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YHWH.
Of the names of God in the Old Testament, that which occurs most frequently (6,823 times) is the so-called Tetragrammaton, Yhwh
(), the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel. This name is commonly represented in modern translations by the form "Jehovah," which, however, is a philological impossibility (see
Jehovah). This form has arisen through attempting to pronounce the consonants of the name with the vowels of Adonai ( = "Lord"), which the Masorites have inserted in the text, indicating thereby
that Adonai was to be read (as a "ḳeri perpetuum") instead of Yhwh. When the name Adonai itself precedes, to avoid repetition of this name, Yhwh is written by the Masorites with the vowels of
Elohim, in which case Elohim is read instead of Yhwh. In consequence of this Masoretic reading the authorized and revised English versions (though not the American edition of the revised version)
render Yhwh by the word "Lord" in the great majority of cases.
This name, according to the narrative in Ex. iii. (E), was made known to Moses in a vision at Horeb. In another, parallel
narrative (Ex. vi. 2, 3, P) it is stated that the name was not known to the Patriarchs. It is used by one of the documentary sources of Genesis (J), but scarcely if at all by the others. Its use
is avoided by some later writers also. It does not occur in Ecclesiastes, and in Daniel is found only in ch. ix. The writer of Chronicles shows a preference for the form Elohim, and in Ps.
xlii.-lxxxiii. Elohim occurs much more frequently than Yhwh, probably having been substituted in some places for the latter name, as in Ps. liii. (comp. Ps. xiv.).
In appearance, Yhwh () is the third person singular imperfect "ḳal" of the verb ("to be"), meaning, therefore, "He is," or "He
will be," or, perhaps, "He lives," the root idea of the word being,probably, "to blow," "to breathe," and hence, "to live." With this explanation agrees the meaning of the name given in Ex. iii.
14, where God is represented as speaking, and hence as using the first person—"I am" (, from , the later equivalent of the archaic stem ). The meaning would, therefore, be "He who is
self-existing, self-sufficient," or, more concretely, "He who lives," the abstract conception of pure existence being foreign to Hebrew thought. There is no doubt that the idea of life was
intimately connected with the name Yhwh from early times. He is the living God, as contrasted with the lifeless gods of the heathen, and He is the source and author of life (comp. I Kings xviii.;
Isa. xli. 26-29, xliv. 6-20; Jer. x. 10, 14; Gen. ii. 7; etc.). So familiar is this conception of God to the Hebrew mind that it appears in the common formula of an oath, "ḥai Yhwh" (= "as Yhwh
lives"; Ruth iii. 13; I Sam. xiv. 45; etc.).
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 () in the second part of such names. The fact may also be mentioned that in Samaritan poetry rimes with words similar in ending to Yahweh, and
Theodoret ("Quæst. 15 in Exodum") states that the Samaritans pronounced the name 'Iαβέ. Epiphanius ascribes the same pronunciation to an early Christian sect. Clement of Alexandria, still more
exactly, pronounces 'Iαουέ or 'Iαουαί, and Origen, 'Iα. Aquila wrote the name in archaic Hebrew letters. In the Jewish-Egyptian magic-papyri it appears as Ιαωουηε. At least as early as the third
century B.C. the name seems to have been regarded by the Jews as a "nomen ineffabile," on the basis of a somewhat extreme interpretation of Ex. xx. 7 and Lev. xxiv. 11 (see Philo, "De Vita
Mosis," iii. 519, 529). Written only in consonants, the true pronunciation was forgotten by them. The Septuagint, and after it the New Testament, invariably render δκύριος ("the
Lord").
Various conjectures have been made in recent times respecting a possible foreign origin of this name. Some derive it from the
Kenites, with whom Moses sojourned, Sinai, the ancient dwelling-place of Yhwh, having been, according to the oldest tradition, in the Kenite country. A Canaanite, and, again, a Babylonian, origin
have been proposed, but upon grounds which are still uncertain. Various explanations of the meaning of the name, differing from that given above, have been proposed: e.g., (1) that it is derived
from ("to fall"), and originally designated some sacred object, such as a stone, possibly an acrolite, which was believed to have fallen from heaven; (2) or from ("to blow"), a name for the god
of wind and storm; (3) or from the "hif'il" form of ("to be"), meaning, "He who causes to be," "the Creator"; (4) or from the same root, with the meaning "to fall," "He who causes to fall" the
rain and the thunderbolt—"the storm-god." The first explanation, following Ex. iii. 14, is, on the whole, to be preferred.
JewishEncyclopedia.com
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