"Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved."   (Romans 10:13

The Name of God

What is it?

The second line of "The Lord's Prayer", so familiar to us all, says, "Hallowed be thy name."   (Luke 11 v2)

We are also promised that, "Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved."   (Romans 10 v13 )

In Acts 2 v21, Peter quotes Joel 2 v32,  "In the last days everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Exodus 20 (Ten Commandments) v7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."

The name of God appears 6828 times in the Bible.

Remember that the name also means essential nature, character, reputation, and authority. Read Leviticus 21 and 22 to appreciate the need to keep the name of God holy and unprofaned. Notice how often the name is used.

 

So what is God's name?

The name of our GOD and the titles by which he is known are extremely important and a casual use of " God " fails to communicate adequately the greatness, majesty, holiness, and grace of the one to whom we refer.

How should we use God's name?

HIS HALLOWED NAME REVEALED AGAIN

This new book has come out of the partnership on Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and Keith Johnson, an American Methodist pastor.

They also produced "A Prayer to our Father" that has a bearing on the hallowed name.

These works from Keith and Nehemia make an important call on us to take seriously the name of our God and use it rightly.

Keith's book will take you through the arguments and the evidence to show that we can know and pronounce the Name. The book comes with an Audio CD or the files may be downloaded from www.hishallowedname.com

 

 

 

 

SHATTERING THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

Nehemia has published another book.

"SHATTERING THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE" - subtitled, "The Hebrew power of the Priestly Blessing Unleashed" Hilkiah Press.

This book too will be very important in dispelling confusion between the true God of Israel and the various false gods. The clues are there in scripture and he has searched them out.

If we knew and respected the Name of God people who should know better would not be able to confuse with Allah and say we all worship the same God!

We would also experience the true power of the Aaronic blessing - "In this way they are to put my name on the people of Isra'el, so that I will bless them." Numbers 6 v27 CJB.

 

 

"God" is a title; not His name! LORD is also a title; not His name!

A god is merely any deity which somebody worships or trusts in.  Included in this are the gods of the ancient Egyptians, the people of Canaan, all sorts of wood, stone and metal idols through to the newest New Age concepts of God in everybody.

In our Bibles, LORD is used where appears in the Hebrew because it is the translation of ADONAI, which is what Jews say when reading . But the Hebrew that should be translated as Lord is Ba'al. This also means husband or great ruler and, as you can find in your Bible, is the name or title given to Canaanite Gods. Why do we leave ourselves open to such confusion?

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has a name by which he wished/wishes to be known.     This most holy name of GOD is written in Hebrew by the letters yod hey vav hey.      

This four letters name is called the "Tetragramaton".

(The Hebrew letters are read from Right to Left)

Moses (Moshe) asked God what he was to say when the people asked, "What is his name?" (Exodus 3 v13)

"God said to Moshe, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [ I am what I am ]," and added, " Here is what you are to say to the people of Isra'el: "Ehyeh [I am ] has sent me to you"" God said further to Moshe, "Say this to the people of Isra'el: "Yud Heh Vav Heh (YEHOVAH), the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham the God of Yitz'chak, and the God of Ya'akov, has sent me to you." (Complete Jewish Bible - with Yehovah in place of ADONAI)

But how do we get from Ehyeh to Yehovah?

Nehemia Gordon explains in the Torah Pearls programme on the Torah portion Shemot.

Audio extract here It is a bit quick, but the essence is that God's name is made up from the three tenses of the verb eheyeh - to be.

The future tense is yeheyeh, present tense is hoveh and past tense is hayah - Yehovah.

For the Christian this  is worth pondering - are we as respectful as we should be to the name of our god?  Is it respectful to just ignore it?

Jewish tradition holds that this name is so holy that it may not be uttered.   It may have been uttered once a year by the High Priest when he entered the Holy of Holies.    Orthodox Jews will refer instead to Hashem ( meaning "The Name") 

Karaite Jews do not hold to this tradition but follow the Torah instruction to use the name of God.   See Nehemiah Gordon's book,  "The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus."  

There are different opinions about the pronunciation.

The pronunciation of is generally considered to be unknown. Using the four letters as they are usually written, without vowel sounds as is common practice in Hebrew, gives one a difficult word to pronounce; YHVH (or YHWH depending on which sound you favour for the vav) Some say it should be Yarvay while others consider it to be Yarway .   

Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson and wildolive contend that the Name should be pronounced YeHoVaH, using the pointing found in one of the most important ancient manuscripts.  (see books) - ( Visit www.aleppocodex.org for a taste.)

The name Yehovah with the full vowels in the Damascus Crown, a Masoretic manuscript from the 10th century, Israel. The passage is Exodus 34:6 in which God reveals His nature to Moses: - Nehemia Gordon

This rendering came to Europe as "Jehovah", where many mainland Europeans pronounce the letter J as "Yuh" but the English speakers pronounce it as a hard "Jay" .   

( is translated as LORD in the NIV and most other English Bibles and as ADONAI in the Complete Jewish Bible - look out for the capital letters)

 

Where the Hebrew reads Adonai , a reader of the Tanakh will say "Adonai ELOHIM" and it is written as such in the CJB.

The alternative would be the rather untidy  "Adonai ADONAI"  or "The Lord the LORD" in English.  (It is translated as "Sovereign Lord" in the NIV).

The Hebrew is actually Adonai (See Ezekiel 6 v3 in the Hebrew text or in an Interlinear Bible)- Therefore the best English translation would be The Lord Yehovah

(Remember that Halleluyah is the Hebrew word meaning literally "praise Yah".)

 

"The Name  "  is associated with God's nature of,  "Was, is and will be"  (A complete existence).  In Hebrew the words used are ECHEH ASHER ECHEH, meaning literally, "I am what I am" except that the word ECHEH has no tense.   ECHEH can just as well mean "I was" or "I will be" !     "I AM" was the name God said Moses was to refer to him by.   This is why Yeshua so upset the religious authorities when he said,  "before Abraham was, I am." (John 8 v 58)

The Name ( I am) also suggests to the author that exists without reference to anything or anybody else.

"Holy to Yahveh" by Terrye Goldblum Seedman explores this issue and its implications for the believer.  For the benefit of those new to this issue, I have continued the use of "GOD" and "Jesus" in this website although I believe wants us to move back to a proper use of his name.

See also Nehemiah Gordon's book,  "The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus"  for a discussion of swearing in the Name of .

His book, SHATTERING THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE includes the matter of placing the Name on the people with the Aaronic Blessing of Numbers 6 v24-26.

 

Other Titles

is given other titles, all of which are more informative than God or Lord.

Adonai means Lord or My Lord

Elohim means God. (interestingly Elohim could be plural, but conveys great magnitude)        (Elohenu means our God.)

El Shadai means Almighty God

Elohai Olam means Everlasting God.   In the blessing where God is called Melekh ha Olam, it means King, or ruler, of the Universe.   God is clearly seen as ruler of both time and space.

 There is also a set of names bringing out aspects of His being and His place in our lives.  (Either or Adonai could be used as appropriate)

Tzeva'ot	the Lord of Hosts (armies of angels)
Eloheinu	Lord our God
Elohei	Lord God
Nissi	The Lord is my Banner
Shalom	the Lord of Peace  (is my peace)
Shamah	the Lord who is there
Tzidkenu	the Lord our righteousness
Yireh	the Lord will see (to it)
Rofecha (rofe is healer)	The LORD your healer
Ro'ee	the Lord my Shepherd

Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu is a name which Jewish people like to use - It means "The Holy One, blessed be He"

You may also have wondered why many Jewish writings use "G-D" and "L-RD".   The author's understanding is that any written document may become worn or redundant and ready for disposal.   If that document contained the words in full, special procedures would be required out of respect for the name of God.

 

Yahweh ?

It is becoming quite common to come across preachers and singers using "Yahweh" as the name of God. Wildolive does not understand why, but there are some possibilities. (apart from the obvious reason, that they were taught it in Theological college)

Some people are attempting to pronounce YHWH as a word that has no vowels but by saying "Yahweh" one has inserted two vowel sounds; not necessarily the correct ones.

You might be told that Hebrew, particularly the holy name, was written without vowels but by the time of the oldest Hebrew texts, YHVH was written with two of its vowels but the central one was not written indicating that the name was not to be said aloud. Even so, there are six to eight places in the Aleppo Codex (the most reliable source) where a scribe has written all the vowels for YEHOVAH, because he knew them but forgot that he was supposed to leave one out so that Yehovah not be spoken, but Adonai. See elsewhere on this page.

* Is it Vav or Waw?

The "W" sound comes from the letter "Vav" because many Gentile Hebrew scholars call the letter "waw" and pronounce it "w" - Israelis and Messianic Jews pronounce as "v" as Hebrew has no "w" sound. Imported English names incuding a "w" have a special notation when written in Hebrew.

Nehemia Gordon explains why it should be "Vav" in an eight minute podcast here www.nehemiaswall.com/historical-pronunciation-vav The "Waw" came from Arabic, which does not have a "V" sound. In the 1800s Jewish communities from all around the world used "Vav" except for five Arabic speaking Jewish communities. But other Arabic speaking Jewish communities, such as Damascus still used "Vav" when reading scripture. The argument that Hebrew does not have a "V" sound is nonsense because, in addition to "Vav", the soft "Bet" (without a dot) is also pronounced "V." All the evidence for 1500 years ago says "Vav" was the pronunciation.

Concerning the history of this issue, Nehemia Gordon points out that - The first time that "Yahweh" appears in recorded history is in the 1599 edition of German Catholic archbishop Gilbert Genebrard's Chronographiae (page 77). Known as "the inventor of yahweh", Genebrard bases this novel pronunciation, spelled in Latin "Iahue", on two arguments:

1) The Yah in HalleluYah;

2) The testimony of the 5th century Church Father Theodoret of Cyrus that the Samaritans pronounced the Name IABAI.

Unknown to Genebrard, the Samaritans themselves insist that they never pronounced the name , not even in the time of Moses. This is confirmed by Josephus (Antiquities 12.5.5) who quotes a Samaritan letter to Antiochus IV from around 168 BCE that they worshipped a God with "no name".

See: Robert Wilkinson, Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God, 2015, page 412

Gilbert Genebrard took up the ideas of Theodoret because they fitted into his theology. Genebrard's position was that the name (YHVH) of God means "creator" - more precisely, "he that causes to be" in place of "he that was, he that is and he that will be." He derived this by reading the three vowels* in the hifil (causative) conjugation instead of the cal conjugation; (* Shva, Holem, Qames) Prior to this, the Yarway idea had not appeared in any Jewish manuscript.

Please note that this is way outside my knowledge, although Jewish scholars understand these conjugations.

Other advocates of pronouncing God's holy name as "Yahweh" point to the Nag Hammadi Library, dating from the 3rd-4th centuries AD, as proof for their pronunciation.

The Coptic-language Gnostic Apocryphon of John in the Nag Hammadi Library does, in fact, contain "Yahweh" (ΙΑΥΕ) as the name of a demon, who is described as "unrighteous" with a "bear face" ! ? According to the Gnostic Apocryphon of John, a demon called Yaldabaoth ("Son of Chaos" in Aramaic) raped Eve, producing the demon-child Yahweh (ΙΑΥΕ). If Yahweh is the son of Yaldabaoth, whose name means "Son of Chaos", that would make Yahweh the "Grandson of Chaos"!

You can read the Gnostic Apocryphon of John for yourself here:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-short.html

Do you really think this is a reliable source to learn the true pronunciation of our heavenly Father's name?!

 

Another challenge to the "Yehovah" case.

Why do we say Yehovah with an "e" but Halleluyah (praise Yehovah) with an "a" ? Does this support "Yahway" pronunciation ? - No. - Nehemia Gordon explains.

Meanwhile, September 2019, Nehemia Gordon and his team have found over 1900 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of the Tanakh with the pronunciation "Yehovah" written out with the dots.