As regards God's saying, "But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them," the meaning is as simple as possible. The words are-"And Elohim spake unto Moses" (in the previous verses it is "Jehovah," showing how unfounded is the supposition of their belonging to distinct documents), "and said unto him, I am Jehovah: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them." Now here we have Elohim, Jehovah, El-Shaddai, all spoken of the one supreme God as different names; and then the Lord declares, exactly according to Genesis, that to the patriarchs He had revealed Himself as El-Shaddai. (See Gen. 17; 35:11.) This was the name the power of which He was specially to make good in their favor, in protecting them in their wanderings, "what time they went from one nation to another people."
Now that He was calling His people, He reveals Himself to them by another name, as the ground of relationship and of the expectation of faith on their part, as the existing One "who was, and is, and is to come," though still the Almighty. He who now promised would live ever to perform, unchanged and unchangeable. Jehovah was God's proper and peculiar name with His redeemed people. He had never taken this name as the ground of His dealings with Abraham, nor laid it as the basis on which his faith was to act.
In the New Testament, God takes yet another-that of Father. Hence He says, "I will be a Father, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." That is, God (Elohim), who had the two former names, Jehovah or "Lord," and Shaddai, "Almighty," now took this special one of Father with the saints. From the first calling out of the world to be separate from it, God Almighty, Jehovah, Father, characterized successively the position which God assumed for faith. Nothing can be plainer. I believe He is now God Almighty; but it is not the name by which He is known to me: He is known to me by the name of Father. "To us there is one God, the Father." If this be all German discoveries are worth, they deserve to be designated by a name which I shall not, however, permit myself to give them. I am sure they are not distinguished by any intelligence of the bearing of the work they are exercising their wits upon, nor the force of the expressions contained in it.