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Weekly Devotional
Exodus 20:7
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Numbers 6:27
So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.
Psalm 24:3-4
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
When considering the third commandment, we naturally think of it as a prohibition regarding our language. But a close reading of Ex. 20:7 will yield that the third commandment involves more than just speech. God didn't say, "You shall not speak the name of the Lord your God in vain." No, God said, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." What does it mean to not "take" the Lord's name in vain? In the Hebrew, this word can mean "lift" or "bear" or "carry." Thus, this commandment is not merely about incorrect speech, but more broadly, it is about incorrect bearing God's name.
How, then, do we correctly "bear" God's name? Well for starters, as Num. 6:27 states, God's name is placed on us. Therefore, bearing God's name for God's people is passive work because we take/bear his name wherever we go. And in the broadest sense, whenever we sin (whatever sin that may be), we break the third commandment because we bring dishonor to his name.
But in a narrow sense, note the parallel between Psalm 24:4 and the third commandment. In the second line, the Hebrew word for "lift up" is the same word for "take" in the third commandment and the Hebrew word for "what is false" is the same for "in vain." On the contrary, notice that Psalm 24 replaces "the name of the Lord" with "his soul." At this, John Frame deduces, "To lift one's soul to vanity is the equivalent of lifting God's name to vanity, indicating a close connection between the soul and the name of God. God is so identified with believers that to defile our own lives ("soul") is to defile his name."