The third commandment seems simple enough:

לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת־שֵׁם־ה׳ אֱלֹקיךָ לַשָּׁוְא, כִּי לֹא יְנַקֶּה ה׳ אֵת אֲשֶׁר־יִשָּׂא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ לַשָּׁוְא׃ 

Translated literally it means, “Do not take up the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not clear one who takes God’s name in vain.”

Sounds simple, but if we look more closely, every phrase invites interpretation. Take that first verb, tissa–literally it means to take up, lift or carry, but it is associated with a broad range of activities in the Torah, from lifting and looking to counting and favoring, to remembering and, in the sad case of Pharaoh’s baker, to execution. But what does tissa mean here? How do you lift or carry a name?

Despite this verb’s ambiguity, there is a long tradition of reading it specifically as a prohibition on speaking, for example by making a false oath in God’s name. Here is the JPS translation (2023) of Exodus 20:7, and its twin, Deuteronomy 5:12:

You shall not swear falsely by the name of the ETERNAL your God; for GOD will not clear one who swears falsely by that name.

This rendering is a mess for multiple reasons, most notably because it seems to be translating a different verse altogether, Leviticus 19:12. That verse reads, וְלֹא־תִשָּׁבְעוּ בִשְׁמִי לַשָּׁקֶר, do not swear falsely by My name. That verse in Leviticus mentions an oath, and that verse mentions falsehood. But our verse in Exodus, the third commandment, says neither. It bans carrying God’s name in vain. It doesn’t mention an oath, and it doesn’t say falsely. Did JPS just translate the wrong verse? 

In defense of JPS there’s a long history of reading these verses from different parts of the Torah as if they were the same. Going all the way back to Midrash Sifra (2:6), nearly two millennia ago, the third commandment has been read intertextually with Leviticus 19:12, with each text filling in the gaps left by the other. If the third commandment is a bit ambiguous, then this intertextual reading makes it clear–to carry God’s name means to speak it, and not just with any casual speech, but with an oath. 

What about that last phrase, “in vain,” לשוא? Once again JPS translates not the word in this verse in Exodus but rather the one in Leviticus, לַשָּׁקֶר “falsely” and once again, it leans on an ancient rabbinic reading. This time, JPS draws on a different rabbinic source, Talmud Tractate Shevuot (22a). Reading these varied verses together, the rabbis come to understand that a vain oath is either one that is false, or even one that is true, but pointless. For example, if I swore that this podium is made of solid gold, that would be an obvious falsehood and an offense to the divine name. But if I instead swore in God’s name that this podium is made of wood, that obviously true statement would also be pointless and in a different way would also devalue the divine name.

The JPS translation of the third commandment is thus inaccurate, but as an interpretation it respects rabbinic tradition, and I don’t disagree with the resulting message. We are commanded to take care with our speech, especially when we invoke God’s name. This lesson feels especially relevant in a historical moment when truth is constantly undermined by statements made by powerful public figures that are patently false, and also by statements that are unworthy–boastful claims that degrade the speaker and speech itself. 

Nevertheless, the third commandment does not actually refer to speech. It actually says. לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת־שֵׁם־ה׳ אֱלֹקיךָ לַשָּׁוְא, “don’t take up the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Shall we see what that verse, taken literally, might mean? Here are two possibilities: 

Umberto Cassuto was a rabbi and Bible scholar born in Italy where he was chief rabbi of Florence, and then a professor at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Under pressure from the fascists, he left Rome in 1939 and joined the faculty of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he taught until his death in 1951. In his Exodus commentary, Cassuto says that the third commandment applies not only to speaking falsely in God’s name, but also to any action that would associate divinity with a “valueless purpose” or a “worthless practice.” The issue is not of speech alone, but of association–do not associate the great name of God with a flawed, human, temporal purpose. I’ll extrapolate–resist attempts to invest political structures like the government or even the nation with the authority of heaven.

Nechama Leibowitz quotes Cassuto in her Torah commentary and adds that Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig had a similar idea in their German translation of the Torah. She suggests that the third commandment points to a category error–do not act as if our own fallible human institutions are divine. 

This more literal reading of the third commandment is especially important in an era of authoritarianism, when governments assert the right to bend reality to their will, pushing aside moral compunctions and conventions of accountability in order to establish their absolute control. In claiming ultimate authority for themselves, such politicians put on airs as if they were not just leaders, but gods. This is an even more alarming development than dishonest speech. It turns the divine name into a token of power, stripping it of sanctity, and making it a crude political currency. This is quite literally חילול השם, the desecration of the divine name. And while it is easy to fault our political opponents for this error, we ought to look within, to check whether we also are inclined to claim too much moral authority for ourselves. The third commandment then is a call for humility.

A third reading of the third commandment: This I learned recently from Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, whom it will soon be my great honour to follow as senior rabbi of the New North London Synagogue in England. He has published a deep and beautiful Torah commentary called Listening for God in Torah and Creation: A Weekly Encounter with Conscience and Soul.  He writes:

The Hebrew tissa, from the root nasa, means carry: we are carriers of God’s name. Our choice lies not in whether but how we do this. This commandment requires us not to do so in ways that void it of meaning…. God’s reputation in this world depends partly on us. (p.131)

If the ancient rabbis read תִשָּׂא as vain speech invoking God, and modern scholars understood it also to warn us not to ascribe divinity to that which is transient, Rabbi Wittenberg adds a spiritual aspect to the command. We always carry God’s name, whether we realize it or not. 

How do we carry God’s name? Deuteronomy 28:10 says, וְרָאוּ כׇּל־עַמֵּי הָאָרֶץ כִּי שֵׁם ה׳ נִקְרָא עָלֶיךָ וְיָרְאוּ מִמֶּךָּ׃, all people can see that God’s name is written, or read upon you. But where? Where is the divine name written? Some of us wear tefillin and form the name Shadai on our skin each morning. Is that it? Or is it because we Jews come from Judah, יהודה, whose name contains the divine name? To get mystical for a moment, when the divine name is written vertically it looks a bit like a human figure, and the Zohar in Yitro has a long passage about human physiognomy as a map to the divine realm. 

Even so, a simpler sense is compelling. At Sinai we entered into a covenant with God, and forever after we are bound together, marked by the divine name. Will we carry it with integrity, or will we treat it לשוא, with disdain, disrespect, and ignorance, using our faith to dehumanize others, to betray the trust that our Creator has given us? As Rabbi Wittenberg wrote, “Our choice lies not in whether but how we do this.”

To carry the divine name is a very tall order, and I admit that I find it intimidating. How can we carry the divine name with the intention, skill, respect, and care that it requires? It is helpful to recall that the decalogue was not given to an individual. It was given collectively to Jews of all generations, and through us to all of humanity. Our responsibility begins with a negative command–not to degrade the divine name with which we have been entrusted–not by speech, not by association, and not by neglect. We need each other for this purpose–at times to criticize and correct us; at other times, to support and celebrate our work. May we together lift and carry the divine name with integrity and grace, and may God lift us up, blessing us with wisdom, courage, and success.