Jehovah-shammah

Biblical Text

Jehovah-shammah occurs only once, in Ezekiel 48:35, the final verse of the book of Ezekiel. The King James Version renders the verse: "It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there." Ezekiel 40–48 presents an extended vision of a new temple and the division of the land, and this name stands at the close of that vision. The immediately preceding verses (Ezekiel 48:30-34) describe three gates on each side of the city, with the twelve gates bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Word and Background

The Hebrew shammah is an adverb meaning "there" or "in that place." Jehovah-shammah therefore means "the LORD is there." Other compound names containing "Jehovah," such as Jehovah-jireh, are names given to God or to an altar; this name is distinctive in that it is given to a city.

Ezekiel was a prophet who ministered during the Babylonian exile. Ezekiel 10–11 records a vision of the glory of the LORD departing from the defiled Jerusalem temple, and Ezekiel 43 records a vision of that glory returning to the new temple. To a people who had lost their temple and been carried into captivity, the name Jehovah-shammah conveys a promise that God would once again dwell among them.

Significance Across Scripture

The theme of God dwelling among his people runs throughout Scripture. At the time of the Exodus, the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-35), and in the New Testament Jesus is called Emmanuel, "God with us" (Matthew 1:22-23). The New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 likewise has twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes (Revelation 21:12-14). Revelation 21:3 declares that "the tabernacle of God is with men," and Revelation 21:22 states that there is no separate temple in the city, for God and the Lamb are its temple. Many interpreters read this passage as taking up Ezekiel's vision.

Interpretations and Debates

The meaning of the name depends on how Ezekiel 40–48 is read.

• Dispensationalism: Often reads the vision as a prophecy of a temple and city to be literally built during the millennium.
• Covenant theology and the Reformed tradition: Tend to read it as a symbolic depiction of God's presence, realized in Christ and the church and in the new heavens and new earth.
• Historical-critical scholars: See it as an expression of the hope for restoration held by the exilic community.

Devotional literature and preaching commonly present this name alongside Jehovah-jireh and Jehovah-nissi as one of the "compound names of God." In the text, however, it is not a title by which God is addressed but the name of a city. Grouping such names into lists of a set number is a later organizational convention, not an arrangement found in the biblical text itself.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, this name is frequently treated in sermon series or Bible studies that work through the "names of God" one by one. In that context, it is used to convey the promise of God's presence—that "God is there"—even in the midst of suffering and loss.