Yehovah / Y'hovah

Gerard Gertoux writes that in the Leningrad Codex of 1008-1010 A.D., the Masoretes used 7 different vowel pointings 7 different Q're's for YHWH.refer to the table on page 144 of Gerard Gertoux's book: The Name of God Y.EH.OW.Ah which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH.Gerard Geroux believes that the Q're "e,o,a" refer to page 152-153 of Gerard Gertoux's book: The Name of God Y.EH.OW.Ah which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH.had become standardized in 1278 A.D. when the Spanish monk Raymundus Martini, in his book Pugeo Fidei, transliterated the Biblical Hebrew name "" into Latin as yohoua a small 1278 A.D. Latin initial letter "y"On page 152 of Gerard Gertoux's book: "The name of God Y.EH.OW.AH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH" is a photo of Latin and Hebrew text by side written by Raynond Martini in 1278 A.D. In the last sentence of the Hebrew text, "" can be clearly seen. In the last sentence of the Latin Text, Raymond Martini's Latin Transcription "yohoua" a small Latin initial letter "y" can be clearly seen. In 1518 Petrus Galatinus was using the Latin transcription "Iehoua" a final "h". ¹

Meaning

When Moses asks, in response to the calling of God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" He is first given a description and told to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM the One I AM" , or "I AM whatever I need to become".(Exodus 3:13) This phrase is shown to be the meaning of the name when, in poetic parallel "I AM has sent you." is replaced by the name. "Say to the Israelites, 'YHWH, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' This is MY NAME forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation."(Exodus 3:15).

According to one Jewish tradition, the Tetragrammaton is related to the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb (ha·wah, "to be, to become"), meaning "He will cause to become" (usually understood as "He causes to become"). Compare the many Hebrew and Arabic personal names which are 3rd person singular imperfective verb forms starting with "y", e.g. Hebrew Yôsêph = Arabic Yazîd = "He adds"; Hebrew Yiḥyeh = Arabic Yahyâ = "He [who lives".

Using the vowels of YHWH

Of course, early Hebrew had no written "vowels" as such — every letter of the Hebrew alphabet was primarily consonantal in function (see Matres lectionis).

Another tradition regards the name as coming from three different verb forms sharing the same root YWH, the words HYH haya : "He was"; HWH howê : "He is"; and YHYH yihiyê : "He will be". This is supposed to show that God is timeless, as some have translated the name as "The Eternal One". Other interpretations include the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." This can be seen in the traditional Jewish account of the "burning bush" commanding Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM has sent you." (Exodus 3:13-14) Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM" , or "I AM whatever I need to become". This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists" or "He who causes to exist".

The name YHWH was not always applied to a monotheistic God: see Asherah and other gods, Elohim (gods) and Yaw (god).

Transcription

Using consonants as semi-vowels

Further, Josephus's four vowels are confirmed by theophoric stems in personal names, always: Yaho/Yahu/Y:ho/Y:hu.These yield in English Yau and Yao, which are pronounced the same. Once again, the heh is not pronounced here in Hebrew, but is used instead as a place holder. Moreover, Gnostic texts, such as those Marcion wrote, discuss the Judaic god extensively, and spell the Tetragrammaton in Greek, Ιαω, that is "Yao." Lastly, Levantine texts (including those from ancient Ugarit) render the Tetragrammaton Yaw, pronounced "Yau."[http://www.domainofman.com/forum/index.cgi?noframes;read=211

Vowel marks

To make the reading of Hebrew easier, marks or points above and below the letters were added to the text by the Masoretes, to function as vowels. See Niqqud for details. Several manuscripts from the 7th century and on contain vowel marks over the Tetragrammaton. Unfortunately, these do not shed much light on the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. For example, the Leningrad codex contains six different variations on the vowel marks of the Tetragrammaton.

An added problem is that the diacritical vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton may have served a purpose other than indicating the pronunciation. When the text is read out loud by Jews, the Tetragrammaton is replaced by the word Adonai ("my Lord(s)"), Elohim ("God(s)"), Hashem ("the name"), or Elokim (no meaning), depending on circumstances (see Jewish use of the word below). Since someone reading the text aloud might inadvertently pronounce the name, the diacritical vowels of Adonai or Elohim are normally printed with the consonant letters of the Tetragrammaton, to remind the reader to make the change, so the text contains the letters YHWH interlaced with the vowel marks of Adonai/Elohim (a masoretic device known as Q're perpetuum which was also applied in a number of other cases, such as giving the spelling הוא in the Pentateuch an "i" vowel diacritic to indicate that sometimes it should be pronounced as a feminine pronoun hi, rather than a masculine pronoun hu). This is the case in modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, and also explains a number of medieval codices. In other words, these marks do not and were never intended to explain how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.

In particular, there is a possible explanation of the vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton in the Ben Chayim codex of 1525 (see its importance below). It is worth noting that the aleph in Adonai has a hataf-patah (pronounced "ah" in Modern Hebrew) under it while the yod in the Tetragrammaton has a sheva (pronounced as a very short "eh" in Modern Hebrew). In other words, the Masoretes did not point YHWH with the precise vowel points of Adonai.

Note that in the image above and to the right, "YHWH intended to be pronounced as Adonai" "" and "Adonai with its slightly different vowel points" "" do not have the precise same vowel points.

This difference is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. The Hebrew word Adonai, grammatically a plural form of the word Adon with the possessive suffix, uses the pattern "shva-holam-kamatz", but, because of glottal nature of aleph, the shva in Adonai is replaced by hataf-patah. Since yod is not a glottal consonant, it uses the vowel shva required by the pattern.

It should be noted that at Psalms 144:15 in the BHS text, the Masoretes chose to place a hatef-patah ( )under the yod in YHWH where YHWH was prefixed with a Shin. , but in the 6518 occurrences of in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew Text of 1525 A.D., they placed a simple shewa ( ) not a ( ) under the yod.

Sir Godfry Driver wrote: "The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in A.D. 1530 in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles." The English transcription "Iehovah", is found in the 1611 edition of the King James Bible, and during the 1762-1769 edit of the KJV, the spelling "Iehovah" was changed to "Jehovah" (in accordance with the general differentiation of I/J and U/V into separate letters which developed over the course of the 17th century in English). Thus began a period where the word was rendered: "Jehovah". The Jerusalem Bible (1966) uses Yahweh exclusively.

Transcription in other languages

Yahweh

19th Century scholars disputed the vowel points of ""

Wilhelm Gesenius Punctuated YHWH as "" (i.e. Yahweh)

This vocalized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton "" (i.e., Yahweh), is sometimes referred to as a "Scholarly Reconstruction" and is believed to have been based in large part on various Greek transcriptions, such as (ιαουε—iaoue and ιαουαι—iaouai and ιαβε—Iabe) dating from the first centuries AD.

"" Yahweh may have represented Epiphanius's "Iαβε"

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 says: Inserting the vowels of Jabe Latin form of Iabe into the Hebrew consonant text, we obtain the form Jahveh (Yahweh), which has been generally accepted by modern scholars as the true pronunciation of the Divine name;⁹.

Scholarly sources in which "" is found

=Smith's 1863 A.D. A Dictionary of the Bible

However, although "" was not the only scholarly reconstructed vocalized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton that appeared in scholarly sources in the 19th century, it gradually became accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vocalized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton.

=The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906 A.D.

If the explanation of the form above given be the true one, the original pronunciation must have been Yahweh () or Yahaweh (). From this the contracted form Jah or Yah ( ) is most readily explained, and also the forms Jeho or Yeho ( = = ), and Jo or Yo ( contracted from ), which the word assumes in combination in the first part of compound proper names, and Yahu or Yah ( = (image) in the second part of such names.

=The early 1900's Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon

"n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel."

Criticism of the form "Yahweh"

"When the Tetragrammaton was pronounced in one syllable it was ‘Yah’ or ‘Yo.’ When it was pronounced in three syllables it would have been ‘Yahowah’ or ‘Yahoowah.’ If it was ever abbreviated to two syllables it would have been ‘Yaho.’" BAR 21.2 (March-April 1995),31 George W. Buchanan, "How God’s Name Was Pronounced"

The name "Yahweh" is not clearly found in the Hebrew Scriptures

Jewish use of the word

According to rabbinic tradition, the name was pronounced by the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement as well as the only day when the Holy of Holies of the Temple would be entered. With the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70, this use also vanished, also explaining the loss of the correct pronunciation. (In one midrashic tradition, only seven Cohanim, or individuals of priestly lineage, know the true name of God, and it is passed down throughout the generations to be ready for invocation during the building of the Third Jewish Temple.)

There is a Jewish tradition that the actual name of God, only known to and stated by the high priest, was actually 72 letters long. The name was written out on a long strip of parchment, then folded and slipped inside the fold of the high priest's bejeweled breastplate. When someone would ask the high priest a question of Torah, or Jewish law, the high priest could invoke the Name, wherein the 12 jewels, representing the 12 tribes of the Israelites, would light up in a certain order whose meaning was, too, only known to the high priest. Through the power of the 72-letter name of God, the high priest communed, as it were, with the Almighty.

Why 72 letters? The answer may be found in the medieval rabbinic use of Gematria, that is assigning a number to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, allowing scholars to attribute numeric sums to words, find equivalencies in certain words, even use sums to try to predict a year and date for the coming of the Messiah. Even today, Jews often attribute mystical significance to the number 18, which has a possible Hebrew letter equivalent in the word "Chai", meaning "Life". Using "Gematria", we find that "Chai" equals 18: it's composed of the letter "chet", which equals 8, and the letter "yod", which equals 10, i.e. 8+10=18; consequently 18x4=72, so, in a sense, each letter of the 4-letter form of the Name represents a metaphoric symbol of the living power of God. Also, when the letters of the Tetragrammaton are arranged in a Kabbalistic tetractys formation, the sum of all the letters is 72 by Gematria (as shown in the diagram). Keeping along these lines, the Tetragrammaton, since it's only an abbreviation of the actual name, is not as powerful by nature (or supernature) as the original full name of God, though it's still not something to use in vain.

When most religious Jews refer to the name of God in conversation or in a non-textual context such as in a book, newspaper or letter, they call the name HaShem, which means "the Name." Similarly, the word Elohim is prononuced "Elokim" outside of certain religious contexts when it refers to God, and likewise for a few other names of God. When any such word is used to refer to anything but God (e.g., HaShem), it is pronounced as normal by even the most traditionalist Jews.

A number of modern translations of the Hebrew Bible and of Jewish liturgy render the Tetragrammaton as "the ETERNAL" (emphasized or all caps), because it is gender-neutral (unlike "The Lord"). The Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton are the only ones required to write the Hebrew sentence "haya, hove, ve-yiheyeh" (He was, He is, and He shall be), hence "Eternal."

Alternative names

Another name, four-letter word, has lost its popularity because of association with expletives. Some people refer to the Tetragrammaton as Hebrew word #3068 after the numbering in James Strong's concordance. See also The name of God in Judaism.

Popular culture

Religious Broadcasting

• The Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by Pat Robertson, started out as a UHF television station called WYAH-TV (for "Yahweh") in the early 1960s.

Art

• A crucified Jesus below a radiant Tetragrammaton is found in the church of St. Marri at Paris, near the Centre Pompidou.

Films

• In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones must cross a room of lettered tiles. To step on the wrong letter would trigger a deadly trap. An ancient Latin manuscript provides a clue to safe passage: he must walk in a sequence that will spell out "the name of God." He remembers not a moment too soon that "in the Latin alphabet, 'Jehovah' begins with an 'I'".
• In Equilibrium, a dystopic view of the future in which the government mandates that all individuals take psychiatric medications to suppress feeling, the agency responsible for policing the state is known as the Tetragrammaton.
• In Pi, a group of kabbalistic Jews looking for the true name of God enlist the help of a mathematician to analyze the Torah.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian, a man is persecuted for saying out loud the name of God ("I only said that this bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!"). The accuser then accidentally lets this "blasphemy" slip out and is himself stoned.
• In Bruce Almighty, Yahweh! is the name given to Bruce's computerized tool for sorting prayers to answer, parodying popular search engine Yahoo!.
• In Ghoulies, the phrase "yod hay vav hay" is said to summon up the evil spirits that ultimately become the ghoulies.

Literature

• The Tetragrammaton features extensively in Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, and in short stories such as "Death and the Compass" by Jorge Luis Borges.
• In Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe, the "real" pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is rendered as "Yahu-Wahu". (The "evidence" for this is that the cartoon character representing the author is struck by lightning while speculating whether the original pronunciation of YHWH is "Yehowah ^*, Yahweh, or even Yahu-Wahu". Later in the book, Israelites are shown attacking a Canaanite city while uttering the war cry "Yahoo! Wahoo!").
• In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, a sort of alternate history in which magic and religion have objective reality and scientific status, the Tetragrammaton is used as the insignia of United States Army Intelligence units.
• In the book All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams, the dark magician Simon the Clerk uses an ultra-powerful spell of destruction or dissolution called the Anti-Tetragrammaton.
• In the work of Nikos Kazantzakis "The Last Temptation of Christ", in the form "Jehovah".
• In Philip K. Dick's novel Eye in the Sky, the eponymous Eye belongs to a god referred to as "(Tetragrammaton)".

Music

• Yahweh is the closing track on U2's 2004 album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.
• ApologetiX, a Christian parody band, wrote a parody of YMCA entitled YHWH
• Progressive rock band The Mars Volta have a song titled Tetragrammaton on their 2006 album, Amputechture

Games

• A popular RPG series in Japan by Atlus called Shin Megami Tensei features a representation of YHVH in its Super Nintendo games Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II.
• In the cult-classic RPG Xenogears the game's main villain, the false god "Deus," is an extremely powerful biological weapon which is the key part to the "Yaweh" planetary invasion system.
• The entity Jenova's name in Final Fantasy VII is derived from Jehova. Her name is said to be a blend of Jehova and nova literaly meaning "New God", which is exactly what she and her "son" Sephiroth are trying to become in the game.

See also

• Adonai
• Ancient of Days
• -ihah
• Jah
• El (god)
• Elohim
• I am that I am
• INRI
• Yahweh

Other:

• Iaoue — the story of one Greek transliteration of the Tetragrammaton
• Names of God in Judaism
• Rael - claims to have met Yahweh Elohim during a UFO encounter in 1973.
• Yaw

References

Footnotes

1. Galatin, Peter - De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis, 1518, folio xliii

2. See pages 128 and 236 of the book "Who Were the Early Israelites?" by archeologist William G. Dever, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003.

3.Wilhelm Gesenius is noted for being one of the greatest Hebrew and biblical scholars.

4. Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament was first translated into English in 1824,

5. Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible"

6. Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910-1911 Page 312

7.Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible": Clement of Alexandria wrote "Iaou" not "Iaoue" at Stromata Book V.

8. Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible": Yahweh supposed to have been derived from Samaritan "IaBe"

9. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 under the sub-heading: To take up the ancient writers

10. The online Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906

External links

• The Divine Name in Norway
• Arbel, Ilil. "Yahweh." Encyclopedia Mythica. 2004.
• "Jehovah." Easton's Bible Dictionary (3rd ed.) 1887.
• "Jehovah (Yahweh)." Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8. 1910.
• Jewish Encyclopedia count of number of times the Tetragrammation is used
• Nazarenes and the Name of YHWH, an article by James Trimm
• The Historical Evolution of the Hebrew God
• The Rise of God
• The Sacred Name Yahweh, a publication by Qadesh La Yahweh Press
• Biblaridion magazine: Phanerosis Theology: The Tetragrammaton and God's manifestation.
• HaVaYaH the Tetragrammation in the Jewish Knowledge Base on chabad.org
• Titles of Deity, a Christadelphian view
• YHWH/YHVH -- Tetragrammaton
• South African Sacred Name Use and Discovery, History of the Sacred name use in South Africa from early 1900's

Christian theology | Names of God in Judaism | West Semitic deities | Yahwism

Xehová | 耶和華 | Jehovà | JHVH | Jehova | JHWH | Τετραγράμματο | Yahveh | Jehovo | Jahve | YHWH | השם המפורש | Jahve | Tetragrammaton | Tetragramma biblico | テトラグラマトン | Yehovah | JHWH | Jahve | Jahwe | Tetragrama | Тетраграмматон | Jahve | JHVH | 耶和華