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Last week, we discussed a few of the unique attributes of God, this week I want to take a look at His NAME and how this interrelates to those attributes and, ultimately, His character.
I’ve discussed a number of times the fallacy of His name having been lost. It is essentially a Rabbinic idea that asserts that the vowels of the Name have been lost and that this, essentially, renders the Name unpronounceable. What’s more, whether we realize this or not, it’s a tradition that is likewise rooted in the “offshoot” faith found in Western Theology. Catholics and Protestants alike, knowingly or unknowingly tend to stay away from attempting to pronounce the Name of God, preferring to simply refer to Him as God.
Straight out of the gate, we need to ask ourselves honestly if this even matters? I mean, throughout my life I’ve been supremely confident that He hears me, that He hears my prayers – even though I only ever referred to Him as “God”. So why should I care right?
The answer, as I see it, is that it isn’t about whether or not He hears us, but whether or not we hear HIM. It isn’t an issue of whether or not He’ll answer our prayers, but one of whether or not we’ll uphold His character and defend His honor. I mean, if the creator of the entire Universe gave a Name that He was to be called by, I’d want to know what that was that I might honor His wishes – wouldn’t you?
Certainly, there have been o small number of attempts to reconcile the pronunciation of His name throughout the last few centuries (at least) and even now, in modernity, there are those who claim to have “discovered” the “secret”. Such notions have given rise to a myriad of – somewhat amusing variations; Yahweh (Yah-Way) and Yahuwah (Yah-Hoo-Aah) leap to mind. I have to admit, I chuckle a bit every time I hear one of these because it reminds me of something…
All kidding aside, I think this is an issue to which we have not given proper consideration – and that IS an indictment of every believer, preset company included. Let me illustrate why;
The Name of God – known among theologians as the “Tetragrammaton”, consisting of four Hebrew characters is Yud Hey Vav Hey, or properly, read from right to left: יהוה – appears nearly 7,000 times throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Six-thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-three times to be exact. That’s uh… that’s a lot folks.
In our modern bibles, this name has been replaced with terms like LORD or ADONAI – in all capitals (generally “Small-caps”) to symbolize the replacement. Both of these terms, as well as others depending on the language of the translation essentially mean “Lord” – and while this is a right and proper Title for the God of the Universe, it is most certainly not a name.
Words mean things and, as it happens, so do names – and the name given BY God for himself – spoken to Moses was YeHoVaH (Yeh – Ho – Vah). How do I know this?
I am so, so glad you asked… allow me to (re-)introduce you to Nehemiah Gordon.
Nehemiah (pronounced Neh-hem-yah) is a Karaite Jew; that is He is a Jewish believer who does not practice Rabbinic, or “Orthodox” Judaism, but eschews the traditions of the Rabbis in favor of a plain reading of the text – something near and dear to my heart.
While He is not a believer in Yeshua / Jesus as the Messiah, He is unafraid to, and regularly engages in “inter-faith” dialogue and study.
A learned scholar of ancient biblical texts, specifically focused on those written in Hebrew, Nehemiah has brought forth a number of findings that shed significant light on, or challenge contemporary interpretations on a number of things; and this isn’t limited solely to the “Old Testament” – but that’s another matter.
The thing that makes Nehemiah relevant to our discussion are his findings regarding the Name of God in scripture. You see, it has been a long-held Rabbinic tradition that the vowels associated with the Name have been lost to antiquity – that the vowels used through scripture are actually the vowels of the word Adonai (or, “the Lord”) and therefore the actual Name is unpronounceable.
By 2018 however, Nehemiah had located in excess of 1,000 ancient manuscripts which contained not only the Name, but all of the niqqud (vowel pointings) necessary to properly deduce the correct pronunciation. He further has, on many occassions, provided snapshots of these manuscripts and the relevant passages in order to illustrate the veracity of his claims.
The Name of God Isn’t Yahuwah or Yahweh, or any of the other myriad pronunciations bouncing around the internet; it’s YeHoVaH (or “Jehovah” if you prefer) – and this is supported by textual evidence; not conjecture or guesswork – evidence.
Now let’s get to why this matters and how it relates to God’s character…
The Hebrew language is rather layered and complex. Most words, regardless of length or complexity actually stem from a root of three letters which serves to inform the meaning of the resulting term – and the Name of God is no different in that regard. The root for the Name actually comes from the the statement God made to Moses in Exodus 3:14… but rather than try to explain this in text, I am going to let Dr. Gordon handle it since he’s an expert.
Hayah – Hoveh – Yiyeh : היה הוה יהיה
“He who was – He who is – He who will be”
There is a level of importance here in just getting to grips with what God said when Moses asked Him “… and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’—what should I say to them?”.
Straight out of the gate, you should be able to see that this name speaks directly to His character and status as the eternal – uncreated creator. It is further echoed throughout the prophets and even into the “New Testament” – “from eternity to eternity…” comes leaping to mind.
Okay, so we’ve taken a drive-by on how it relates to His character; I mean, one could ponder on this for some time and not exhaust revelation and meaning, but we don’t have that kind of time today. =) This leaves us with “is this / why is this important?”
It’s important because it’s a big deal to God. He said so Himself throughout the scriptures and even told us that a day was coming in which the whole earth will recognize His authority and know His name;
The Lord will then be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be seen as one with a single name.
Zechariah 14:9
“God” is not a name.
“The LORD” is not a name.
“ADONAI” is not a name.
“Ha Shem” is not a name.