hmm, never noticed that before

[cellio]

The torah uses different names for God in different places, with the most common being Elo[k]im and the tetragramaton (yud - hey - vav - hey). When I've been paying attention they've been distinct -- the first creation story is the E-name, the revelation at Sinai is the Y-name, and so on.

In preparing this week's portion (specifically the binding of Yitzchak) I've noticed something odd. The God who commands Avraham to sacrifice his son is the E-name, and Avraham uses that name when he tells Yitzchak that God will provide the sacrificial animal (there's some nice ambiguity here, but that's a tangent). Then, when the angel intervenes, it's suddenly an angel of the Y-name, and Avraham names the place "awe of Y-name".

Is the mingling of these two names in a single passage common and I haven't been paying enough attention? Is it uncommon but random/not meaningful? Uncommon but meaningful in some way?

Comments

[goljerp]

Yeah. There are some cases where (again, according to documentary hypothesis) things are more separate: Deuteronomy, for example, is almost entirely D. Leviticus is almost entirely P. But in Genesis, there's more mixing. Another recent example is the Noah narrative. You get two versions smushed together -- in one, there were exactly 2 of each type of animal. In another, there were multiple "clean" animals (which Noah used for sacrifices).