The Third Commandment
In His own voice, our Creator gave us The Ten Commandments. Since our Creator designed us, He knows what is best for us and He gave us these simple yet highly complex laws for our personal benefit. God’s relationship with mankind is individual – each of us is unique and each of us must be responsible for following God’s plan for our lives. Yet, each one of us has “free will”: we can follow God’s ways to find contentment and fulfillment in life or we can throw it all away. It’s up to you.
The Ten Commandments are recorded in the Book of Exodus, chapter 20, verses 2 – 17 and Deuteronomy 5:1–22.
Here is the 3rd Commandment:
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Exodus 20:7 (KJV 1900)
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7 (NIV84)
This Commandment is often misunderstood — perhaps misapplied is a better term.
This is NOT a Commandment prohibiting “foul language”, “obscene language”, “vulgar language” or – as we say in Georgia or Tennessee – “cussing” (cursing) except when God’s name is used in pronouncing the curse.
It is specifically targeted to your relationship with God.
If you are humble before God, realizing His majesty and your own sinful nature, you would never refer to God or anything directly related to God without meaning or purpose and that would, of course, include using His name (or any of His names) without meaning or purpose.
On the other hand, if you have little or no faith in God’s existence or if you have no concern about your relationship with God, then you may use His name as an “expletive” (expletives are the words or phrases that we use in our conversation that have no real meaning or purpose — they just “pop out”).
Some expletives that violate the 3rd Commandment in common usage today included “Jesus Christ” (perhaps the most common), as in when we are surprised by something we see, or something that happens unexpectedly.
An expletive truly has no meaning in the conversation as when we say, “Good God!” Even more vulgar or profane expressions are used in casual conversation.
The Hebrew word shav (pronounced “shawv”) translated as “vain” means “emptiness” or “emptiness of speech” or “worthlessness”.
Few people use the transliteration of God’s name (which is composed of the four Hebrew symbols יהוה for the letters YHWH and pronounced “Yahweh” or Jehovah (Hebrew does not contain the letter “J”) so that name is not often used in violation of the 3rd Commandment. That Hebrew word appears 6,519 times in the Hebrew scriptures.
If we believe that Jesus was the Son of God, we should be cautious in how we use His name as well. Of course, in Jesus’ time, His name would have been pronounced as Yashua or Yeshua which would normally be transliterated as Joshua as in Hebrews chapter four seen in the KJV and NIV as either Joshua or Jesus
8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. Hebrews 4:8 (KJV 1900)
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. Hebrews 4:8 (NIV84)
No matter how you pronounce God’s name – any of His names – or the name of Jesus (or Yashua or however you pronounce it), we should not use it without meaning are purpose.
In today’s culture, this is quite difficult since these expressions are part of every-day parlance but we should work on the flaws in our language in this regard if we want to obey the 3rd Commandment.
The expression “will not hold guiltless” means that there is a punishment for using God’s name in vain – without meaning or purpose.
God did not specify how He would punish nor how severely He would punish, but I don’t want to find out!
Once I became aware of the meaning of this Commandment, I have cleaned up my language and seldom violate it. And, if I do, and realize that I have violated God’s law, I always ask Him for forgiveness and – depending on the circumstances – I may apologize to whomever was present when I used God’s name without meaning or purpose.
I highly recommend this change in your language if you use God’s name “in vain”.
