This verse is a transition from the previously significant “blood” to “name,” the concept he first introduced in verse 9. This transition is critical to his task in this sermon, which is to persuade his people to take upon them the name of Yahweh-Messiah to symbolize their unified covenant. In the ancient world, a name itself had power, a fact of which Benjamin shows himself aware. Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, suggests that one of the Deuteronomic reforms involved a shift in the religious conception of the name of Yahweh. She suggests:
Older texts suggest that before the reform the Name had been simply a synonym for the presence of Yahweh, and not a substitute. There are several examples of this:
Behold the Name of Yahweh comes from far,
Burning with his anger and in thick rising smoke;
His lips are full of indignation
And his tongue is like a devouring fire. (Isa. 30:27)
This is a fire theophany in anthropomorphic terms. Similarly we find in the Hebrew of Ps. 75:5 “Your Name draws near.” In Ps. 20:1–2 Yahweh, the Name, dwells in the sanctuary:
Yahweh answer you in the day of trouble!
The Name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary,
And give you support from Zion.
With this we might compare “the dwelling place of thy name” (Ps. 74:7); or “Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my Name dwell at first” (Jer. 7:12).
As I have suggested (see1 Nephi, Part 1: Context, Chapter 1, “The Historical Setting of 1 Nephi”), Lehi was more strongly affiliated with the older aspects of Israel’s religion. Along with the emphasis on the Atoning Messiah, it is reasonable that this older conception of Yahweh’s name would also be part of the Nephite religious inheritance. When Benjamin asks that they take upon themselves the name, he was asking for more than a casual identification with a religious group.
Benjamin also deftly uses the phrase “children of men” as a transition between the salvation effected on behalf of children, his earlier idea, and the concept that salvation is available to all human beings.
Internal Reference: Nephi also taught that Yahweh-Messiah’s name has salvific power: “And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen” (2 Ne. 31:21).
Vocabulary: The construction of no… only in this verse should be read as no… except. “No other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men only [except] in and through the name of Christ.