What does it mean that God is Jehovah-Jireh?

Name, signifying 'Jehovah will see, or provide,' given by Abraham to the place where he had been told to offer up his son Isaac in memory of God having provided a substitute. Gen. 22:14. "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen" is added, which has led some to connect it with Mount Moriah in Jerusalem; but scripture does not reveal what mountain it was.

So it is found that "in the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided" (Gen. 22:14; see R.V.); and so the place is named JEHOVAH-JIREH. The name Jehovah was taken by God as showing the relationship which He would maintain by faith: it means I AM, and whatever is needed can be, by faith, added to that "I am — ." It is like a signed cheque which is left for the possessor to fill in the amount as he requires. Thus we find the word Jehovah linked with qualifying terms several times, and on each occasion the qualifying term grows out of the character of the circumstances and suits it. In the passage before us, there is a position of extreme need, — Where is … ? and therefore we find JEHOVAH-JIREH, I am thy provider. In Ex. 17, the people of Israel, unorganised and undisciplined, was attacked by a powerless and ruthless foe; and they required a rallying point, a banner, JEHOVAH-NISSI. Again, in the beginning of the book of Judges, the position is one of continual turbulence: in the sixth chapter "the mighty man of valour" was threshing "a handful of wheat by the winepress "to hide it from the Midianites." When he sees the departing angel, he cries in an agony of fear, "Alas, O Lord God!" But the Lord said, "Peace … fear not:" so the name of the altar is JEHOVAH-SHALOM =I am thy peace. Then in Jeremiah 23 the sin complained of is so great that the very pastors are seen to be wholly corrupt — "Woe be unto the pastors!" there is no hope when the rulers have thus become vile, until a heavenly light shines forth from the well-known and well-loved words JEHOVAH TSIDKENU. [ That is, It is from the verb br. los. to be; it means self-existence.]

Appropriately, Abraham named that place “Jehovah Jireh,” meaning “the Lord will provide.” Added to this we are told it is “the mount of the Lord.” Later Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb are called “the mount of God” and “the mount of the Lord,” for the expression speaks of the height from which God deals with mankind. But this mountain, speaking of the grace of God in the gift of His Son, is the first mentioned, for it is nearest to God's heart. The law must take a lower place.

Abraham also experienced this when the Lord provided for his needs and directed his eyes toward a substitute for his son (Gen. 22:13). In remembrance of this he called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide” (v. 14a), which is just one word in Hebrew, “Jehovah-jireh”. Abraham used a compound name of the Lord which indicates that it is one of His glorious attributes to act in this way and to provide Himself the lamb for a burnt offering. This wonderful name of God is the first one of a series of compound names that are revealed in the Old Testament:

Abraham himself grasped the typical meaning of this harrowing scene. There had been altars before, there had been bleeding sacrifices consumed on those altars. But this solitary case was that of a human victim, and it gathered up the thought that the fulfilment of this typical scene would be seen in a Sacrifice offered up that would fulfil all the shadows, would satisfy all the types. So Abraham lifted up his eyes, and “called the name of the place JEHOVAH-JIREH: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” JEHOVAH-JIREH, the Lord will provide, that is its meaning.

The centuries roll on, and we see a wondrous sight. Within view of brave Abraham’s faith we see three crosses on the mount called Calvary. On the two outer crosses hang two miscreants, men condemned to die justly by their fellow-sinners. On the centre cross there hangs a Man. Who is He? Isaac was Abraham’s “only son;” “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” There was the answer to JEHOVAH-JIREH. But what the type could not fully indicate, we have One who was the eternal Son, “God manifest in the flesh”, the eternal Word that “was made flesh”—God and Man, one blessed Person, thus bearing all the wrath of God against sin. Nothing answering to the ram caught in the thicket by its horns was available to save Him from the judgment of death, so that righteousness being vindicated, divine love could flow to guilty man.

Then with keen prophetic gaze he looked beyond the coming centuries and called the name of the place “JEHOVAH-JIREH” (the Lord will provide 4). Faith mounted up with eagle’s wing, and cried aloud in exultation, “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” On the sad journey he had replied to Isaac, “God will provide Himself a lamb”—in other words, the Lord will provide.

After the Lord intervened to provide a substitute for Isaac in the ram caught in the thicket, Abraham called the place Jehovah-jireh, meaning, the Lord will provide. Abraham had said to Isaac, "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering", and his faith had been answered. It was then that the Lord renewed the promise to Abraham, confirming it with an oath. How much is brought before us of the wondrous grace of God, and of the faith of His servant in Jehovah-jireh.

“And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me.” What joy filled both father and son at these words. How happy they both must have been that God’s commands had been obeyed; and yet Isaac’s life was spared. “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and beheld behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh”—this word means “The Lord will see, or provide.”

There upon the altar was the victim bound. There, too, near by was the substitute, the ram caught in the thicket, provided to be the substitute for the human life. It came about that the ram took the place of Isaac, but in God's estimation Abraham had fully performed the act of worship in the presence of His name; there at the altar he learned the name of Jehovah — in the mount of the Lord it was seen. Jehovah was the great Provider, the One Who was everything to Abraham, and this significance was expressed in his act of surrender, the act of worship.

Abraham recognized the wonderful way in which God had provided the lamb for a burnt offering, and signalized it by naming the place Jehovah-jireh, meaning, "The Lord will provide." And out of that sprang a saying which was still current when some four centuries later Moses wrote these things: "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," or "shall be provided." That was the language of faith, for another four centuries, or so, after Moses, there stood on Moriah the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and years after that Solomon's temple was built there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices. That to which all these sacrifices pointed took place "without the gate," for the Lord Jesus was the rejected One.