7. The Midrash makes a significant comment on the words of the Shema: “Why do the words, ‘the Lord is our God’ precede the words, ‘the Lord is One’? Does not the particularism of the former conflict with the universalism of the latter sentence? No. The former expresses the idea that the Lord is ‘our God’ just so far as His name is more intertwined with our history than with that of any other nation, and that we have the greater obligation as His chosen people. Wherever Scripture speaks of the God of Israel, it does not intend to limit Him as the universal God, but to emphasize Israel’s special duty as His priest-people.”(146) 8. Likewise is the liturgical name “God of our fathers” far from being a nationalistic limitation. On the contrary, the rabbis single out Abraham as the missionary, the herald of monotheism in its march to world-conquest. For his use of the term, “the God of heaven and the God of the earth”(147) they offer a characteristic explanation: “Before Abraham came, the people worshiped only the God of heaven, but Abraham by winning them for his God brought Him down and made Him also the God of the earth.”(148) 9. Reverence for the Deity caused the Jew to avoid not only the utterance of the holy Name itself, but even the common use of its substitute _Adonai_. Therefore still other synonyms were introduced, such as “Master of the universe,” “the Holy One, blessed be He,” “the Merciful One,” “the Omnipotence” (_ha Geburah_),(149) “King of the kings of kings” (under Persian influence—as the Persian ruler called himself the King of Kings);(150) and in Hasidean circles it became customary to invoke God as “our Father” and “our Father in heaven.”(151) The rather strange appellations for God, “Heaven”(152) and (dwelling) “Place” (_ha Makom_) seem to originate in certain formulas of the oath. In the latter name the rabbis even found hints of God’s omnipresence: “As space—_Makom_—encompasses all things, so does God encompass the world instead of being encompassed by it.”(153) 10. The rabbis early read a theological meaning into the two names JHVH and _Elohim_, taking the former as the divine attribute of _mercy_ and the latter as that of _justice_.(154) In general, however, the former name was explained etymologically as signifying eternity, “He who is, who was, and who shall be.” Philo shows familiarity with the two attributes of justice and mercy, but he and other Alexandrian writers explained JHVH and _Ehyeh_ metaphysically, and accordingly called God, “the One who is,” that is, the Source of all existence. Both conceptions still influence Jewish exegesis and account for the term “the Eternal” sometimes used for “the Lord.” Chapter XI. The Existence of God