YHWH the proper name of God, known to the first generations of men according to the Bible (Genesis 4:26 and 12:8), was revealed to Moses as a voice of the verb “to be.” This is clearly stated in the passage where God, in response to Moses' request (“Behold, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” Exodus 3:13), pronounces His name in the first person, “I Am Who I Am” (אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה). From what we know, this was the first time that this connection with the verb was made explicit. Ehyeh אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה, in fact, is the first person future of the root היה, which in its basic form (pal) has the general meaning of “to be.” In Hebrew, not even in modern Hebrew, there is no present form of this verb (except as a grammatical term to indicate the present tense: hoveh הווה). This present participle, which is normally used in Hebrew to express a present action, does not exist for the verb “to be”: it is implied in sentences that imply it and are therefore called nominal (verbless) sentences (I am going is said ani holekh אני הולך, "I going"). When God reveals His Name to Moses after telling him to use the first person, he also tells him to use the name that his people already knew, that is, the third-person name. In Hebrew, the future is characterized by the fact that the persons are identified through prefixes. The yod is the prefix for the third person, both singular and plural. Now, the future tense of the verb “to be” is usually יהיה. The internal vav of YHWH could derive from a causative form (hifil) of the same verb “to be” in the future tense, with the meaning “He will cause to be.” I would lean toward this explanation rather than thinking that the vav is meant to negate the verbal nature of God's proper name, since this verbal nature is precisely what has been revealed to us through Moses. It should be added that the sense of future tense in Hebrew is more that of continuity (aspectuality) than that of happening at a time later than when one speaks (temporality). The future tense is that of things that always happen, and for this reason, both Greek (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν) and English (I Am Who I AM) legitimately translate Ehyeh אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה with the present tense.
