The
Tetragrammaton:
Scripture's Most Frequent NAME
The various words that describe
God—Lord, Almighty, the Creator, etc.—are correct and they are used in
the Bible. However, there is a NAME for Him that the Bible uses more
often than any of these. It is God’s personalNAME, and that name
should remind us of all the things we know about him. That name pronounced as
Jehovah in English, or maybe Yehowah or Yahweh in the original Hebrew, occurs in
the original text of the Bible far more often than does any other word or
title for God. One Comprehensive Concordance of a translation that uses the
Divine Name takes 77 columns to list each time “Jehovah” and it is the most
frequent entry of the Concordance.
Translators
who substituted the name of God for the titles of LORD and GOD did much harm to
the true monotheistic message of the Scriptures.Check out the frequency that the name YHWH
was used in comparison to the titles for God just in the Jewish writings,
misnomered “Old Testament”:
YHWH/JHVH [Yehowah/Jehovah] —6,973 times
God—2,605 times
Almighty—48 times
Lord—40 times
Maker—25 times
Creator—7 times
Father—7 times
Ancient of Days—3 times
Grand Instructor—2 times
Watch the following video or read the
transcription below:
Transcript of the video
Bible's Viewpoint
God's Name
There are quite a few songs and verses that talk about God's name ... yet many
people fail to see the importance of it.
Here are a few instances in the Bible of Jesus speaking of
God's name: Mt 6:9; Jn 17:6, 26; 5:43; 12:13, 28
So, what is God's name?
In the Bible, God's name in Hebrew translates to YHWH or JHVH in English. Add
vowels for pronunciation and you have Jehovah or Yehowah.
Many people disagree with using the pronunciation "Jehovah" because it is
unlikely that is how it was originally pronounced.
But if one holds to that, they must also reject Jesus in favor of the more
accurate Yeshua, replace Jeremiah with Yirmeyahu, and abandon Isaiah for
Yeshaeyahu, say Yerushalayim instead of Jerusalem, and so on.
We change names
when we translate into different languages. For example, Matthew in Spanish is
Mateo.
The point is connecting with God on a personal level by using his name, and also
using names appropriate for the language you are speaking in ... the name people
can easily understand and identify.
Most translations replace Jehovah's name nearly 7,000 times with "the LORD" or
other similar substitutes. This, of course, goes against the Bible's warning to
to add or take from the Scriptures (Re 22:18-19) and it is just plain
disrespectful.
However, some versions do pick and choose when to keep God's name in
there; for example, when it wouldn't make sense without it.
Today we don't know exactly for sure how to pronounce God's name. But should that
stop us from using it?
We sometimes use nicknames for people, even if it is not technically "correct."
And as we have seen, Jesus would have been called Yeshua! The point is that we
are communicating with God on a personal level, not with impersonal, general
pronouns (we don't call our best friend "guy" or "girl" or "person"), we dignify
him by using the name he gives himself in the Bible.
1 Corinthians 8:5-6 says:
For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as
there be gods many and lords man, but to us there is but one God, the Father
[whose name is Jehovah], of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord,
the Christ [whose name is Jesus] by whom all things are, and we by him.
So, whether you call him Jehovah, Yahweh, Yah, Jah, Yehowah, or another
common version
you speak, it helps you draw close to him.
Joel 2:32 says: Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.
How Many Names does the True God Have?
Wikipedia's
Tetragrammaton article might cause
some confusion for those of us doing research on God's personal name.
Under
Names of God it lists
72 for Judaism,
99 for Islam and
many
thousands for Hinduism. However, since we worship, as Ephesians 1:17 states,
"the God of our Lord Jesus Christ", we would want to address Him as His
Son would have. Did he ever suggest that his Father had more than one name?
No, he never did.
There is a big difference between titles and
a name. Let us use an example, that of
Barack Hussein Obama II.
How many names does the President of the United States have? Answer:
ONLY ONE. If people
respectfully address him as Mr. President, does that mean his name is
"President"? Of course not; President is a title, not a name. His name has four parts;
Barack Hussein Obama II, so, Does that mean he has
four names? No, it does not; he has a first, middle and last name plus a suffix
that differentiates him from his deceased
father. Do people or did people confuse the President with his
father, since their
names are exactly alike except for the suffix? There is no indication that it
occurred with any frequency and if it did it was due to someone not
knowing neither the father nor the son (e.g., a vender calling to sell life
insurance).
Your name is your identity, it
distinguishes you from seven billion other individuals currently living on this
plant. You wouldn't complicate things by giving yourself 72, 99 or several
thousand names, would you? You wouldn't do it, so, Why would God give himself
many names just to confuse us here on earth and then after all that claim that
He is nameless or that His real name is ineffable
even though it appears over 7,000 times in the Holy Scriptures?
It would be silly for anyone to argue about a
President's name, it would certainly bring him no honor; and yet that is exactly
what otherwise reasonable people do regarding the Holiest of Holy names. These
same people shout Halleluiah! yet never realize they are saying in Hebrew
Praise Jah!Jah is the shortened form of Jehovah.
Just as
there are those who try to
dishonor the current U.S. President claiming he has no right to the office due to his
name and heritage, traditional Christianity, through
trinitarianism, dishonors God by deliberately
confusing Him with His Son and discounting God's personal name by implying that
Jehovah was the God of the Old Testament but Jesus is God's name in the New
Testament. They believe that by doing this they are glorifying Jesus, but one
cannot honor a son by dishonoring his father. By dishonoring the Father,
they are dishonoring the Son!
(John 5:19-24)
Therefore, in answer, Jesus went on to say to them:
“Most truly I say to you, The Son cannot do a single thing of his own
initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that
One does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father has
affection for the Son and shows him all the things he himself does, and he will
show him works greater than these, in order that you may marvel. For just as the
Father raises the dead up and makes them alive, so the Son also makes those
alive whom he wants to. For the Father judges no one at all, but he has
committed all the judging to the Son, in order that all may honor the Son just
as they honor the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the
Father who sent him. Most truly I say to you, He that hears my word and believes
him that sent me has everlasting life, and he does not come into judgment but
has passed over from death to life."
Scripture clearly support the concept of one
name for the one true God we are supposed to worship. Those who argue against this
notion are not consistent in their reasoning. The Tetragrammaton refers to the
four letters that represent God's only personal name, that being YHWH in Hebrew
translated into JHVH in English and most European languages. Variations of the
Tetragrammaton only amount to translation issues just as any name of any
individual will vary according to the tongue of the inhabitants who come in
contact with it. Nit picking on controversies surrounding the exact
pronunciation is evidently a waste of time and serves only as a distraction to
what is of utmost importance: recognition of that Name and glorifying it.
I hope that this introduction will help
sincere ones who desire to worship God and glorify his NAME.
You decide:
Does it
make sense not to use the Divine Name?
What is the
reasoning behind the recent trend to completely remove God's personal name
from modern translations of the holy Scriptures?
Here is the common
justification taken from the
Preface of the Revised Standard Version:
“For two
reasons the Committee has returned to the more familiar usage of the King
James Version: (1) the word ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent any form
of the Name ever used in Hebrew; and (2) the use of any proper name for the
one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom he had to be
distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is
entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.”
How do you feel
about this? Is this a logical argument against using God's name? Is it
consistent with the use of other names in the Bible?
Concerning the first listed
reason given: the word ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent any
form of the Name ever used in Hebrew. This is due to the uncertainty of
the exact pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. But is that reasonable enough
to label "Jehovah" as a word and not even to dignify it as a a name?
Personal names vary from language to language.
Our name sounds different and
is even spelled another way in a foreign tongue. Nevertheless, it is the
same name. My name in English is spelled two ways: Stephen and Steven,
yet they are pronounced the same; however, in Spanish it is spelled Esteban
and pronounced eh-stay-bawn; and in German it is Stefan.
With regards
to God's personal name, Yahweh might be a more accurate Hebrew
rendering, but if we choose to adopt that version or translation it would
also require we change all names in the Bible that incorporate that name as
well! (Watch the video below) We would even have to change the
name of our Lord and Savior to Yehoshua. Such a task would not only cause
confusion but even convey the message we are referring to different
identities.
With regards to
the the Preface of the Revised Standard Version'ssecond line of reasoning: Do you believe Jesus followed Jewish tradition
of his day? He told them: “You have made the word of God invalid because
of your tradition.” (Matthew 15:6) Can you imagine Jesus superstitiously substituting
God's name when he publically read from the book of Isaiah as recorded in
the Gospel of Luke 4:16-21? Furthermore, if we are supposed to follow Jewish
tradition and accept their viewpoint that YHWH is the
ineffable name of
God,
What would stop us from adopting other traditions including disqualifying
Jesus as the Messiah? The Preface admits that the Jews "discontinued" using
God's name, meaning that they used to use it. What the committee is
saying is that we should follow the tradition of unfaithful Jews who "made
the word of God invalid because of [their] tradition." We can decide to
follow either tradition or "the word of God".
Without being dogmatic concerning this
issue, the following
video illustrates why Jehovah is a reasonable translation of the Divine Name
into the English language and why the original Hebrew pronunciation may have
been a three-syllable similar-sounding Yehowah. My stance on this,
however, is that the pronunciation of THE NAME should be the most common
form in one's language: In English it would have to be Jehovah, in Spanish
it would be Jehová [Hay-O-Vah], and in every other language that common form
would depend on the most popular Bible that uses a translation of YHWH.
I
hope you enjoy the video and its common sense approach as much as I do.
In speaking about primitive Christianity, one can
start with the prayer Jesus gave us as a model.It is recorded in the inspired Christian writings at
Matthew 6:9
and lists as first and foremost to pray for God’s name to be made holy.
Giving the God we worship a name shows the level of
our sincerity.People who worship Jesus,
believing that he is part of a triune god,
talk about him and glorify him all the time by using his name.The same can be said about people who worship other gods, that use that
god's name.In fact, the only way we could praise anyone
at all requires using that person’s name.
Why is there so much confusion and mystery surrounding
the Tetragrammaton, the proper name of God Almighty?According to
Wiktionary
and
Wikipedia,
the Tetragrammaton is:
“The four
Hebrew letters Yod He
Waw He (הוהי)(in
transliteration,
YHWH or JHVH) used as the
ineffable name of
God in the Hebrew bible,
variously transliterated as
Yahweh or
Jehovah.” And […] “Of all the names of
God, the one which occurs
most frequently is the Tetragrammaton, appearing
6,823 times, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. The BibliaHebraica and BibliaHebraicaStuttgartensia
texts of the Hebrew Scriptures each contain the Tetragrammaton
6,828 times.”
Why
would the Tetragrammaton become ineffable when
repeated so frequently in the written form?
Although the article above states that the Tetragrammaton
is the most used “of all the names of God”, in reality, the other referred to names are
merely titles, and not names at all.
Think
about the following statement:
There’ is no god but God.
Since god/God is a title, such as would be the titles
of Lord, King, President, etc., therefore, the above statement does not tell us much
about God, does it? The same could be said with following statements:
There is no lord but Lord.
There is no king but King.
There is no president but President.
Do
these statements not sound strange and incomplete? Without proper names they do not tell us
anything at all, do they? For clarification, aren’t you inclined to
want to add a name after each title? Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Paul McCarthy, King George III or specifying President George W. Bush
as different from President George H. Bush maybe?
In the
same way There is no god but God is simply too ambiguous.Also God is the Only True God is
a tautology, that is to say a needless repetition or redundancy.
The Supreme Being,
the Almighty Creator. the Only True God has many titles that reflect who He is,
however, He has given himself only ONE NAME: Yod He
Waw He or הוהיorYHWH or JHVH rendered Jehovah in English and maybe
Yahweh in Hebrew. The meaning of the Divine Name
[the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb ha·wah (become);
meaning “He Causes to Become”], teaches us that he causes himself to become whatever he chooses in order to fulfill his purposes.
Every lover of righteousness who reads the inspired
Scriptures and who truly comes to “know” with understanding the full meaning of
God's personal name, Jehovah (Ps 9:9, 10; 91:14; Jer 16:21) has every reason, therefore, to
love and bless that name (Ps 72:18-20; 119:132; Heb 6:10), praise and exalt it
(Ps 7:17; Isa 25:1; Heb 13:15), fear and sanctify it (Ne 1:11; Mal 2:4-6;
3:16-18; Mt 6:9), trust in it (Ps 33:21; Pr 18:10)
The most decisive
argument for the replacement of the Tetragrammaton by the
alternative Adonai stems from the double expression Adonai and
the Tetragrammaton (hwhy ynFd$)j, Adonai plus
the Tetragrammaton, see for instance Amos 7:1; 8:1, etc.). In case of these
double expressions, the vowels of the Qere are not the vowels of Adonai, but
of Elohim (MyihwOl)v), turning the double expression into Adonai Elohim (hwOhye
ynFd$)j,, Adonai Elohim) instead of Adonai Adonai. According to some scholars,
the Masoretes wanted to avoid the repetition of Adonai after the title Adonai,
thus avoid the reading Adonai Adonai. They instead filled out the vowels of the
Tetragrammaton with the vowels of the word Elohim, creating the reading Adonai
Elohim instead of Adonai Adonai. This accordingly proves that the Tetragrammaton
was normally read as Adonai.
Does this "most decisive argument for the
replacement of the Tetragrammaton" make any sense at all to any reasoning
person? Or is it just plain gibberish and double talk? "This accordingly
proves that the Tetragrammaton was normally read as Adonai"? All it proves
and the only thing it does prove is that individuals that formed a particular
group in the past deliberately altered their method of reading the
Tetragrammaton when they came across it. This was due to superstition, a concept
not supported anywhere in the Scriptures and, therefore, they had no authority
to implement it themselves nor impose it on others. Furthermore, the above uses
this circular argument to justify not only pronouncing the Tetragrammaton but
also writing of it. In effect they are saying: "Because the Masoretes
substituted the Tetragrammaton with Adonai [Lord], and to follow their tradition
is just too complicated for us, we can therefore justify substituting the
Tetragrammaton altogether, both written and oral, and be done with it."
●
A new Bible index, “The NIV Complete Concordance” has been published for the
“New International Version.” The preface of the new concordance notes that
in the NIV, as in a number of other translations, “the proper name of God,
‘Yahweh,’ is translated ‘LORD,’” using all capital letters, and that the
Hebrew word for lord, “Adonai,” is also translated “Lord,” but with
lowercase letters after the initial capital. Occurrences of the two words
are listed separately in the concordance.
It is of interest that the listing under “Lord” (“Adonai”) has fewer than
1,000 entries, while the listing under “LORD” (“Yahweh”) has over 6,800
entries. If “Yahweh” admittedly is the “proper name of God,” the
substituting of an impersonal “LORD” for that name nearly 7,000 times in his
own book surely constitutes a monumental blasphemy, an “act of insulting . .
. God.” (“Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary”) Would you not feel insulted
if most of your professed friends refused to use your name and, instead,
addressed you only as “man,” “woman,” “boy” or “girl”?—Ps. 83:16-18.
How would you feel if someone altered an
original document you produced about yourself and crossed out your personal name
every time it occurred and substituted it with "the author" so that no one would
know who wrote your document? The same could be said of all the modern
translations that have deliberately removed the Tetrgrammaton , even in the four
occurrences of it located in the KJV :
Exodus 6:3 - And I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name
JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
Psalm 83:18 - That men may know that thou, whose
name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.
Isaiah 12:2 - Behold, God is my salvation; I will
trust and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my
song; he also is become my salvation.
Isaiah 26:4 - Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in
the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:
Note: This expression “Jah Jehovah,” a
doubling of the divine name, occurs only twice in the Bible, at Isaiah 12:2
and at Isaiah 26:4. Even the translators of the King James Version saw fit
to render it “the LORD JEHOVAH.”
,
the Greek word translated hell in the common version, occurs
12 times. It is the Grecian mode of spelling the Hebrew words which
are translated, "The valley of Hinnom." This valley was also called
Topheth, detestation, an abomination. Into this place were
cast all kinds of filth, with the carcasses of beasts, and the
unburied bodies of criminals who had been executed. Continual fires
were kept to consume these. Sennacherib's army of 185,000 men were
slain here in one night. Here children were also burnt to death in
sacrifice to Moloch. Gehenna, then, as occurring in the New
Testament, symbolizes death and utter destruction,
but in
no
place signifies a place of eternal torment.--1864 Emphatic Diaglott,
page 857
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