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- For more information about the name of the deity in Judaism and Christianity (Yahweh), see criticisms and theories on Yahweh or God in Abrahamic religions, which provides useful links.
Yahweh is the English rendering of , a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton that was proposed by the Hebrew scholar Gesenius in the 19th century.
Yahweh is the Hebrew word for the God of Israel; it is in the Afro-asiatic languages family.
The Hebrew term had been vocalized as (YeHoWah/JeHoVaH) in the Masoretic Text that was formed during the 7th-11th centuries.
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Encyclopedia
- For more information about the name of the deity in Judaism and Christianity (Yahweh), see criticisms and theories on Yahweh or God in Abrahamic religions, which provides useful links.
Yahweh is the English rendering of , a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton that was proposed by the Hebrew scholar Gesenius in the 19th century.
Yahweh is the Hebrew word for the God of Israel; it is in the Afro-asiatic languages family.
The Hebrew term had been vocalized as (YeHoWah/JeHoVaH) in the Masoretic Text that was formed during the 7th-11th centuries. This is the text that underlies the Old Testament of the most circulated Holy Bible of the Christian world, the King James Version. Though, this vocalization had been disputed by Hebrew scholars from as early as 1604 A.D.
was proposed in a period of the 19th century when the vocalized Hebrew punctuation , from which Jehovah is derived, was finally rejected by major Hebrew scholars, who did not believe that it accurately represented the original pronunciation of the Abrahamic God's Hebrew name.
Gesenius's proposed punctuation is believed to represent the Greek transcription (Yave) which Epiphanius ascribes to be used by some Gnostic circles.
Modern observant Jews no longer voice the name aloud. It is believed to be too sacred to be uttered and is often referred to as the 'Ineffable', 'Unutterable' or 'Distinctive Name'. (See Name of God in Judaism.) Various proposals still exist for the vocalization of in which the stem of the name Yahweh (Yah) remains widely accepted but discrepancies exist on agreement of the ending ('weh'). Early Christian literature written in Greek used spellings like and that can be transcribed by 'Yahweh'. This pronunciation and spelling, as with many religious and scholarly issues, remains the subject of ongoing debate, see Criticisms and theories on Yahweh.
Tetragrammaton (from the Greek , meaning '[word of] four letters' (tetra "four" + gramma (gen. grammatos) "letter"), is a name of the Divine Name , as written in the Hebrew Masoretic Text where it appears 6,828 times in the Hebrew text of both the Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. It does not appear in the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, or Esther.
The letters, properly read from right to left (in Biblical Hebrew), are:
| Hebrew | Letter name | Pronunciation |
|---|
? | Yud | "Y" | ? | He (its name is pronounced "hey") | "H" | ? | Vav | "V" or placeholder for "O"/"U" vowel (see mater lectionis) | ? | He | "H" (or sometimes silent at the ends of words) |
is the four-letter name of God , which is referred to in Josephus, by the Church Fathers, and the Jerusalem Talmud.
Biblical Hebrew often omits vowel sounds from its writings, which would be shown in English.
Yahweh is the Hebrew word for the God of Israel; it is in the Afro-asiatic languages family.
These four letters are usually transliterated from Hebrew as IHVH in Latin, JHWH in German, French and Dutch, and YHWH in English. This was variously rendered as "Yahweh" or "Jehovah", since in Latin there was no distinct lettering to distinguish 'Y' from 'J', or 'W' from 'V', and the Hebrew does not clearly indicate the omitted vowels. In English translations, it is often rendered in small capital letters as "the ", following Jewish tradition which reads the word as "Adonai" ("Lord") out of respect for the name of God and the commandment not to take the name of God in vain. The word "haŠem" 'the Name' is also used in Jewish contexts; in Samaritan, "Šemå" is the normal substitution.
See "Historical overview" at Yahweh and Jehovah.
Historical overview
Observant Jews write down but do not pronounce the Tetragrammaton, because it is considered too sacred to be used for common activities. Even ordinary prayer is considered too common for this use. The Tetragrammaton was pronounced by the High Priest on Yom Kippur when the Temple was standing in Jerusalem. Since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the Tetragrammaton is no longer pronounced, and while Jewish tradition holds that the correct pronunciation is known to a select few people in each generation, it is not generally known what this pronunciation is. Instead, common Jewish use has been to substitute the name "" ("My Lord") where the Tetragrammaton appears. In cases where the Tetragrammaton follows the name Adonai in biblical texts, the name Elohim ("God") is substituted instead.
The Septuagint (Greek translation) and Vulgate (Latin translation) use the word "Lord" ( (kurios) and , respectively). However, newer research has brought to light the oldest available copies of the Septuagint which interestingly include the Tetragrammaton inside the Greek text.
The Masoretes added vowel points (niqqud) and cantillation marks to the manuscripts to indicate vowel usage and for use in the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in synagogue services. To they added the vowels for "" ("My Lord"), the word to use when the text was read.
Many Jews will not even use "" except when praying, and substitute other terms, e.g. ("The Name") or the nonsense word Ado-Shem, out of fear of the potential misuse of the divine name. In written English, "G-d" is a substitute used by a minority of Christians.
Parts of the Talmud, particularly those dealing with Yom Kippur, seem to imply that the Tetragrammaton should be pronounced in several ways, with only one (not explained in the text, and apparently kept by oral tradition by the Kohen Gadol) being the personal name of God.
In late Kabbalistic works the Tetragrammaton is sometimes referred to as the Name of Havayah - , meaning "the Name of Being/Existence". Christian Kabbalists used the form Jehovah.
Translators often render YHWH as a word meaning "Lord", e.g. Greek , Latin , and following that, English "the Lord", Polish , Welsh , etc. However, all of the above are inaccurate translations of the Tetragrammaton.
Because the name was no longer pronounced and its own vowels were not written, its own pronunciation was forgotten. When Christians, unaware of the Jewish tradition, started to read the Hebrew Bible, they read as written with YHWH's consonants with 's vowels, and thus said or transcribed Iehovah. Today this transcription is generally recognized as mistaken; however many religious groups continue to use the form Jehovah because it is familiar.
Using the Name in the Bible
Exodus 3:15 is used to support the use of the Name YHWH: “This is my Name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.”. The word “forever” is “olahm” which means “time out of mind, to eternity”.
"The Hebrew word ‘olahm’, translated ‘for ever’ clearly doesn’t always mean literal future infinity- although in some places it can have that sense. It’s actually used in places to describe the past; events of a long time ago, but not events that happened an ‘infinitely long time’ ago. It describes the time of a previous generation (Dt. 32:7; Job 22:15); to the time just before the exile of Judah (Is. 58:12; 61:4; Mic. 7:14; Mal. 3:4); to the time of the Exodus (1 Sam. 27:8; Is. 51:9; 63:9); to the time just before the flood (Gen. 6:4)."
Many Scriptures do favour the use of the Name. The biblical law does not prohibit the use of the Name, but it warns against “misuse”, “blaspheming” or in ordinary terms, “taking lightly” the Name of YHWH. The Biblical texts suggest the people of the Bible - including the patriarchs - used the Name of YHWH. A wealth of scriptures support this notion.
Evidence from theophoric names
Yahu" or "Yehu" is a common short form for "Yahweh" in Hebrew theophoric names; as a prefix it sometimes appears as "Yeho-". This has caused two opinions:
- In former times (at least from c.1650 AD), that it was abbreviated from the supposed pronunciation "Yehowah", rather than "Yahweh" which contains no 'o'- or 'u'-type vowel sound in the middle.
- Recently, that, as "Yahweh" is likely an imperfective verb form, "Yahu" is its corresponding preterite or jussive short form: compare yistahaweh (imperfective), yistáhû (preterit or jussive short form) = "do obeisance".
Those who argue for (1) are the: George Wesley Buchanan in Biblical Archaeology Review; ; Section # 2.1 The Analytical Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon (1848) in its article
Smith’s 1863 A Dictionary of the Bible says that "Yahweh" is possible because shortening to "Yahw" would end up as "Yahu" or similar. has a very similar discussion, and also gives the form Jo or Yo contracted from Jeho or Yeho . The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition (New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1910-11, vol. 15, pp. 312, in its article "JEHOVAH", also says that "Jeho-" or "Jo" can be explained from "Yahweh", and that the suffix "-jah" can be explained from "Yahweh" better than from "Yehowah".
Chapter 1 of , under the heading: The Pronunciation Of Gods Name quotes from Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, page 7: Hebrew Scholars generally favor "Yahweh" as the most likely pronunciation. They point out that the abbreviated form of the name is Yah (Jah in the Latinized form), as at Psalm 89:8 and in the expression Hallelu-Yah (meaning "Praise Yah, you people!") (Ps 104:35; 150:1,6). Also, the forms Yehoh', Yoh, Yah, and Ya'hu, found in the Hebrew spelling of the names of Jehoshaphat, Joshaphat, Shephatiah, and others, can all be derived from Yahweh.
Using consonants as semi-vowels (v/w)
In ancient Hebrew, the letter ?, known to modern Hebrew speakers as vav, was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German) rather than a /v/. The letter is referred to as waw in the academic world. Because the ancient pronunciation differs from the modern pronunciation, it is common today to represent as YHWH rather than YHVH.
In Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written and the rest are written only ambiguously, as the vowel letters double as consonants (similar to the Latin use of V to indicate both U and V). See Matres lectionis for details. For similar reasons, an appearance of the Tetragrammaton in ancient Egyptian records of the 13th century BC sheds no light on the original pronunciation. Therefore it is, in general, difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling only, and the Tetragrammaton is a particular example: two of its letters can serve as vowels, and two are vocalic place-holders, which are not pronounced.
This difficulty occurs somewhat also in Greek when transcribing Hebrew words, because of Greek's lack of a letter for consonant 'y' and (since loss of the digamma) of a letter for "w", forcing the Hebrew consonants yod and waw to be transcribed into Greek as vowels. Also, non-initial 'h' caused difficulty for Greeks and was liable to be omitted; ? (chi) was pronounced as 'k' + 'h' (as in modern Hindi "lakh") and could not be used to spell 'h' as in e.g. Modern Greek = "Harry".
Y or J?
The English practice of transliterating the Biblical Hebrew Yodh as "j" and pronouncing it "dzh" started when, in late Latin, the pronunciation of consonantal "i" changed from "y" (as in English "yet") to "dzh" but continued to be spelled "i", bringing along with it Latin transcriptions and spoken renderings of Biblical and other foreign words and names.
A direct rendering of the Hebrew yod would be "y" in English. However, most transliterations of the biblical Hebrew texts represent the Hebrew 'yod' by using the English letter 'J'. This letter, and the accompanying 'J' sound/pronunciation is clearly evident in anglicized versions of Hebrew proper nouns, i.e. names such as Jesus*, Jeremiah, Joshua**, Judah, Job, Jerusalem, Jehoshaphat, and Jehovah. Although it can be argued that the 'Y' form is more correct i.e. more like the Jewish/Hebrew pronunciations, in the English-speaking world, this 'J' form for such Bible names is now the norm and has been so for centuries.
The letters "J" and "V" as distinct from "I" and "U" relates back to 1565 when a Parisian printer (Gille Beyes) changed 'J' and ‘V’ from indistinct vowels into consonants. In the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, we find that the J sound as we now know it has only been in the English language since the 1700s, prior to this, the J was a capital I. Some centre column references in the Bible affirm this.
Kethib and Qere and Qere perpetuum
The original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was provided with vowel marks by the Masoretes to assist reading. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the Qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the Kethib), they wrote the Qere in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowels of the Qere were written on the Kethib. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted: this is called Q're perpetuum.
One of these frequent cases was God's name, that should not be pronounced, but read as "" ("My Lord [plural of majesty]"), or, if the previous or next word already was "", or "" ("My Lord"), as "" ("God"). This combination produces and respectively, non-words that would spell "yehovah" and "yehovih" respectively.
The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Aleppo Codex and the Codex Leningradensis mostly write (yehvah), with no pointing on the first H; this points to its Qere being 'Shema', which is Aramaic for "the Name".
Gérard Gertoux wrote that in the Leningrad Codex of 1008-1010, the Masoretes used 7 different vowel pointings [i.e. 7 different Q're's] for YHWH.
Jehovah
Later, Christian Europeans who did not know about the Q're perpetuum custom took these spellings at face value, producing the form "Jehovah" and spelling variants of it. The Catholic Encyclopedia [1913, Vol. VIII, p. 329] states: “Jehovah (Yahweh), the proper name of God in the Old Testament." Had they known about the Q're perpetuum, the term "Jehovah" may have never come in to being.
For more information, see the page Jehovah. Alternatively, most scholars recognise Jehovah to be “grammatically impossible” Jewish Encyclopedia (Vol VII, p. 8).
Frequency of use in scripture
According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, (Qr ) occurs 6518 times, and (Qr ) occurs 305 times in the Masoretic Text. Since the scribes admit removing it at least 134 different times and inserting Adonai, we may conclude that the four letter Name appeared about 7,000 times.
It appears 6,823 times in the Jewish Bible, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, and 6,828 times each in the Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia texts of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The vocalizations of and are not identical
The schwa in YHWH (the vowel under the first letter, ) and the hataf patakh in 'DNY (the vowel under its first letter, ), appear different. One reason suggested is that the spelling (with the hataf patakh) risks that a reader might start pronouncing "Yah", which is a form of the Name, thus completing the first half of the full Name. Alternatively, the vocalization can be attributed to Biblical Hebrew phonology, where the hataf patakh is grammatically identical to a schwa, always replacing every schwa na? under a guttural letter. Since the first letter of is a guttural letter, while the first letter of is not, the hataf patakh under the (guttural) aleph reverts to a regular schwa under the (non-guttural) yodh.
Evidence from very old scrolls
The discovery of the Qumran scrolls has added support to some parts of this position. These scrolls are unvocalized, showing that the position of those who claim that the vowel marks were already written by the original authors of the text is untenable. Many of these scrolls write (only) the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script, showing that the Name was treated specially. See .
As said above, the Aleppo and Leningrad codices do not use the holem (o) in their vocalization, but it is used in a few instances, so that the (systematic) spelling "Yehovah" is more recent than about 1000 A.D. or from a different tradition. Nevertheless, this spelling does appear in both codices.
From the article: "Most scholars acknowledge that the Tetragrammaton was probably pronounced as Yahweh."
Original pronunciation
The main approaches in modern attempts to determine a pronunciation of ???? have been study of the Hebrew Bible text, study of theophoric names and study of early Christian Greek texts that contain reports about the pronunciation. Evidence from Semitic philology and archeology has been tried, resulting in a "scholarly convention to pronounce ???? as Yahweh".
The text in the Codex Leningrad B 19A, 1008 A.D, shows ???? with various different vowel points, indicating that the name was to be read as Yehwah, Yehwih, and a number of times as Yehowah, as in Genesis 3:15
Delitzsch prefers "" (yahavah) since he considered the shwa quiescens below ungrammatical.
In his 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible", William Smith prefers the form "" (yahaveh). Many other variations have been proposed.
However, Gesenius' proposal gradually became accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vocalized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton.
Early Greek and Latin forms
The writings of the Church Fathers contain several references to God's name in Greek or Latin.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907)] and B.D. Eerdmans:
- Diodorus Siculus writes (Iao);
- Irenaeus reports that the Gnostics formed a compound (Iaoth) with the last syllable of Sabaoth. He also reports that the Valentinian heretics use (Iao);
- Clement of Alexandria writes (Iaou) - see also below;
- Origen of Alexandria, Iao;
- Porphyry, (Ieuo);
- Epiphanius (d. 404), who was born in Palestine and spent a considerable part of his life there, gives Ia and Iabe (one codex Iaue);
- Pseudo-Jerome,
tetragrammaton legi potest Iaho; Theodoret (d. c. 457) writes (Iao); he also reports that the Samaritans say (Iabe), (Iabai), while the Jews say (Aia). (The latter is probably not but Ehyeh = "I am" (Exod. iii. 14), which the Jews counted among the names of God.) James of Edessa (cf.), Jehjeh; Jerome speaks of certain ignorant Greek writers who transcribed the Hebrew Divine name as .
In ,
the author displays some of the above forms and concludes:
- But even if these writers were entitled to speak with authority, their evidence only tends to show in how many different ways the four letters of the word could be represented in Greek characters, and throws no light either upon its real pronunciation or its punctuation.
On the other hand however, is the common belief that the true name was never lost, the Encyclopedia Judaica concludes:
"The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian church testify that the name was pronounced Yahweh."
Josephus
Josephus in Jewish Wars, chapter V, verse 235, wrote "" ("...[engraved with] the holy letters; and they are four vowels"), presumably because Hebrew yod and waw, even if consonantal, would have to be transcribed into the Greek of the time as vowels.
Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria writes in Stromata V, 6:34-35
-
The translation of Clement's Stromata in Volume II of the classic Ante-Nicene Fathers series renders this as:
- "... Further, the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called
Jave, which is interpreted, 'Who is and shall be.' The name of God, too [i.e. ?e??], among the Greeks contains four letters."
Of Clement's Stromata there is only one surviving manuscript, the Codex L (Codex Laurentianus V 3), from the 11th century. Other sources are later copies of that ms. and a few dozen quotations from this work by other authors. For Stromata V,6:34, Codex L has . The critical edition by Otto Stählin (1905) gives the forms
- "?a??? Didymus Taurinensis de pronunc. divini nominis quatuor literarum (Parmae 1799) p. 32ff, L, Nic., Mon. 9.82 Reg. 1888 Taurin. III 50 (bei Did.), Coisl. Seg. 308 Reg. 1825."
and has in the running text. The Additions and Corrections page gives a reference to an author who rejects the change of into .
Other editors give similar data. A (Latin: chain) referred to by A. le Boulluec ("Coisl. 113 fol. 368v") and by ("a catena to the Pentateuch in a MS. at Turin") is reported to have "".
The New Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967 lists the form as evidence that YHWH is pronounced "Yahweh".
Gesenius proposes that YHWH should be punctuated as = Yahweh
In the early 19th century Hebrew scholars were still critiquing "Jehovah" [a.k.a. Iehovah and Iehouah] because they believed that the vowel points of were not the actual vowel points of God's name. The Hebrew scholar Wilhelm Gesenius [1786-1842] had suggested that the Hebrew punctuation , which is transliterated into English as "Yahweh", might more accurately represent the actual pronunciation of God's name than the Biblical Hebrew punctuation "", from which the English name Jehovah has been derived.
Wilhelm Gesenius is noted for being one of the greatest Hebrew and biblical scholars . His proposal to read YHWH as "" (see image to the right) was based in large part on various Greek transcriptions, such as , dating from the first centuries AD, but also on the forms of theophoric names.
- In his Hebrew Dictionary Gesenius (see image of German text) supports the pronunciation "Yahweh" because of the Samaritan pronunciation reported by Theodoret, and that the theophoric name prefixes YHW [Yeho] and YH [Yo] can be explained from the form "Yahweh".
Today many scholars accept Gesenius's proposal to read YHWH as .
-
Inferences
Various people draw various conclusions from this Greek material.
William Smith writes in his 1863 about the different Hebrew forms supported by these Greek forms:
- ... The votes of others are divided between (yahveh) or (yahaveh), supposed to be represented by the of Epiphanius mentioned above, and (yahvah) or (yahavah), which Fürst holds to be the ?e?? of Porphyry, or the of Clemens Alexandrinus.
The editors of New Bible Dictionary (1962 write:
- The pronunciation Yahweh is indicated by transliterations of the name into Greek in early Christian literature, in the form
(Clement of Alexandria) or (Theodoret; by this time had the pronunciation of v).
As already mentioned, Gesenius arrived at his form using the evidence of proper names, and following the Samaritan pronunciation reported by Theodoret.
Catholic Encyclopedia teaching about the name Yahweh
,in the article Jehovah (Yahweh), under the sub-title:"To take up the ancient writers", the editors wrote:
- Diodorus Siculus writes Jao (I, 94);
- Irenaeus of Lyons ("Adv. Haer.", II, xxxv, 3, in P. G., VII, col. 840), Jaoth;
- the Valentinian heretics (Irenaeus, "Adv. Haer.", I, iv, 1, in P.G., VII, col. 481), Jao;
- Clement of Alexandria ("Strom.", V, 6, in P.G., IX, col. 60), Jaou;
- Origen of Alexandria ("in Joh.", II, 1, in P.G., XIV, col. 105), Jao;
- Porphyry (Eusebius,
Praeparatio Evangelica, I, ix, in P.G., XXI, col. 72), Jeuo; Epiphanius ("Adv. Haer.", I, iii, 40, in P.G., XLI, col. 685), Ja or Jabe; Pseudo-Jerome ("Breviarium in Pss.", in P.L., XXVI, 828 ), Jaho; the Samaritans (Theodoret, in "Ex. quaest.", xv, in P.G., LXXX, col. 44),Jabe; James of Edessa (cf. Lamy, "La science catholique", 1891, p. 196), Jehjeh; Jerome ("Ep. xxv ad Marcell.", in P. L., XXII, col. 429) speaks of certain ignorant Greek writers who transcribed the Hebrew Divine name II I II I.
The editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia continue:
Usage of YHWH
In ancient Judaism
Several centuries before the Christian era the name of their god YHWH had ceased to be commonly used by the Jews. Some of the later writers in the Old Testament employ the appellative Elohim, God, prevailingly or exclusively.
The oldest complete Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) versions, from around the second century A.D., consistently use (= "Lord"), where the Hebrew has YHWH, corresponding to substituting Adonay for YHWH in reading the original; in books written in Greek in this period (e.g. Wisdom, 2 and 3 Maccabees), as in the New Testament, takes the place of the name of God. However, older fragments contain the name YHWH. In the P. Ryl. 458 (perhaps the oldest extant Septuagint manuscript) there are blank spaces, leading some scholars to believe that the Tetragrammaton must have been written where these breaks or blank spaces are.
Josephus, who as a priest knew the pronunciation of the name, declares that religion forbids him to divulge it.
Philo calls it ineffable, and says that it is lawful for those only whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a holy place (that is, for priests in the Temple). In another passage, commenting on Lev. xxiv. 15 seq.: "If any one, I do not say should blaspheme against the Lord of men and gods, but should even dare to utter his name unseasonably, let him expect the penalty of death."
Various motives may have concurred to bring about the suppression of the name:
- An instinctive feeling that a proper name for God implicitly recognizes the existence of other gods may have had some influence; reverence and the fear lest the holy name should be profaned among the heathen.
- Desire to prevent abuse of the name in magic. If so, the secrecy had the opposite effect; the name of the God of the Jews was one of the great names, in magic, heathen as well as Jewish, and miraculous efficacy was attributed to the mere utterance of it.
- Avoiding risk of the Name being used as an angry expletive, as reported in Leviticus 24:11 in the Bible.
In the liturgy of the Temple the name was pronounced in the priestly benediction (Num. vi. 27) after the regular daily sacrifice (in the synagogues a substitute— probably Adonai— was employed); on the Day of Atonement the High Priest uttered the name ten times in his prayers and benediction.
In the last generations before the fall of Jerusalem, however, it was pronounced in a low tone so that the sounds were lost in the chant of the priests.
In later Judaism
After the destruction of the Temple (70 C.E) the liturgical use of the name ceased, but the tradition was perpetuated in the schools of the rabbis. It was certainly known in Babylonia in the latter part of the 4th century, and not improbably much later. Nor was the knowledge confined to these pious circles; the name continued to be employed by healers, exorcists and magicians, and has been preserved in many places in magical papyri.
The vehemence with which the utterance of the name is denounced in the Mishna—He who pronounces the Name with its own letters has no part in the world to come! —suggests that this misuse of the name was not uncommon among Jews.
In Modern Judaism
The new Jewish Publication Society Tanakh 1985 follows the traditional convention of translating the Divine Name as "the LORD" (in all caps). The Artscroll Tanakh translates the Divine Name as "HaShem" (literally, "The Name").
When the Divine Name is read during prayer, "Adonai" ("My Lord") is substituted. However, when practicing a prayer or referring to one, Orthodox Jews will say "AdoShem" instead of "Adonai". When speaking to another person "HaShem" is used.
Among the Samaritans
The Samaritans, who otherwise shared the scruples of the Jews about the utterance of the name, seem to have used it in judicial oaths to the scandal of the rabbis. (Their priests have preserved a liturgical pronunciation "Yahwe" or "Yahwa" to the present day.) However, the Aramaic "Shema" remains the everyday (including liturgical) usage of the name, akin to Hebrew "Hashem".
Catholics (2008)
On August 8, 2008, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishop's Committee on Divine Worship, announced a new Vatican directive regarding the use of the name of God in the sacred liturgy. "Specifically, the word 'Yahweh' may no longer be 'used or pronounced' in songs and prayers during liturgical celebrations."
Modern
The New Jerusalem Bible (1966) uses "Yahweh" exclusively.
The Bible In Basic English (1949/1964) uses "Yahweh" eight times, including Exodus 6.2.
The Amplified Bible (1954/1987) uses "Yahweh" in Exodus 6.3.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible (1999/2002) uses "Yahweh" over 50 times,including Exodus 6.2.
The World English Bible (WEB) [a Public Domain work with no copyright] uses "Yahweh" some 6837 times.
The New Living Translation (1996/2004) uses "Yahweh" eight times, including Exodus 6.2.
Some modern writers, particularly in mythology and anthropology, use 'Yahweh' specifically, rather than 'God', to describe the Biblical God as a way of trying to display Christian and Jewish concepts as being on an even plane with concepts and deities from other religions. This does not necessarily represent a majority view, but the practice has grown in recent years.
Randy Weaver, of the Aryan Nations church, used the word Yahweh to describe God.
Short forms
"Yahu" or "Yehu" is a common short form for "Yahweh" in Hebrew theophoric names; as a prefix it sometimes appears as "Yeho-". In former times that was thought to be abbreviated from the supposed pronunciation "Yehowah". There is nowadays an opinion that, as "Yahweh" is likely an imperfective verb form, "Yahu" is its corresponding preterite or jussive short form: compare yistahaweh (imperfective), yistáhû (preterit or jussive short form) = "do obeisance".
In some places, such Exodus 15:2, the name YHWH is shortened to (Yah).
This same syllable is found in Hallelu-yah. Here the ? has mappiq, i.e., is consonantal, not a mater lectionis.
It is often assumed that this is also the second element -ya of the Aramaic "": the Peshitta Old Testament translates Adonai with "" (Lord), and YHWH with "".
"I am"
In Exodus chapter 3 verses 13:16 the name Yahweh is explained thus:
- But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?"
- God said to Moses, "I am who I am. [
Ehyeh asher ehyeh, ???? ??? ????]"He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ' "I am [Ehyeh, ???? ]" has sent me to you.'"God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'He is [(or similar), Yahweh, ????], the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.
Mishearings and misunderstandings of this explanation has led to a popular idea that "Yahweh" means "I am", resulting in God, and by colloquial extension sometimes anything which is very dominant in its area , being called "the great I AM".
Another possibility according to the Complete Jewish Bible by author David H. Stern, proposes that the Tetragrammaton be pronounced letter for letter in Hebrew and that the name of God should be rendered by spelling out the four letters, "Yud He Vav He", the meaning assumed to be "I am that I am" or "I am Who I am", as revealed to Moses in the Torah (Exodus 3:14).
Witnesses to the Name
There are many witnesses which approve of the correct Name being Yahweh; both Jewish and Christian authorities, such as the Jewish Encyclopedia. Bible translators James Mofatt and Dr J. M. Power Smith as well as Bible Encyclopedias, lexicons and grammars, declare the Tetragrammaton should have been transliterated “Yahweh”. Other sources include the Seventh Day Adventist Commentary Vol. 1, p511, under Exodus 3:15; Herbert Armstrong, the New Morality, pp. 128 – 129; David Neufeld, Review and Herald, December 15, 1971, page11; A New Translation of the Bible, pp 20 – 21 (Harper and Row © 1954) and J.D Douglas; New Bible Dictionary, (Wm B Eerdman’s Pub Co. © (1962), p9 as concluded: “Strictly speaking Yahweh is the only ‘Name’ of God”.
The Name in the Septuagint
Septuagint study does give some credence to the possibility that the Divine Name appeared in its original texts. Dr Sidney Jellicoe concluded that "Kahle is right in holding that LXX [= Septuagint] texts, written by Jews for Jews, retained the Divine Name in Hebrew Letters (palaeo-Hebrew or Aramaic) or in the Greek-letters imitative form ????, and that its replacement by ?????? was a Christian innovation." Jellicoe draws together evidence from a great deal of scholars (B. J. Roberts, Baudissin, Kahle and C.H Roberts) and various segments of the Septuagint to draw the conclusions that: a) the absence of “Adonai” from the text suggests that the insertion of the term “Kurious” was a later practice, b) in the Septuagint “Kurios”, or in English “Lord”, is used to substitute the Name YHWH, and c) the Tetragrammaton appeared in the original text, but Christian copyists removed it. There is therefore a strong possibility that the Sacred Name was once integrated within the Greek text, but eventually disappeared.
Meyer suggests as one possibility that “as modern Hebrew letters were introduced, the next step was to follow modern Jews and insert “Kurios”, Lord. This would prove this innovation was of a late date.”
Bible scholars and translators as Eusebius and Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate) used the Hexapla. Both attest to the importance of the sacred Name and that the most reliable manuscripts contained the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew letters.
Dr F. F. Bruce in the The Books and the Parchments illustrates that the religious language of the Greeks is in effect, pagan. Bruce demonstrates that the words commonly used today in Christianity are pagan Greek words and substitutes; this includes words such as “Christ”,”Lord”, and “God” (The English “Jesus” is not the same as “Iesous” in Greek). For this reason, a few groups such as the Assemblies of Yahweh and the Jehovah's Witnesses have maintained that they are restoring the purity of worship - by using the sacred Names and Hebrew titles. On the other hand, Christianity still generally regards the sacred Name as a minor issue while observant Jews believe it is respectful not to speak the Name at all .
Later translations into European languages which descended from the Septuagint tended to follow the Greek and use each language's word for "lord": Latin "Dominus", German "der Herr", Polish "Pan", English "the Lord", French "le Seigneur", etc.
Relevance in the New Testament
Bible translations such as the Rotherham Emphasized Bible, the Anchor Bible, and the Jerusalem Bible have retained the Name Yahweh in the Old Testament, while traditional translations such as the King James Version and the American Standard Version have retained the Name Jehovah.
Although no Greek manuscript of the New Testament contains any form of the full divine name, the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition inserts the name Yahweh in the New Testament, while the New World Translation inserts the name Jehovah in the New Testament.
A shortened form of the divine name, "Yah", appears four times in the book of Revelation in the word "Hallelujah", which means "Praise Yah". Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6.
The vast majority of New Testament translations render the Greek kyrios as "lord" and theos as "God". Since the Divine Name does not appear in the Greek manuscripts, virtually all translations refrain from inserting it into the English.
See also
External links
Arbel, Ilil. "Yahweh."
"Jehovah."
", "http://www.yrm.org/yahveh..')")
, a publication by Qadesh La Yahweh Press
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