“We read in Exodus 3:13, 14 and 15: “And Moses said unto God, Behold when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, what is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I will be what I will to be; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I will be what I will to be hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God (Yahveh Elohim) of your Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is my name forever and this is my memorial unto all generations.”
The fourteenth verse is intended to present to Moses the true signification of the divine name, the name of the all-pervading, all-intelligent God of all the universe, but the words capitalized and translated in the Authorized Version – “I am that I am”, are given in the Revised Version of the Old Testament in three different ways, namely, “I am because I am”, or, “I am who I am”, or “I will be that I will be.” The last form is undoubtedly the most nearly correct. Surely, to anybody that accepts the Scriptures as authority, the words, “This is my name forever and this is my memorial unto all generations”, are plain enough that this is the name, and the only name, applying to God, and that all other forms are incorrect.
There are many evidences that this name began to be known to other nations about the time of Moses, and in the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, the name occurs the first time. Then what may we understand as the meaning of the words in Exodus 6:2 and 3: “And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Yahveh; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty (Heb. El Shaddai), but by my name Yahveh was I not known to them?”
The declaration here that the children of Israel did not know God’s name must inevitably imply that while they knew and used the word, they did not know its meaning, nor the fulness of its import, and that this revelation to Moses was a revelation of the true meaning and import of the divine name, for surely a word-sound has no value of itself, and this word-sound it seems was known and used by other people, as well as by Israel.
But when we take the meaning of the word “Yahveh” as “I will be what I will to be”, it brings to us a potentiality, a power, all unknown to the world, even at the present time; for the name carries with it the thought that he who spoke the word and caused the world to form and to produce itself by the potency of that Infinite Mind, did so by the power of his will, and when we as creatures of earth muse much upon the signification of that name, the “I will”, and the second part of it, “to be what I will to be”, or “as I will to be”, we get a realization of that unlimited power, and a certainty that there is no power in the world, nay, in the universe, but the power of the will.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 