Adonai Yahweh El Shaddai
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, but because it is literally impossible to pronounce (in English it has been transliterated as "Jehovah").
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 these four letters 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.
What follows is a compilation of varied sources on the true Name of God, Yahweh.
Chaim Potok, Author of "The Chosen"
and Translator of the JPS TANAKH:
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
"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."
Adonai Adonai
Adonai Yahweh
El Shaddai
El Elyon Elohim
El Elyon Elohim
Lord Lord
Lord Yahweh
God Almighty
God Most High Divinities
God Most High Divinities
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Art et Amour Toujours
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.
Isaiah 52:5-6 JPS
