vanity. In the NASB version, they say that it is used in the following ways, the number of times indicated by each word:

deceit (2), deceitful (1), deception (1), emptiness (2), empty (1), false (9), false visions (4), falsehood (7), lies (1), vain (18), vanity (3), worthless (4).

This is why we use such tools as a Concordance. It opens our minds a bit to see a little deeper into how words are used. So this exercise gives us a little more understanding of the word and how it might impact our knowledge of the text in question. Of the 53 uses of this word, 22 are used to mean vain or vanity, 21 are used as deceit, falsehood, or lies, and it’s used 6 times as empty or worthless. But this is only from the one version (NASB) and there are other versions that use still more words, like “misuse” in the NLT. 

So, in considering how this word is used elsewhere, we could come to the conclusion that this command is telling us to be very careful how we use the “name” (character, reputation, image, personality, power, actions, and other attributes) of God. Some of the ways we could “misuse” His “name” are:

• Attributing sayings or actions to Him that He did not say or do (I get this one all the time in Christian circles)
• Maligning His character or reputation
• Misrepresenting His image, or personality
• Mischaracterizing His power, actions, abilities, or other attributes

Some examples of this could be:

• “God told me ______________”, when He never did.
• “God can’t do that”, when in fact He could.
• “God did this”, when in fact He did not.
• “God doesn’t love me.” 
• “God doesn’t pay any attention to us.”
• “There’s no God”, or “God is dead”. 
• “God’s a fake notion of some kind of Santa Claus in the sky”. 
• “God will damn you for that one”. When He actually may not.

So you can see that this goes much further than the simplistic idea that we shouldn’t say, “God dammit!” or “Oh my god”. 

One day I saw a funny bumper sticker in California that read something like, 

“Be nice to Christians, or their Gosh will Darn you to Heck!” 

Author unknown

For me, the message was loud and clear: Be careful how you speak to others who are not of the same faith as you – do not try to force your own values onto others who do not share them. As believers, we need to quit trying to force others to show the same respect as us for our Creator. To do so may only cause even more of a rift between our faith and theirs. (Especially when we are just as guilty as anyone else – for pretty much anything.)

As another humorous side note, my grandfather used to say, “cheated craps”. I think it was his way of avoiding “Jesus Christ” as an explicative. More commonly, people often say “geeze” instead of “Jesus”. There are actually many substitute words that people use to avoid using profanity (or misusing the “name” of God). Sometimes, I like to tease people who say “Jesus Christ” as if it were profanity. When they say it like that, I might say something like, “name above all names”, or, “amen”, or, “I know Him” (my most common). Yeah, I get weird looks when I do that, but I don’t care (I haven’t been hit yet).

Luckily for me, Jesus has already paid the punishment for my misusing God’s name. But it would go better for me (and others) if I would choose my words a bit more carefully. 

When we consider the ramifications of misusing God’s name, we can come up with a few different scenarios:

• Other believers will likely get offended (sometimes very seriously) and stumble into anger or hatred when it could have been avoided by not triggering them.
• Other believers might think that it’s okay to speak that way (when it isn’t).
• You might lose a good friend who is a believer over it.
• God might really mean it when He says we will “not go unpunished” for doing it. How this plays out in real life is anyone’s guess. It’s probably a good idea to not push it. If the only result is not having as close of a relationship with Him as we would otherwise, that’s a big deal. 
• Nonbelievers who hear us might consider us as hypocritical, thereby hurting our chances of winning them to Christ.

If you have a close friend who is not a follower of Christ and would rather not hear that person continually use the name of the Lord in vain, you might try gently explaining to them how it hurts to hear it. For others whom you do not have a close relationship with, it’s best to leave it be. We are not called to “fix” fallen humanity – only to lead them to the cross – and a constant correction of them not adhering to your beliefs is not going to help anyone. If you know a believer who habitually does this, remember Proverbs 27:17 and gently lead them back to the better way of speaking. 

We all need to remember that not one of us is perfect and it does no good to come down too hard on anyone for such a thing as this. Let it ultimately be between the other believer and their Master. Continue to model the better way to live. And a little love and forgiveness goes a long way.

Be in control. Be at peace with everyone. Model Christ.

In Him,

Gary

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