"[David] apppointed certain Levites to serve before the Ark of Yahweh, to repeat the Name, to confess and to praise Yahweh the Elohim (God) of Israel" (1 Chr.16:4, NEB).

The highest calling of man is to worship the Creator and to make sure that he worships the correct one amongst the many false claimants to that honour, He in multiple places calls us to worship call upon Him by His proper Name. In today's text, David specifically orders the Levites serving before the Ark "to repeat the Name".

"The Name" in Hebrew is haShem but David is not telling the Levites to say aloud, "haShem". True, one of the great patriarchs and the prominant son of Noah was called Shem (from which we get the modern word 'Semite'), and indeed his name literally means 'Name'. So had he been an Englishman, American, Australian, New Zealander, South African, or anyone else whose first tongue is English, and had he been alive today, Noah would have called his son 'Name', and we would have called Noah 'Rest'. "Your Dad, Rest, is calling for you, Name!" we might possibly have shouted out to him.

Now although you will hear Jews and some Messianics naming the Creator 'haShem', this was not, is not, and never will be, His Name. Most believers call Him 'God' (or 'G-d' if you are a superstitious Jew) which translates 'Elohim' or 'El' but that is a title (meaning 'Mighty Ones' or 'Mighty One') and not a name. Or they call Him 'the LORD' (or 'Adonai' if you are Jewish, a loan word from Greek that was originally used of the Greek pagan deity Adonis). Today we use 'God' and 'LORD' as titles though anciently they were actual proper names, but not of the Elohim of Israel - they were pagan deities. 'God' was pronounced Gad, which was one of the many names of Jupiter, Zeus, Baal or Satan, the Indo-Germanic Ghodh which means 'sexual union'). 'LORD' is a loan word and was originally a name too, this time of a Roman house-deity coopted from the ancient pagan Eruscans. So whilst 'God' and 'LORD' are now titles in the English language and were anciently the names of demons, they never were - and are not - the true Name of the Creator.

In the same passage quoted from 1 Chronicles (vv.8-20), Psalm 105:1-15 is quoted:

"Give Yahweh thanks and invoke Him by Name. Pay Him honour with song and psalm and think upon all His wonders. Exult in His hallowed Name" (1 Chr.16:8-10, NEB).

"Our Father in heaven, Thy Name be hallowed..." (Matt.6:9, NEB).

To "hallow" means to 'set-apart, make qodesh or holy'. We are to repeat the Name in worship and praise, as David commanded (though not as a New Age- or kabbalistic-type mantra), and to invoke that Name in prayer. Since His Name is neither 'God', 'Lord', 'Master', 'Adonai', 'haShem', Baal or any other title or pagan deity, what then are we commanded to address Him by, repeat, and invoke, to show forth proper worship? It is the Name represented in Scripture but the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, which is pronounced YAHWEH. And there is no other Name in Heaven or on earth by which we are to worship Him.

Don't you think, if you're not already doing so, it's about time you started getting obedient and stopped making excuses?