By Tyson Thorne

July 5, 2018
 

NoG YHWH Large

Before we properly met she knew that I was a regular attender and that I sat with my parents most every week. I knew she was an accomplished guitarist and singer. Even though we both knew something about the other we wouldn’t say that we knew each other. Knowing someone requires one crucial piece of knowledge: that person’s name. Which brought a question to my mind later in the day: Why should it be any different with God? Each Thursday for the next several weeks we will take you through the names of God to understand it's meaning and to know God more intimately.

Last week we brought to you a name of God that has long been lost to Western Christians, Pantokrator. This week we'll be looking at the most common name for God used in the Old Testament: YHWH.

Think about how you address God in prayer. What do you call him? Perhaps “Lord” or “father”? Those are both titles, not names. Do you know God’s name? Do you ever call him by that name? Or is the only name of God you know “Jesus”? He actually has many names, and if you don’t know them how can you say you know God? It’s time the people of God became more intimate with their God.

Of all the names of God, YHWH is the one most abundantly used in the Bible - 6,823 times! When God first introduced himself to Moses, it was with this name (Exodus 3.1-14). When Moses went to the Israelites, still slaves in Egypt, he introduced himself saying he was sent by YHWH, and they all knew whom he meant. This indicates that God’s name was known very early in human history, so why is it that today we have no idea how to pronounce it?

Out of reverence for God and his holiness, the early Hebrews never wrote the whole name of God. Instead, they would drop the vowels and only write the consonants. This same behavior can be observed on most Jewish websites where "God" is written "G-d". Later, during the temple period, the pronunciation of YHWH was limited to the priests and only spoken inside the Temple. As the Name of God it surely couldn’t be shared among the people, even though as a race of slaves it was known by all. The Name was used when blessing the people and on Yom Kippur. Toward the end of the Temple period the chief priests considered many of their underlings unworthy of knowing the pronunciation and, over time, the knowledge was lost to history. While it is important to respect the name of God and never speak it as a curse, a profanity or in vain, the Temple priests went too far and today we have no way of knowing how to pronounce God’s name.

This has lead to mistakes in translation. The earliest translators, knowing there is no "Y" letter in Hebrew and that a "J" was used for a similar sound, came up with JHWH. In German, the "W" is pronounced as a "V", and since the earliest translations were German, they filled in the vowels as best they could and came up with JeHoVaH. Any time you see the name Jehovah in the Bible it is really the most personal name for God, YHWH. Today we pronounce it "Yah-way" but this is uncertain at best.

There are theological implications to this name, of course. The idea that God is always alive, always present, and always available. It is a name Jesus takes for himself In John 8.58. As shown in that passage, this is a name for God one must use with utmost care. It is so deeply personal that it may be offensive to some if ever used flippantly. Even so, who should know the personal name of God if not his children? For this reason we will be examining all the names of God found throughout the Bible. In doing so we may have a better understanding of the one we serve and possibly a closer relationship with him.

 
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