The divine name Jehovah
All humans, let’s face it, have a name. A name given to them at birth, or that they may be given later in their lives. They even give it to their pets. Would it not be logical, on the basis of the principle stated in Genesis 1:27 (RSV) according to which « God created man in his own image », that God himself should have a name? Although they recognize the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures on this point, the three greatest religions of the world, like their teachings, do not agree, however, on the personal name of the Creator of man. To the point that a lot of people might think they’re dealing with three different Gods — and they’re not. How then can we know what is the name of God?
According to a reference work, Judaism, Christianity and Islam readily recognize in Abraham the « founder of the monotheistic tradition » 1. It is a fact that, unlike his neighbours, both Sumerians and Canaanites, Abraham worshiped only one God, to whom he spoke freely by mentioning his name. On one occasion, when he had almost sacrificed his son Isaac, Abraham erected an altar to thank God for having spared him. Following a common custom of the time, he consecrated the altar by giving it the name of Jehovah-Jireh, « Jehovah will provide » (Genesis 22:14, YLT). By associating the name of his God, Jehovah, to this special occasion, the patriarch wished to perpetuate the memory of a significant event. A few centuries later, Moses did the same after winning a decisive victory over the Amalekites. This time the altar was baptized Jehovah-Nissi, which means perhaps « Jehovah is my Standard » (Exodus 17:15, ASV). On the basis of these two accounts, can we conclude that God’s personal name is Jehovah?
In reality, « Jehovah » is the pronunciation or, to be more precise, the most known transliteration of the divine name in English. It has been adopted since the Middle Ages by many Bible translators. However, when Moses — traditionally recognized as the editor of the Torah — was brought to relate the origins of his people, and then to transmit to him the code of laws that still bears his name, he did so quite naturally in Hebrew, the language inherited from Abraham. Now Hebrew, like all other Semitic languages, is written only with consonants, the transmission of exact vowels being perpetrated by use. In fact, it is not « Jehovah », but a vocable of four consonants — YHWH in the Latin alphabet — written from right to left, which was inscribed on the original manuscripts.. The divine name was thus transcribed nearly 6900 times throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, of which 1833 times in the only texts attributed to Moses! This means that the Israelites frequently resorted, like Abraham before them, to this personal name of God, as proved by the numerous ostracas and non-biblical Hebrew documents found in Palestine. The same was true of the neighboring peoples of Israel, as evidenced by the stele of the Moabite king Mesha. Even in the time of Jesus and his apostles, the proper name of God was well known and used! The question now is how that name was actually pronounced.
When Flavius Josephus wrote his ‘ancient history of the Jews’ in 93 CE, he indicated, referring to the episode in which Jehovah had revealed himself to Moses, that he had « no right to speak » of the famous name which God had communicated to His prophet 2. Since his readership was Roman, it may be thought that the historian — from a priestly family and himself a Pharisee — mentioned here a provision which the Jewish religious leaders had taken after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The obvious purpose of this provision was to prohibit the use of the divine name to non-Jews, especially as many of them joined the ranks of a growing Christian community, whose teachings were perceived as a threat by the Jews. However, after the revolt of Simon Bar Kokhba in 135 CE, Emperor Hadrian formally forbade the Jews to reside in Jerusalem and to teach the Torah in public 3. This new blow to their freedom of worship prompted the rabbis, now teachers of the oral law, to extend the scope of the aforementioned provision. A tragic fact, reported by the Babylonian Talmud, enlightens us on this point:
« The Romans brought Rabbi Hanina ben Teradyon for judgment, and they said to him: Why did you occupy yourself with the Torah? Rabbi Hanina ben Teradyon said to them, citing a verse: “As the Lord my God commanded me” (Deuteronomy 4:5). They immediately sentenced him to death (…), as he would pronounce the ineffable name of God with all of its letters, i.e., as it is spelled. (…) And how could he do that? But didn’t we learn in the mishna (Sanhedrin 90a): “(…) Abba Shaul [c.110-c.170 CE] says: (…) One who pronounces the ineffable name as it is written, with all of its letters, has no share in the World-to-Come.” (…) What is the reason that he was punished? (…) He was punished because he would pronounce the ineffable name of God in public, instead of privately »
Avodah Zarah 17b-18a
These few lines are rich in teaching. First of all, they confirm the imperial decree by reporting that a Jewish rabbi was executed by the Romans for not having respected it. Then they show that in the eyes of other rabbis, like his contemporary Abba Shaul, his crime was above all to « pronounce the ineffable name of God with all his letters, (…) as it is written (…) in public.» No doubt we find here, in the middle of the second century of our era, the true origin of this mysterious superstition which considered as reprehensible the mere pronouncement of the personal name of God. The stated purpose of the Jewish teachers was not to make it known openly, « in public », but to restrict its dissemination to an elite, « in private.» Moreover, note that the reporter of the facts already substitutes the term « Lord », Adhonay in Hebrew, in God’s « ineffable name.» This last expression, which designates « a name that cannot be expressed », is found in the contemporary writings of the Christian philosopher Justin. It clearly indicates that this superstitious fear manifested by the Jews was already beginning to influence the Christian congregation of the time. When it officially became « Roman » and adopted Latin as a scriptural language, it in turn replaced the divine name YHWH with Dominus — which means… « Lord »! Far from helping sincere Christians to invoke God by his personal name, this term was the source of a confusion that favoured the development of the obscure doctrine of the Trinity.
Let us return, you will, to the true pronunciation of the proper name of God. Were we finally going to get to know it? Unknown in Christendom, the custodians of the Jewish tradition, for their part, continued to communicate it, very discredited we have said, in the context of a master-disciple relationship attested by the Talmud of Babylon: « The Sages [= rabbis] transmit the correct pronunciation of the four-letter name of God to their students once every seven years, and some say twice every seven years » (Kidushin 71a). However, this exact transmission of the sacred teachings had to face a new threat when, around the sixth century, the Jews abandoned the use of Hebrew in favor of Aramaic. To compensate for this, Jewish scribes called Massoretes introduced a system of dots representing vowels absent from the Hebrew consonantal text. At least three systems were developed, the best known being that of the Tiberias massoretes in Galilee. All the current translations of the Bible from the original Hebrew texts are based on two of their manuscripts — the Aleppo Codex (around 930 CE) and the Leningrad Codex (1008 CE) — the result of the painstaking work of one illustrious family of copyists, the Ben Ashers. A family that had a compelling reason to preserve the proper pronunciation of the divine name — Jehovah. Which one?
When they encountered the Tetragrammaton — YHWH — the Jewish copyists followed the Talmudic practice of inserting, not the appropriate vocalic signs, but substitute signs which were supposed to remind the reader that he had to say Adhonay (« Lord ») ou Elohim (a plural of majesty for « God ») à la place du nom divin. However, this « traditional » rule was not observed by the Caraite Jews who, rejecting the authority of the rabbis and the Talmud, advocated a stricter adherence to the Hebrew Scriptures. Their community produced excellent Massoretic copyists, including, it seems, the Ben Asher family. In doubt, many modern Hebrews, respecting the secular fear of the Jews to pronounce the name of God, believe that the correct vocalization of it should be YaHWeH, rendered « Yahweh » in English. On the other hand, if the Ben Ashers were Caraites, the vocalization they transmitted to us is YeHoWaH, rendered « Iehouah » in Latin in the Middle Ages, then « Jehovah » in English. This was the opinion of the Hebrew Charles Ginsburg, as well as that of the renowned rabbis Samuel David Luzzatto and Jacob Ben Moses Bachrach 4, yet Talmudists! Therefore, what pronunciation should we remember: Jehovah or Yahweh? It is up to each one of us to make a choice in good conscience.
References
| 1 | Gary Hendsburg, « Abraham », The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, 1997, p. 5. |
| 2 | Flavius Josèphe, « Antiquités judaïques », II, 276 [XII, 4]. |
| 3 | Doron Mendels, « Bar Kokhba Revolt », The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, Vol. 1, 1997, p. 276. |
| 4 | Jacob Bachrach, « Ishtadalut Im Shadal », Jewish Theological Seminary, 1890, m. 2883, p. 178, sec. 134. |