God’s Name as Form of the Verb “To Be”

Because basic present-tense sentences in spoken Hebrew generally do not use it, it is sometimes said that Hebrew does not use the verb “to be.”

The thing is, there ARE “to be” verb forms in every tense, but they carry much higher metaphysical freight than they do in modern languages we’re used to. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the name of God is one of them.

הָיָה = was
הוֶה = is
יִהְיֶה = will be
יהוה = [God’s name]