Biblical Allusions in U2’s “Yahweh” (How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, 2004)

Lyrics

The song’s title itself is an invocation of the Hebrew name for God, “the Great I Am” (U2 by U2, 329), and it establishes the spiritual context; “Yahweh” is our best guess at the pronunciation of these most sacred four letters in Jewish scriptures. The lyrics draw from the story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:5), where this name of God was revealed to Moses; the lines “Take these shoes,” allude to God’s command that Moses take off his shoes because he was on holy ground. The song also recalls Jesus’ teachings on light and witness in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” reflected in the lines “A city should be shining on a hill.” Naomi Dinnen connects this line to “Ezekiel’s messianic prophecy that the ‘city shining on a hill’ is where the Third Temple will be rebuilt when the Messiah comes” (Dinnen, 155). The metaphor of childbirth for new life emerging from suffering, found in John 16:21, “A woman, when she gives birth, experiences pain because her hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the affliction, on account of the joy that a human being has been born into the world,”is echoed in the lyric “Always pain before a child is born.” The song explores themes of purification (“Take this shirt”), spiritual renewal (“Take this soul/stranded in some skin and bones,” which Dinnen interprets as representing “the human body as frail and imperfect, and yet because of God the soul is able to come down into this imperfect vessel and ‘make it sing,’” Dinnen, 156), peace (“Take these hands / Don’t make a fist”), and submission to God’s will (“If it be your will” from Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane in Matthew 26:39). In this song, Bono opened a window into his desire “to know what to carry, to turn off my very critical eye sometimes, to be fit for the shoes I’ve been given” (U2 by U2, 329).

Biblical references

• Exodus 3:15 NLT: God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors … has sent me to you. This is my eternal name.”

• Exodus 3:5 NLV: God said… “Take your shoes off your feet. For the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
• Psalm 51:2 NIV: Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
• Psalm 51:7 NIV: Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
• John 16:21 NIV: “A woman giving birth to a child has pain… but… she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.”
• Psalm 130:5-6 ICB: I wait for the Lord to help me more than the night watchmen wait for the dawn
• Matthew 5:14 NASB: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
• Matthew 8:2 NKJV: “Father, if it is Your will”
• John 16:22 GNV: “but I will see you again … and your joy shall no man take from you.”
• Psalm 34:18 NIV: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Bibliography