Exodus 6 - Mysteries of the Name

"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: I am the Lord
That appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, by the name of God Almighty: and my name ADONAI I did not show them." (Exodus 6:2-3)

Instead of posting my musings as usual, I'm going to quote verbatim my commentary on Exodus 6:3, the famous verse in which God reveals His name to Moses. In a previous entry on Genesis 32, I had commented on the fact that God apparently had withheld His name from the ancient Patriarchs, and that He seemingly reveals Himself only gradually. Still, His actual "name" (I'm sure the term name is quite limiting in that we're dealing with the Supreme Being here, Who doesn't need a "name" in the sense that you and I do) is forever lost to us due to reasons revealed in the following passage from my Biblical commentary:

"The name which is in the Hebrew text, is that most proper name of God, which signifies his eternal self-existing being, which the Jews, out of reverence, never pronounce; but instead of it, whenever it occurs in the Bible, they read Adonai, which signifies the Lord: and therefore they put the points or vowels, which belong to the name Adonai, to the four letters of that other ineffable name Jod, He, Vau, He. Hence some moderns have framed the name Jehovah: unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians: for the true pronunciation of the name, which is in the Hebrew text, by long disuse, is now quite lost. This name was first clearly revealed to Moses, that he might have confidence in his special protection and love. To know one by his name, is to treat him with familiarity and distinction. The pronunciation of the name of God might be known to Abraham, etc. but it was not so fully explained, nor the power and excellence of it declared in such a stupendous manner, as it was to Moses. Or perhaps Moses made use of this name in the history of the patriarchs, because he wrote his account of them after this revelation. The Septuagint always put Kurios, "the Lord," instead of the ineffable name; and our Savior and his apostles , citing texts where it occurs, follow their example. Philo informs us, that it was death to pronounce it out of the temple; and since that was destroyed, it has never been heard. Galatinus, who wrote in 1518, is supposed to have invented the word Jehovah, the year after the pretended reformation began. St. Jerome explains the ten names of God, but never reads Jehovah."

Obviously this doesn't even begin to answer all the questions. But I think it adds to the discussion, and hopefully creates questions worth pursuing.