Lord Yahweh God Almighty. For many years it was appropriate to say: "Well, we don't really know the correct and proper Name of God, as it has been lost, and we definitely don't know how to pronounce it." That is not true today, due to archeological finds, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a better concept of history, and understanding of scripture and the Hebrew language. The Jews, also, are more open in admitting why the Masoretes hid the Name of God, a Name too sacred -- they believed -- for even Jews to pronounce, let alone heathen dogs. When you combine the Tetragrammaton with the vowels of "Adonai," you get a name "that cannot be pronounced!"
Not because it is too holy to speak or write, but because it is literally impossible to pronounce (in English it has been transliterated as "Jehovah"). The name "Jehovah" can be found in four places in the King James Version, but in zero places in the New King James Version. "Jehovah" is not God's name, but a man-made name that was created specifically to hide the true Name of God.
Even today, Jews consider it perfectly appropriate to say and write the name "Jehovah," as it is not considered the sacred pronounciation. Let me repeat: Jehovah is not the Name of God and it has never been. It is very improper to employ, say and/or pray Jehovah, because it is a distinctly, purposeful mispronounciation of God's Name -- it is saying God's name incorrectly, and saying it incorrectly on purpose (it is purposefully breaking both the Third Commandment, and the Ninth). Granted, when most people today employ the name Jehovah, they are not intentionally mispronouncing God's holy Name, but feel they are using it correctly, and pleasingly to God; however, the fact is, you cannot change God's Name by a popular vote of lowly humans.
Many great men and women of God have, through the tradition of men, mistakenly used the name Jehovah and held it in great esteem. This does not mean that these great men and women of God were bad people, only ignorant of the Truth. When you learn that your tradition is man-made and wrong, you repent and follow God to the best of your ability.
Even when saying the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH," the very Name of God is breathed, and with great power it is pronounced correctly.
Yahweh.
It is true, when we meet God face to Face, and speak to Him in a new language, with a new name, and a new body and spirit, we will perhaps only then pronounce His Name as He says it, properly, but then again perhaps the Name of Yahweh will always be beyond mere humans, even in a perfected state.
In English, we know the best Name is Yahweh.
In the most ancient Old Testament manuscripts, God's True Name is depicted as the Tetragrammaton, the four letters: YHWH.
You can still find the four letters "YHWH" in interlinear versions of the King James Version, or in Strong's. In the KJV, every time LORD is printed (in all captial letters, it is YHWH, Yahweh), you are witnessing the remnant of God's Name, hidden before your very eyes.
Note, when you know better, when your eyes have been opened to ignorance, you will not wish to use the man-made name of "Jehovah," which is not God's Name, and is intentionally not correct (let me state this another way, in case you are missing my meaning: the name "Jehovah" is intentionally incorrect, meaning that it is wrong on purpose, it was intentionally created to be a false name of God, so that you, my dear friend and reader, would not be impertinent to either KNOW God's Name, or especially SAY God's Name).
When you know better, and you intentionally use this name, then you are intentionally misusing God's Name, and you are intentionally blaspheming God's holy Name:
You shall not take the Name of Yahweh
your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Exodus 20:24
Know God's Name, Yahweh, and incorporate God's Holy Name in your prayer life, in your relationship with God. The Bible makes it amply clear, God wants you to know His Name, Yahweh, and say His Name, pray His Name. Do not be intentionally ignorant. Do not intentionally misuse God's Name. Please, take the Third Commandment as seriously as you take the Fourth Commandment.
The king of Salem, we are told, was also a priest of El Elyon, God Most High, whom we know to have been the chief god of the Canaanites. "Blessed be Abram of God Most High," says the king-priest of Salem. Israelite tradition recorded Abraham as responding in the name of his own God. "I swear to YHWH" -- possibly pronounced Yahweh, not Jehovah, and never spoken by devout Jews -- "God Most High." (Wanderings, Chaim Potok's History of the Jews, Page 31)
Complete Jewish Bible
The English word "Jehovah" is an English representation of the Name (J-H-V-H) combined with the vowel sounds of "Adonai," a hybrid word without historical foundation. Most English translations represent the Name by "LORD," written as it is here, in large and small capital letters. "Complete Jewish Bible" an English Version by David H. Stern.
Bible Review August 2003
Bernhard Lang, Pages 49-54
...within the Biblical era the Name Yahweh came to be considered a particularly sacred name, one that should be used with caution or not at all. When and by whom a sacred taboo was placed on the Name Yahweh to restrict its pronunciation remains unknown. In modern Judaism, the Name Yahweh is not spoken. Presumably when scriptural passages were read aloud in ancient synagogues, the reader simply replaced Yahweh with Adonai (literally, "My Lord") or some other word. In the second century B.C.E., when the Pentateuch was translated from Hebrew into Greek for the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Alexandria, the divine Name Yahweh was replaced by kyrios, the Greek word for "the Lord."
In the Hebrew Bible we can detect some awareness of this taboo. The Name Yahweh was apparently deleted from many passages in Psalms 42 through 83 at a very early stage and replaced with Elohim (in Psalms 42-83, Elohim occurs more than four times as often as Yahweh, whereas in the rest of Psalms, Yahweh is used 20 times more often than Elohim).
New Jerusalem Bible
Yahweh - The personal name of God revealed to Moses, and treasured as a sign of intimacy and favour. The later Jews regarded it as too sacred to be pronounced; only the consonants YHWH were written. The meaning "I Am what I Am" or "He Who Is" is perhaps a refusal to give a meaning; or it may suggest that God is the cause of being. Exodus 3:13; 34:6.
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Genesis 2:4
[In the day that the Lord God made, the earth and the heavens,] The word Yahweh (heb 3068) is for the first time mentioned here. What it signifies see at <Exo. 34:5-6>. Wherever this word occurs in the sacred writings we translate it "LORD", Which word is, through respect and reverence, always printed in capitals. Though our English term "Lord" does not give the particular meaning of the original word, yet it conveys a strong and noble sense. "Lord" is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon Hlaford, afterward written Loverd, and lastly Lord, from hlaf, "bread"; hence, our word "loaf," and ford, "to supply, to give out." The word, therefore, implies "the giver of bread," i.e., he who deals out all the necessaries of life. Our ancient English noblemen were accustomed to keep a continual open house, where all their vassals, and all strangers, had full liberty to enter and eat as much as they would and hence, those noblemen had the honourable name of lords, i. e., the dispensers of bread.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God 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 for ever, and this is my memorial unto all
generations. Exodus 3:15
[This is my name for ever] The name here referred to is that which immediately precedes, Yahweh (heb 3068) 'Elohiym (heb 430), which we translate the "LORD GOD," the name by which God had been known from the creation of the world (see <Gen. 2:4>), and the name by which he is known among the same people to the present day. Even the heathens knew this name of the true God; and hence, out of our "Yahweh" (heb 3068), Jehovah, they formed their Jao, Jeve, and Jove; so that the word has been literally fulfilled, This is my memorial unto all generations. See the note on the word "Elohim", <Gen. 1:1>. As to be self-existent and eternal must be attributes of God forever, does it not follow that the lª`olaam (heb 5769), forever, in the text signifies eternity' "This is my name to eternity-- and my memorial," lªdor (heb 1755) dor (heb 1755), "to all succeeding generations." While human generations continue he shall be called the God of Abraham the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; but when time shall be no more, he shall be Jehovah Elohim. Hence, the first expression refers to his eternal existence, the latter to the discovery he should make of himself as long as time should last. See <Gen. 21:33>. Diodorus Siculus says, that "among the Jews, Moses is reported to have received his laws from the God named Jao, Iaoo, i. e., Jeue, Jove, or Jeve; for in all these ways the word Yahweh (heb 3068) may be pronounced; and in this way I have seen it on Egyptian monuments. See Diod., lib. l., c. xciv.
Information Garnished from Yahweh's New Covenant Assembly(www.ynca.com):
"Strictly speaking, this ought to be rendered 'Yahweh,' which is familiar to modern readers in the erroneous form of 'Jehovah.' Were this a version intended for students of the original, there would be no hesitation whatever in printing 'Yahweh.'" (James Moffet's preface to his translation of the Bible)
The Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge that the name "Jehovah" is improper. Their book, "Let Your Name Be Sanctified" freely admits on pages 16 and 18 that Yahweh is the superior translation of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH). This book has lately been withdrawn. However, in the preface of their "The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures," we find on page 23 the following admission:
"While inclining to view the pronunciation 'Yahweh' as the more correct way, we have retained the form 'Jehovah' because of people's familiarity with it since the 14th century. Moreover, it preserves equally with other forms, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton JHVH."
Dr. J. B. Rotherham states in the preface of his Bible concerning Jehovah: "Erroneously written and pronounced Jehovah, which is merely a combination of the sacred Tetragrammaton and the vowels in the Hebrew word for Lord, substituted by the Jews for JHVH, because they shrank from pronouncing The Name, owing to an old misconception of the two passages, Ex. 20:7 and Lev. 24:16...To give the name JHVH the vowels of the word for Lord [Heb. Adonai], is about as hybrid a combination as it would be to spell the name Germany with the vowels in the name Portugal - viz., Gormuna. The monstrous combination Jehovah is not older than about 1520 A.D."
Rotherham was ahead of his time, but now many current dictionaries and encyclopedias admit the name Jehovah is wrong, that it properly should read "Yahweh."
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Micropedia, vol. 10) says: "Yahweh -- the personal name of the [El] of the Israelites ...The Masoretes, Jewish biblical scholars of the Middle Ages, replaced the vowel signs that had appeared above or beneath the consonants of YHWH with the vowel signs of Adonai or of Elohim. Thus the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh, thus this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost. Greek transcriptions also indicate that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh."
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And God said yet further unto Moses -- Thus shalt thou say
unto the sons of Israel,
Yahweh
God of your fathers.
God of Abraham
God of Isaac and
God of Jacob,
hath sent me unto you.
This, is my name
to times age-abiding,
And, this, my memorial
to generation
after generation.
Exodus 3:15
Rothrham
Now therefore, what do I here, saith the LORD, seeing that My people is taken away for nought? They that rule over them do howl, saith the LORD, and My name continually all the day is blasphemed. Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore they shall know in that day that I, even He that spoke, behold, here I am.
The monstrous combination Jehovah is not older than about 1520 A.D.
- J.B. Rotherham
The monstrous combination Jehovah is not older than about 1520 A.D.
- J.B. Rotherham
The monstrous combination Jehovah is not older than about 1520 A.D.
- J.B. Rotherham
Exodus 3:15
Exodus 23:13
Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:21
Psalm 83:18
Psalms 105:1
1 Chronicles 23:12
Isaiah in 42:8
Jeremiah 10:11
Joel 2:31-32, 3:5
1 Timothy 6:16
"Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used the form Yahweh, thus this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost. Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh," Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th Edition, Vol. X, p. 786.
"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.’ This is confirmed, at least for the vowels of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the yahu or yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names," Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 7, p. 680.
At Chicago-based GIA Publications, another major Catholic publisher of hymnals, no major revisions will be necessary, because of the company's longtime editorial policy against use of the word "Yahweh." Kelly Dobbs-Mickus, senior editor at GIA Publications, told CNS Aug. 11 that the policy, which dates to 1986, was based not on Vatican directives but on sensitivity to concerns among observant Jews about pronouncing the name of God. As an example, she cited Heinrich Schutz's "Thanks Be to Yahweh," which appears in a GIA hymnal under the title "Thanks Be to God."
Not because it is too holy to speak or write, but because it is literally impossible to pronounce (in English it has been transliterated as "Jehovah"). The name "Jehovah" can be found in four places in the King James Version, but in zero places in the New King James Version. "Jehovah" is not God's name, but a man-made name that was created specifically to hide the true Name of God.
