The Mistaken J
Often heard in the churches of
our land is the refrain sung about the Savior, “There’s something about that
name…” In our English-speaking world we have been taught that the saving name
of the Redeemer of Israel is “Jesus.” So accepted is this name that few stop to
consider its authenticity.
But the truth is, there is indeed
“something about that Name.” That “something” is the inescapable fact that the
Savior’s name is not Jesus, and never was. What’s more, the Name of the
Heavenly Father is not Jehovah, a designation that is only five centuries old.
Churchianity has
so thoroughly immersed the world in the error of this tradition for the past
500 years that few even think to research the matter or to consider the
consequences of calling on the wrong name. As a result, most continue believing
that the Hebrew Savior is called by a Latinized Greek name that could not
possibly have existed at the time He walked the earth. It’s a name that would
have been completely foreign to Him.
Eminent
French historian, scholar, and archaeologist Ernest Renan acknowledges that the
Savior was never in His lifetime called “Jesus.” In his book, The Life of Jesus, Renan doubts that
the Savior even spoke Greek (p.90). Greek was mostly the language of business
and commerce in cosmopolitan circles.
As for the Father’s Name, the hybrid
“Jehovah” came into existence through the ignorance of Christian writers who
did not understand the Old Testament Hebrew. Credit for the error is given to Petrus Galatinus, confessor to
Pope Leo X in the 16th century.
Modern scholarship recognizes “Yahshua” as the best rendition for the Name of the Savior,
while “Yahweh” is the closest transliteration for the Name of the Creator as
found in ancient Scriptural manuscripts. In returning as nearly as we can to
the Bibles’ original language and meaning, we come to a deeper and more
accurate understanding of the truths contained within it.
As
we will learn, the Father and Son’s revealed, personal Names are the foundation
on which other vital, salvation truths rest. It was not without reason that
Yahweh established the foundation of the Ten Commandments with the clear
declaration of His sacred Name: “I,
Yahweh, am your Elohim…” Exodus 20:2. Our Savior,
as well, opened His Model Prayer with the words, “hallowed be Thy Name.”
Yahweh devoted the Third Commandment to
warn of the sin of taking His Name in vain (a meaning that includes bringing
His Name to uselessness, as has been done for centuries), Exodus 20:2, 7. Our
Redeemer’s Name is critically important as well, or else our Creator would not
have inspired the writer of Acts to proclaim, “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name
under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12.
Back to the Basic Truths of the Bible
It should be evident to anyone that through
time and tradition, observances change, are added to, and also lose some of
what they first had. This is especially true of the worship originally
practiced in the Bible. Our primary goal as True Worshipers should be to return
to fundamental truths, like His true Name, once known and taught by the early
Assembly but that have been neglected or ignored through the centuries.
Shouldn’t this be the desire of every sincere Bible believer—to worship in ALL
truth? Why go only halfway, or put another way, why continue worshiping partly
in error?
Jude 3 speaks directly to us: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” This original faith as practiced in the early New Testament Assembly is being restored now, just before the Savior Yahshua returns to earth. Acts 3:21 say the heaven must receive the Savior until the time of restitution of all things. “Restitution” is the Greek apokatastasis and means re-establish from a state of ruin (Write for the explanatory ministudy, This Is the EliYah Message.) Foundational to this original truth being restored by Yahweh’s Assembly
in Yahshua is the identity of the One we worship.
Nothing in existence is more holy than the Father and His personal, revealed
Name Yahweh. Paul wrote that Yahweh has given His Son a Name that is above
every name, Philippians 2:9. The prophet Malachi tells us that if we will not
give glory unto Yahweh’s Name that He would send a curse upon us (2:2).
With a sense of gravity of the sacred Name,
let’s examine why any substitute name employing the letter J is erroneous on
its face. We will look at the facts and the overwhelming evidence and carefully
evaluate our findings, using numerous sources revealing the truth. Much of the
information we cite here is readily available in your public library, or found
in references you may even have at home. We urge you to look into this
important issue and prove it for yourself.
The ‘J’: A Letter Come Lately
Among the many reasons that both “Jesus”
and “Jehovah” are erroneous is the simple fact that they begin with the letter J, the most recent letter added to our
English alphabet. The Savior’s name could not begin with the letter J because it did not exist when He was
born –not even a thousand years later! All good dictionaries and encyclopedias
show that the letter J and its sound
are of late origin.
A chart on both the Hebrew and Greek
alphabet is found on page 48 in this booklet. Take special note that there is
no letter equivalent to J in either
Hebrew or Greek even today. Here are what major references tell us about the J and its development:
Ø
The Encyclopedia Americana contains the
following on the J:
“The form of J was unknown in any alphabet until the 14th century.
Either symbol (J, I) used initially
generally had the consonantal sound of Y as in year. Gradually, the two symbols (J,
I) were differentiated, the J usually
acquiring consonantal force and thus becoming regarded as a consonant, and the I becoming a vowel. It was not until
1630 that the differentiation became general in England.”
Ø
The New Book of Knowledge reads:
“J,
the tenth letter of the English alphabet, is the youngest of the 26 letters. It
is a descendant of the letter I and
was not generally considered a separate letter until the 17th century. The early history of the letter J is the same as the history of the letter I. I is a descendant of the ancient
Phoenician and Hebrew letter yod and the Greek letter iota”
(Vol. 10, 1992 ed.).
Ø
The Random House Dictionary of the English
Language says about the J:
“The tenth letter of the English alphabet
developed as a variant form of I in
Medieval Latin, and except for the preference for the J as an initial letter, the two were used interchangeably, both
serving to represent the vowel (i) and the consonant (y).
Later, through specialization, it came to be distinguished as a separate sign,
acquiring its present phonetic value under the influence of the French.”
Ø
The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, under “J,” offers additional information:
“J,
a letter of the alphabet which, as far as form is concerned, is only a
modification of the Latin I and
dates back with a separate value only to the 15th century. It was
first used as a special form of initial I,
the ordinary form being kept for use in other positions. As, however, in many
cases initial i had the consonantal value of the English y in iugum (yoke), &c., the symbol came to be used
for the value of y, a value which it still retains in German: Ja! Jung, & c. Initially it is pronounced in English as
an affricate dzh. The great majority of English words
beginning with j are of foreign
(mostly French) origin, as ‘jaundice,’ ‘judge’”…(p.103).
Ø
Funk and Wagnall’s Encyclopedia (1979 edition), volume 14, page 94 under “J,” states:
“J,
the tenth letter and seventh consonant in the English alphabet. It is the
latest addition to the English script and has been inserted in the alphabet
after I, from which it was
developed, just as V and W follow U, the letter from which they arose. In form, J was originally merely a variation of I; J appeared first in
Roman times, when it was used sometimes to indicate the long i vowel sound,
but was often used interchangeably with I.
The Romans pronounced I as a vowel
in some words, such as iter,
and as a semi-vowel in others, for example, iuvenis, spelled presently juvenis. The only
difference in spelling, however, was the occasional use of double i for the y sound for example, in maiior, spelled presently major. In the Middle Ages the
elongated form (j) was used as an
ornamental device, most often initially and in numeral series; many old French
manuscripts indicate the numeral 4 by the letter sequence iiij. The use of j as an initial led ultimately to its
specialized use to indicate both the old semi-vowel sound y, found in German, and the new palatal consonant sounds (z) and (dz), found in French, Spanish and English. Not until the
middle of the 17th century did this usage become universal in
English books; in the King James Bible of 1611, for example, the words Jesus
and judge are invariably Iesus and iudge. Long after the invention of printing, j thus became more than a mere
calligraphic variation of i (which in Latin could be either vowel or semi-vowel), and, j became restricted to a consonantal
function.
“In English, j has the composite sound of d + zh, as
in journal. In French, on the other hand, the zh sound alone is given the letter, as in jour; German has retained the original y
sound of the Latin i consonant, as in jahr; and Spanish has introduced a new sound resembling a guttural ch, as in Jerez. In Middle English, before the
differentiation of i and j, the combination gi was sometimes
used to represent the dzh sounds, such as in Giew for Jew, and in modern times the soft g is used for the same sound, as in
general…”
Ø
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary confirms how the J developed from the I and became a
consonant only a few centuries ago:
“J,
j (ja),
n. 1. The tenth letter of the English alphabet: formerly a variant of I, i, in the
seventeenth century it became established as a consonant only, as in Julius,
originally spelled Iulius.”
The letter J was often used instead of the letter I, especially at the beginning of a word. This became common in the
1600s (World Book Encyclopedia, Vol.
2, 1995 ed). Medieval scribes added a tail to the
second I when two I’s appeared together. Because a
beginning I almost always has a
consonant sound, the long form, J,
came to be used generally for the consonant sound of the letter (New Book of Knowledge).
It became necessary to distinguish between
the J and the I when the dictionary came into being. In the seventeenth century,
the dictionary’s appearance forced a consistent spelling. Using either I or J became mandatory to ensure proper alphabetical positioning. Owing
to this close kinship with I, J was
inserted immediately following I in
our English alphabet.
Note the substantiating comments on the J from the Encyclopedia Americana:
“It is one of the few permanent additions
to those alphabets, made in medieval or modern times. More exactly, it was not
an addition, but a differentiation from an existing letter, I, which in Latin, besides being a
vowel (as in index), had also the consonantal value of ‘Y’ (as in maior, pronounced ‘mayor’).
“At a later state, the symbol ‘J’ was used
for the distinctive purposes, particularly when the ‘I’ had to be written initially (or in conjunction with another ‘I’). Either symbol used initially
generally had the consonantal sound of ‘Y’
(as in Year) so that the Latin pronunciation of either Ianuarius or Januarius was as though the spelling was ‘Yanuarius.’ While in some words of Hebrew and other origin
(such as Hallelujah or Junker), ‘J’
has the phonetic value of ‘Y.’”
We discover, then, that the letter J derived from the vowel letter I and originally had the same sound as
the vowel I. That is why the lower
case j still has a dot over it. The
letter I represents the Greek iota (I), which usually corresponds to
the Hebrew yothe (Y as in yes). The letter J has a Y sound (as in “hallelujah”) in Latin, German, and Scandinavian
languages. In Spanish, J is an
aspirate, having the sound of H.
The J was first pronounced as the I at the
time of the introduction of the printing press. Dutch printers fostered
utilizing the J, especially at the
beginning of a word. The letter J eventually acquired its own sound. It was the French who gave the letter J the present sound of the soft letter g as in “large” or “purge.” In Latin,
German, and other languages the J is
pronounced more like Y with an “ee” sound. The Spanish J is more like an aspirant as in San Jose. Some old European maps still show the
spelling of countries like Jugoslavia (Yugoslavia) or Sowjet (Soviet) Russia. It is only in the last
century that the letter J has firmly taken on the French pronunciation as in
joy or journal.
Ø
Webster’s Universal Dictionary (1936) reinforces the fact of the early relationship
of the letter J to I:
“As a character it was formerly used
interchangeably with ‘I,’ both
letters having originally the same sound and after the ‘J’ sound came to be common in English, it was often written where
this sound must have been pronounced. The separation of these two letters is of
comparatively recent date, being brought about through the influence of the
Dutch printers.”
First Letter of the Sacred Name is Y
As we have shown, the J came from the letter I. The New Book of Knowledge shows the
letter I (hence the J as well) derived from the Hebrew yothe (y), which is the first letter of Yahweh’s Name (hwhy, YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton or “four letters”; Hebrew is read from right to left). It is also the first
letter of Yahshua’s Name. The letter I (yothe or yod) in Hebrew
carries the sound of “ee” as in “police.”
The King James Version and other Bibles
employ the Latinized-Greek “Jesus.” But the facts of etymology prove that this
cannot be His true name. If the King James and other Bibles are in error in
calling the Savior “Jesus,” how did the error come about? And how can we
determine exactly what that precious Name is?
The fact is, the first copies of the 1611
King James Bible did not use the letter J (see production at top). And no evidence is found to show that the letter I had the consonantal sound of J. This has been shown in the New Funk and Wagnall’s Encyclopedia:
“Not until the middle of the 17th century did this usage become universal in English books; in the King James
Bible of 1611 for example, the words Jesus and judge are invariably Iesus and iudge.”
Oscar Ogg’s books, The 26 Letters, which gives a
history of each letter of the English alphabet, explains how the J, along with the U and W, were the last
to be added to the alphabet:
“The
three missing letters, J, U and W, were not used by the Romans at all. U and W developed from V about a thousand years ago, and J developed from the letter I about five hundred years ago,” p.
106.
As already confirmed, most of our American
vocabulary employing the letter J stems from the French. Nearly all words containing the letter J in English are
pronounced as in French, such as journal or major, although French has a
considerably softer pronunciation of J than English. In Spanish the J is
more of an h aspirate as in “San
Jose.”
After development of the letter J, the Savior’s Name was changed by the
translators to Jesus, but continued to be pronounced much like the letter Y. However, the pronunciation of the J soon changed completely from its
former “yee” sound to our present “juh” through French influence.
In
Latin the J was pronounced as a Y. Even today, the German tongue, among
others, pronounces the J like a Y (July – Yulee; Ja = Ya; Major in German is pronounced as “mayor;” June
is “Yunee”). Note the comments of author F.F. Bruce
in his The Books and the Parchments: “In the English
Bible, Hebrew proper names with yod are represented
with j, which in modern English has
quite a different sound from y. Thus
‘Jehovah-jireh’ would have been pronounced in Hebrew
something like Yahweh yeereh” (footnote, p. 40).
In his book, Story of the Letters and Figures, Hubert M. Skinner provides an
excellent summation of the discordant transformation inflicted on the Savior’s
Name:
“In some way, various modern peoples who
received the J from the Romans have
lost the original sound, and have substituted something very different. We
retain the former sound in our word ‘hallelujah,’ but we generally give the
letter the disagreeable soft sound of G. Yod is the
initial of the name Jesus. It is unfortunate that a name so dear and so sacred
is pronounced in a manner so different from that of the original word. The
latter sounded very much as if it were Yashoo-ah, and
was agreeable to the ear. Our sounds of J and hard S are the most disagreeable
in our language, and they are both found in our pronunciation of this short
name, although they did not exist in its original,” pp. 122-123.
‘Jesus’: A Word Out of Place and Time
The Bible clearly reveals that salvation is
available in only one name: “Neither is
there salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The name the angel gave
to Hebrew-speaking Mary and Joseph was Yahshua, meaning “Salvation of Yah.”
This original Name has been made a hybrid
by translators and changed to the Latinized, Grecianized name Jesus – a name that came into our language about the time of Christopher
Columbus. (For a detailed explanation, request the revealing ministudy, How the Savior’s Name Was Changed.)
The following Biblical study references clearly
explain that “Jesus,” used in place of the Savior’s true Name Yahshua, is erroneous. (Some of these references correctly
show the Y or I superior to the Mistaken J.)
► Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature:
“Import of the Name. –There can be no doubt that Jesus is the Greek form of a
Hebrew name…Its original and full form is Jehoshua (Num. 13:16). By contraction it became Joshua, or Jeshua;
and when transferred into Greek, by taking the termination characteristics of that
language, it assumed the form Jesus” (vol. 4, pp. 873-874).
► The Anchor Bible Dictionary: “Jesus [Gk. Iesous]. Several persons
mentioned in the Bible bear this name, which is a Greek form of Joshua (Heb. Yehosua; cf. the
Gk of Luke 3:29; Acts 7:45; Heb. 4:8)…’Jesus Christ’ is a composite name made
up of the personal name ‘Jesus’ (from the Gk Iesous, which transliterates
Heb/Aram yesu(a), a late form of Hebrew yehosua, the meaning of which is ‘YHWH is salvation’ or
‘YHWH saves/has saved’)…” (III, p. 773).
► The Anchor Bible (note on Matthew 1:1): “Jesus. The word is the
Greek rendering of a well-known Hebrew name. It was Yahoshu first, then by inner
Hebrew phonetic change it became Yoshua, and by a still northern dialectal shift, Yeshua. The first
element, Yahu (=Yahweh) means ‘the Lord,’ while the second comes from shua ‘To help, save.’ The most
probable meaning is ‘O Lord, save.’” (Vol. 26, p.2)
► The New International Dictionary of The Christian Church: “Jesus
Christ, The Founder of Christianity bore ‘Jesus’ (the Greek form of Joshua or Jeshua) as His personal name; ‘Christ’ (Gk. Christos, ‘anointed’) is the title given
Him by His followers…” (p.531).
► Mercer Dictionary of the Bible: “Jeshua:
An Aramaic form of the name Joshua, meaning ‘Yahweh is salvation.’ It occurs
only in postexilic biblical literature, which supports the later origin of the
name. Joshua, the son of Nun, is referred to in one passage as Jeshua (Neh. 8:17)” (p.444).
► Newberry Reference Bible (on Matt. 1:24): “Jesus, Heb. Joshua, or Jehoshua. Compare Num. 13:8, 16, where ‘Oshea,’
verse 8, signifying ‘Salivation,’ is
altered in v.16 to ‘Jehoshua,’ ‘the Salvation of Jehovah,’ or ‘Jehovah the Savior.’”
► The
International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia:
“Jesus (Iesous)
is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Joshua’ (ucwhy, Yehoshua) meaning ‘Jehovah
is salvation.’ It stands therefore in the LXX and Apoc for ‘Joshua,’ and in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8 likewise represents the OT
‘Joshua.’ In Mt. 1:21 the name is commanded by the angel to be given to the son
of Mary, ‘for it is he that shall save his people from their sins…It is the
personal name of the L-rd in the Gospels and in the Acts…’” (Vol. 3, p.1626).
► The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary: “The given
name Jesus means ‘savior,’ it is the Greek equivalent of Jeshua (Heb. Yesua,
from yehosua ‘Yahweh saves’ [=Joshua]. Christ is the title, indicating that he is the
‘anointed one,’ the Messiah from Hebrew masiah).” …”Jeshua (Heb. Yesua ‘Yahweh is
salvation’)” (p.573).
► The Bible Almanac: “The name Jesus (which is identical with Joshua
and means ‘God is Savior’) emphasizes His role as the Savior of His people
(Mat. 1:21). Christ is the New Testament equivalent of Messiah, a Hebrew word
meaning ‘anointed one’…” (p.522).
► Holman Bible Dictionary: “Jesus Christ: Greek form of Joshua and of
title meaning ‘Yahweh is salvation’ and ‘the anointed one’ or ‘Messiah.’”
(p.775).
► New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology, “OT Iesous is the Gk.
Form of the OT Jewish name Yesua, arrived at by transcribing the Heb. And adding an –s
to the nominative to facilitate declension. Yesua (Joshua) seems to have come
into general use about the time of the Babylonian exile in place of the older Yehosua. The LXX rendered both the ancient and more
recent forms of the name uniformly as Iesous. Joshua the son of Nun, who according to the
tradition was Moses’ successor and completed his work in the occupation of the promised
land by the tribes of Israel, appears under this name…It is the oldest name
containing the divine name Yahweh, and means ‘Yahweh is help’ or ‘Yahweh is
salvation’ (cf. the verb yasa,
help save). Joshua also appears in one post-exilic passage in the Heb. OT (Neh.
8:17) as Yesua the son of Nun, and not as in the older texts, Yehosua” (Vol. 2, pp.330-331).
► The
Classic Bible Dictionary (Jay P. Green), page 633, under Jesus: “Jesus is
the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Joshua,’ meaning ‘Jehovah is salvation.’ It
stands therefore in the LXX and Apocrypha for ‘Joshua,’ and in Acts 7:45 and
Heb. 4:8 likewise represents the OT Joshua.”
Author Green also comments on the Greek
word “Christ:” “Christ (Christos) is
the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, meaning anointed.”
Thus we see that the Savior’s name as well
as the descriptive title “Messiah” have been undermined and appear in Greek in
changed form. Our Savior has been stripped of His Israelite roots.
► The SDA Bible Dictionary, page 565: “Jesus Christ [Gr. Iesous] (a transliteration of the Aramaic Yeshua, from the Heb. Yehoshua, ‘Joshua,’ meaning
‘Yahweh is Salvation’), Christos (a
translation of the Heb. Mashiach,
‘Messiah,’ meaning anointed or anointed One).] The English form ‘Jesus’ comes
from the Latin.”
► In Strange Facts About the Bible, author Garrison notes on page 81:
“In its English form, ‘Jesus’ goes back to church Latin Iesus which is a transliteration
of the Greek Iesous.
But in its original Hebrew form it was Y’hoshua (‘Yahweh saves’), frequently abbreviated to Joshua…”
► Ian Wilson’s Jesus: The Evidence, says on page 66; “’Yeshua’,
as Jesus would actually have been addressed, means ‘God saves’, and is merely a
shortened form of the more old fashioned ‘Yehoshua (‘Joshua’ of the Old Testament).”
► New Bible Dictionary (edited by J.D. Douglas) reads under Jesus:
“The name Jesus is not strictly a
title for the person who bore it. It is, however, a name with a meaning, being
a Greek form of ‘Joshua’, i.e. ‘Yahweh is salvation’. The NT writers were well
aware of this meaning (Mt. 1:21). The name thus indicated the function which
was ascribed to Jesus, and this later found expression in the title Saviour…”
(p.584).
► Alford’s Greek Testament, An Exegetical and Critical Commentary:
“Jesus –The same name as Joshua, the former deliverer of Israel.”
► Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion: “Jesus (The Name) –Matthew’s
Gospel explains it as symbolic of His mission, ‘For He will save His people
from their sins.’ This agrees with its popular meaning as ‘Yahweh saves…’” p.
1886.
► A Dictionary of the Bible, by James Hastings: “Jesus –the Greek
form (Ihsous) of the name Joshua (ucwhy) or Jeshua. Jeshua – Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh is opulence”
(pp.603-602).
► New International Dictionary of the Christian Church: “Jesus
Christ, The Founder of Christianity bore ‘Jesus’ (the Greek form of Joshua or Jeshua) as His personal name; ‘Christ’ (Gk. christos,
‘anointed’) is the title given Him by His followers…” (p. 531).
All of these authorities and scholars
agree. His name is not the Latinized Grecianized name “Jesus,” but reflects His Hebrew
heritage and the mission He was given to save His people through the Name of
the Heavenly Father Yahweh.
So how did He end up with the name so many
erroneously call on today?
Greek Not the Original New Testament
Language
Very
early in history, even before the Messiah, Greek had become a world language.
Alexander the Great conquered the lands east and south of Greece, establishing
Hellenistic culture and society as far as the Indus River and south into Egypt.
The koine or common Greek dialect prevailed, becoming dominant
in the wake of Alexander’s exploits. Greek survived the ravages of Roman
persecution, as well as the crusades, and continued to be spoken up to the time
of the Muslim conquest of the Mediterranean area.
Following the destruction of Jerusalem in
70 C.E., Rome crushed the Bar Kochba rebellion in 135
C.E. The Roman army destroyed anything Jewish, especially religious scrolls and
books, including their Torah. This was followed by the Catholic inquisitions in
Europe, eradicating anything Jewish. The crusaders made fair game of the Jews,
ruthlessly destroying any vestiges of Hebrew writings.
Thus, between the suppression carried out
by the Romans and the later Crusades, any Hebrew copies of both Old and New
Testament writings were lost. Only Greek copies survived. Neither are there any
original Hebrew Old Testaments manuscripts, only copies of copies of copies.
An increasing number of competent Bible
scholars now agree with scholar Charles Cutler Torrey (Documents of the Primitive Church) that the New Testament in whole
or part was first written in Hebrew and only later translated into Greek.
(Write us for a list of renowned Bible scholars who uphold an original Hebrew
New Testament, as well as the ministudy, Was
the New Testament Originally Greek?)
In the September 12, 1986 issue of The Washington Times, David Bivin notes that Yahshua, like
His contemporaries, most likely spoke Hebrew, Bivin,
the director for the Jerusalem School for the Study of the Gospels, also
believes that the original account of Yahshua’s life
was written in Hebrew, not Greek of Aramaic. In addition, he and his Jerusalem
scholars agree that by considering the Evangels Hebraic, many textual
difficulties are cleared up, strongly suggesting that the Evangels were first
written in Hebrew.
Even Martin Luther recognized the Hebrew
roots of the New Testament. He wrote in Tischreden, “Although the New Testament was written in
Greek, it is full of Hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been
aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream
that flows from it, and the Latins from the
downstream pool” (translated by Pinchas E. Lapide in Hebrew in
the Church, p.10).
Where is the justification for changing the
Savior’s Name? Even in a Greek context, there is no J or J sound in the Koine or in any
Greek dialect known. The Greek New Testament of the Bible provides the basis
for our present Latin and English translations. Obviously the J came from another source, as Greek
has no phonetic equivalent of the letter J in its 24 characters of the alphabet. Neither does Hebrew. The words judge,
journal, jack, jam, jet, jog, etc., likely would all be spelled beginning with
the Greek iota (English I) and would be pronounced as “ee.” In English the letter j would be replaced by the letter i. We would read iudge, iournal, iack, iam, iet, iog, etc. Some orthographers would prefer that these examples begin with today’s letter y instead of i.
We cannot ignore the fact that there was no
letter J in ANY language until
around the 15th century, and therefore must conclude that the name
“Jesus” never existed before 500 years ago. Let us not forget that we read from
a Hebrew Bible. It is the account of Yahweh’s dealing with His people Israel.
Yahweh spoke to a people who understood Hebrew. Yahweh is the Mighty One of the
Hebrews. Remember also that there was no Jew before the time of Abraham, Isaac
or Jacob. So the Sacred Name is not Jewish.
The seeker of truth must not shy from the
Hebrew roots of true Biblical faith, for we are children of Abraham, a Hebrew
(Gen. 14:13). Hebrew means to “cross over,” and we are to “cross over” the
falsity and error of this world and join in pure worship of Yahweh and His Son Yahshua.
Savior’s Name Explained in Bible Versions
Inspired Scripture calls attention to a
singular Name wherein rests our eternal salvation.
The following Bible versions have these
footnote explanations on Matthew 1:21, the verse where the angel tells Joseph (Yowceph) what to name the Redeemer of mankind:
● “’Jesus’ (Hebr. Jehoshua)
means ‘Yahweh saves’”—The Jerusalem
Bible.
● “’Jesus’ is the Greek form of
Joshua, which means ‘the Lord saves’” –New
International Version.
● “’Jesus,’ from the Greek form of a
common Hebrew name (Joshua) derived from yasha, ‘he
saves’” –Harper Collins Study Bible
● “She will give birth to a son, and
you are to name him Yeshua, [which means ‘Adonai saves’], because he will save his people from their
sins” –Jewish New Testament, David
Stern, translator.
● “Heb. Yoshia, reflected in the name Yeshua (Gr. Jesus)” –The
Original New Testament, Hugh J. Schonfield.
● “Jesus: The Greek form of ‘Jeshua’….The full significance of the name ‘Jesus’ is seen
in the original ‘Yehoshua,’ which means ‘Jehovah the
Savior,’ and not merely ‘Savior,’ as the word is often explained” –Weymouth’s New Testament in Modern Speech.
● “Jesus Christ. The name ‘Jesus’ is
from the Greek (and Latin) for the Hebrew ‘Jeshua’
(Joshua), which means ‘the Lord is salvation.’ ‘Christ’ is from the Greek for
the Hebrew ‘Meshiah’ (Messiah), meaning ‘anointed
one’”—Ryrie Study Bible
● “Jesus, Yeshua,
meaning ‘Jehovah Is Salvation’” –The
Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures.
The
following commentaries add their observations on the Savior’s Name:
♦ Matthew Henry’s Commentary (on Matthew 1:21): “Jesus is the same name with
Joshua, the termination only being changed, for the sake of conforming it to
the Greek.”
♦ Interpreter’s Bible (Note on Matthew 1:21): “Jesus for He shall save: The play on words (Yeshua, Jesus; yoshia, shall
save) is possible in Hebrew but not in Aramaic. The name Joshua means “Yahweh
is salvation.”
♦ Barnes’ Notes (Note on
Matthew 1:21): “His name Jesus: The name Jesus is the same as Saviour. It is derived from the verb signifying to save. In
Hebrew it is the same as Joshua. In two places [Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8] in
the New Testament it is used where it means Joshua, the leader of the Jews
[Israel] into Canaan, and in our translation the name Joshua should not have
been retained.”
The prefix Yah is the short or poetic form of YAH-weh the Heavenly Father’s Name as found in HalleluYAH and
in names of many Biblical personalities, as we will see. Thus, the Savior’s
Name begins with the prefix “Yah” that begins Yahweh’s Name, as revealed in
Psalm 68:4: “Sing unto Elohim, sing praises to his name: extol him that rides upon
the heavens by his name JAH [YAH], and rejoice before him.” “Shua,” the last part of the Savior’s Name, carries the
primary meaning of “salvation.” Thus, Yahshua means
“the salvation of Yah.”
When Israel crossed over the Red Sea, Moses
sang a song of thanks to Yahweh in Exodus 15. The saving name appears in verse
2, “Yah is become my salvation,”
which was to be Yahshua!
The following reasons clearly show why the
name Jesus could never have been the Savior’s Name:
► There is no letter J or equivalent
in Hebrew.
► There is no letter J or equivalent
in Greek.
► There was no letter J in English
until about 500 years ago.
► “Jesus,” an etymological hybrid
from Greek and Latin, has no inherent, etymological meaning in Greek or Latin,
not to mention Hebrew or English.
► Joseph (“Yowceph”
in Hebrew), a Hebrew and a Jew, was told by the angel Gabriel that Mary
(Miriam), a Jewess, would give birth to One Who would “save His people Israel
from their sins,” Matthew 1:21. Only the Hebrew name “Yahshua”
means “Salvation of Yah” (“Yah”shua). He Himself said
that He is come in His Father’s Name (“Yah”weh/”Yah”shua) and “you receive me not,” John 5:43.
► Mary, a Hebrew, was told the same
thing that Joseph was, Luke 1:31.
► Would a celestial being announce
the coming Savior to Jews who spoke Hebrew (or Aramaic), proclaiming a
Romanized, Grecian name beginning with a letter J that did not exist, but would originate in a European tongue 1500
years later? Remember it was to Israel, a Semitic people who spoke and
understood Hebrew, that His saving Name was first revealed.
► Would HEBREW parents give their
baby a hybridized GREEK name devoid of any meaning – especially such an
important name that would identify the very Savior of the world?
How Did ‘Yahshua’ Become
‘Jesus’?
It is necessary that we understand the
prefix “YAH” has come to us in the form “YEH” (a type of which is found in “Yeshua” commonly used for Yahshua).
It is also manifest in the names JEHovah and Jesus.
Almost any scholarly reference work will
acknowledge that Rabbinic tradition has suppressed the true Name Yahweh
centuries before the Messiah came at Bethlehem. Writing Yahweh’s Name in the Hebrew,
Jewish scribes inserted a shewa (:) instead of the proper qamets (T), thus changing the
vowel sound “ah” in “Yah” to “eh.” This was done to conceal the sacred Name,
thus yielding the improper Yehovah and Yeshua.
This is practiced even today by such groups
as the Jews for Jesus, who contend that “Y’shua’ is
the Jewish way to say “Jesus.” This may have been done to avoid offending the
Jews and their proscription against even the short form YAH.
Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary
clearly shows the erroneous vowel pointing of YAH to YEH in the first column of
page 48 where the resulting “YEH” is obvious. In every name in this column, a shewa (:) appears under the Hebrew letter yod (y:), and the pronunciation given following the Hebrew
spelling begins with the prefix “YEH.”
Using the “e” instead of the proper “a” is
another ploy of the Adversary to do away with the family Name YAH, the first
syllable of both Yahweh’s and Yahshua’s Name.
This explains how the “e” came about in the
name Jesus. The next letter in Jesus, s, results from the fact that Greek has
no “sh” sound, only “s” (sigma) sound. This was incorporated into the Latin text. The “u” in
Jesus comes from the u in Yahshua. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology explains, “Iesous is the
Greek form of the Old Testament Jewish name Yesua [Yahshua], arrived at by transcribing the Hebrew and adding
an s to the nom. to facilitate declension.”
The final “s” in “Jesus” is the Greek
nominative masculine singular ending. Matthew 1:8-11 contains the genealogy of
Joseph’s line, where we can find similar examples of “s” added to produce
Greek-inflected Hebrew names: Uzziah becomes Ozias; Hezekiah becomes Ezekias; Jonah becomes Jonas, etc.
The errors that we find among names in most versions can be traced to
translators. The early Christian translators relied upon the Greek translation
called the Septuagint as their source of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Is it not significant that even though
these Hebrew names were Grecianized, that they still
are recognizable? Why then in English versions does Yahweh’s Name become
changed to a completely foreign “God,” while “Yahshua”
mutates into “Jesus,” a substitute that is not even close to the original?
Why the change, when even the name of the
Adversary – Satan – retains its original Hebrew form and close pronunciation?
(Saw-tawn, Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary No. 7854).
Adam Clarke’s respected comments on the
inferior early translations are informative: “Through the ignorance and
carelessness of transcribers innumerable mistakes have been made in ancient
names. These also have suffered very greatly in their transfusion from one
language to another, till at last the original name is almost totally
lost…Besides, neither the Greeks nor Romans could pronounce either the Hebrew
or Persian names; and when engaged in the task of transcribing, they did it
according to their own manner of pronunciation,” Clarke’s Commentary, vol. 3, pp. 393-394. Clearly, some
over-zealous scribe tampered with the text of the King James Bible and what we
have is a New Testament in which the Name of Yahshua has been adulterated and almost obscured.
For an example of this, look at Acts 7:45
in the King James Version. The sentence reads, “Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the
possession of the Gentiles whom [Elohim] drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of
David.” But the account is actually speaking of the Old Testament Joshua,
the son of Nun!
Another example is found in Hebrews 4:8, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would
he not afterward have spoken of another day.” Many study Bibles will have
notes on these two verses pointing out that the more correct name is JOSHUA the
son of Nun.
Certain translations other than the King
James have corrected this error and inserted “Joshua” in the text. Thus, we can
see that this name is the same as that given by Moses to his successor in
Numbers 13:16. It is also the name of the Savior (corrected with the “Yah”).
This shows how the translators overzealously changed all the “Yahshua’s” to “Jesus”—even when it referred to someone in
the Old Testament not the Savior.
Go to Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary and peruse page 47, taking special note of the second name
from the top of the right column, No. 3050, YAHH. Notice this is the correct
spelling and pronunciation of the short form YAH and includes the qametes under the yod: (3050. hy Yahh, yaw).
Although author James Strong is noted for
his classic concordance, his understanding of the Name was lacking and he used
the erroneous Jehovah. However, his is correct in listing No. 3050 YAHH,
spelling it with the vowel a instead of e and the double hh to bring out the “ahh” sound.
The importance of the short form YAHH takes
on additional significance when we read John 5:43, “I am come in my Father’s name….” We understand this to mean that He
came in the authority and power of the Heavenly Father. Yet, we must understand
that His Name Yahshua also included His Father’s
Name, YAH. It is the short form, the prefix of the Name Yahshua!
(Followers of Yahshua will be carrying that Name in
the Kingdom, Eph. 3:14-15; Dan. 9:19).
The custom of reading a substitute name
when the Tetragrammaton was encountered in the Hebrew
Scriptures was carried over into the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the LXX (Septuagint). The translation
was said to have been made by seventy Hebrew translators for the King of Egypt
who wanted a copy of this great book of the Hebrews for the grand library of
Alexandria in Egypt. The letters LXX (meaning “70”) are often used as an abbreviation for the Greek Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament.
In making the Greek translation, the
copyists inserted the four characters of the Tetragrammaton in gold letters of the Hebrew, namely hwhy, wherever the name Yahweh was to appear. However, the
pronunciation was pointed with the vowels of Adonai.
After the death and resurrection of the Messiah, there arose a demand for a
Latin version of the Hebrew Old Testament by the expanding church. These early
translators were not skilled in the Hebrew language, and actually detested the
Jews and refused to learn the Aramaic or Hebrew tongue. They were ignorant of
Hebrew and were often ridiculed by the Jews for their ludicrous pronunciation
of Hebrew. (See this booklet’s section, “Why the Terms ‘God’ and ‘Lord’?” on
page 26).
And What About ‘Jehovah’?
Scholars know that Jehovah could never be
the name of the Heavenly Father. Aside from the error with the letter J, this word has other problems. Even
the Catholics, who have been given the distinction of inventing the word
“Jehovah,” know it is not the Father’s Name. In the preface to the Revised Standard
Version of the Bible is the following: “The form Jehovah is of late medieval
origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels
attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an
entirely different word. The sound of Y is represented by J and the sound of W by V, as in Latin. The word ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent
any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew,” pp. 6-7. Perhaps the best explanation of how the
word Jehovah came about is made in the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary. A photocopy of its entry on “Jehovah” is
shown at the top of the page. The Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves admit
that “Jehovah” is inferior to “Yahweh.” In their book, Let Your Name Be Sanctified (p.16), they quote the Roman Catholic translator of The Westminster Version of
the Sacred Scriptures, saying, “I should have preferred to write ‘Yahwe,’ in which, although not certain, is admittedly
superior to ‘Jehovah,’”
On page 17 of this same book the Jehovah’s
Witnesses write, “In harmony with the practice that had developed among the
superstitious, the vowel signs for Elohim or for Adonay were inserted at the accustomed places in the text
to warn the Hebrew reader to say those words instead of the divine name. By
combining those warning vowel sings with the Tetragrammaton the pronunciation Yahowih and Yehowah were formed.”
Then on page 20 they quote the Lexicon for the Books of the Old Testament,
by Koehler and Baumgartner, under the Tetragrammaton:
“’The wrong spelling Jehovah (Revised Version: The LORD) occurs since about
1100,’ and then it offers its arguments in favor of Yahweh as ‘the correct and
original pronunciation.’”
In the foreword of their Bible, The
New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures (published by
the Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower Bible and Tract Society), they say on page 25:
Biblical Names Reveal the Person
Our culture today looks on names as little
more than labels, although we still talk about having a “good name” and speak
of being “true to one’s name.” These expressions are carryovers from a time
when a name expressed and conveyed a person’s attributes and character. An eye-opening study of the names of the 12
tribes of Israel appears in Genesis chapter 29-30. Situations surrounding the
birth of each of these sons is reflected in their individual names. The Hebrew
Dictionary found at the back of Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance provides
a fascinating exercise in the meaning of names.
In his book, Our Father Abraham, Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, Marvin R.
Wilson writes: “In Hebrew thought, the name of an individual was considered to
be more than a title or a label for identification. Rather, a name was believed
to reveal the essence, character, reputation, or destiny of the one to whom it
was given. This is why the moral law of Moses forbids defamation of another’s
name by false witness (Ex. 20:16). Thus the name of every Hebrew sent out some
sort of message with it.”
The message of Yahweh’s Name throughout
Scripture is that it is sacred, and one either accepts it or finds oneself in
opposition to Him. The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary explains: “[Yahweh’s]
name reveals his character and salvation in which people may take refuge (Ps.
20:1; cf. Isa. 25:1, 56:6); to treat [Yahweh’s] name as empty is to despise his
person (Ex. 20:7),” p. 747.
Yahweh: The Most Sacred of All Names
Yahweh’s Name is high on a level all its
own. No name is more important than the personal Name of the One we worship.
Not only is this true because names have great significance in Hebrew, but also
because Yahweh Himself tells us to revere His Name and not to bring it to
obscurity through substitution and disuse, Exodus 20:7. The word “vain” in the
Third Commandment –“Thou shalt not take the Name of Yahweh thy Elohim in vain” –is the Hebrew shoaw, meaning to rush over, bring to devastation,
uselessness, ruin, and by implication, neglect.
The
one attribute describing Yahweh’s Name more than any other is its holiness. His
Name is not to be blasphemed (Lev. 24:16) or desecrated. It is to be treated
with reverential awe, because it expresses the essence of Yahweh Himself.
We can bring His Name to ruin by falsifying
it. If you remove an author’s name from the books he wrote and reprint them
with another name in them you falsify his works. The same is true when
translators take His Name from the Scriptures and insert generic titles in its
place.
How can we presume to call upon Yahweh and
His Son Yahshua with titles like “god” and “lord”
that are used in the worship of other deities? Elijah (EliYah,
“my El is Yah”) was calling the people’s attention to the same issue in 1Kings
18 –demonstrating that the True Heavenly Father has a personal Name and that
they in their ignorance were calling on titles of Baal (“Baal Gad” = Lord God)
in their worship (see Harper Collins
Study Bible note on Hosea 2:16).
Baal was the chief “deity” of the Canaanites.
Yahweh charged that they had forgotten His
Name for Baal, Jeremiah 23:26-27. If Yahweh was displeased with the
substitution “Baal,” why would He not be just as provoked with today’s
substitution of an equivalent word, “Lord”?
Yahweh’s Name is so central to salvation
that the Savior’s Name bears it as well. He is the Son, and the salvation
Yahweh sent. You could say “Yah” is the family Name of the Heavenly Majesty.
Author Wilson notes,
“The fact that Jesus was a Jew by birth is
crucial for understanding the nature and person of Jesus as presented in the
Gospels. Jesus was given the Hebrew name Yeshua.
(‘Jesus’ is the Latin form of ‘Iesous,’ the Greek
transliteration of Yeshua.) The name Yeshua, derived from the Hebrew verb yashua,
revealed the destiny he was to fulfill in his life and ministry on this earth”
(Our Father Abraham, Jewish Roots of the
Christian Faith).
All religions generally are known by the
one they worship or give homage to. Anciently the god of the Akkadians was Marduk; the god of
the Ammonites was Moloch; the god of the Greeks was Zeus; the god of the Romans
was Jupiter; the god of the Moabites was Baal-peor;
the god of the Hebrews was…God?! Using an all-inclusive, indefinite, impersonal
title simply does not identify the One you worship! Capitalizing that title
doesn’t help, either, no more than the title “mr.”
suddenly becomes a name if we make it “Mr.”
Strange, isn’t it, that all the pagan
“deities” have their own special names, yet we are expected to believe that the
TRUE Mighty One of the Bible goes by general terms that can apply to any
“deity”?
In fact, the Name Yahweh appears 6,823
times in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures, from which we ultimately derive
all versions of the Old Testament. It should have appeared 100 times in the New
Testament. But rarely does one hear the Name used or even mentioned in churches
that supposedly honor those same Scriptures.
The majority of Bible versions have changed
the holy Name to the titles God and Lord. You can restore it when you read the
Scripture, however. In many King James Bibles, whenever you see the words LORD
or LORD GOD in capital letters in the Old Testament, the Masoretic Hebrew Script has the Hebrew characters for Yahweh, hwhy. (To help when you read your Bible, request the
bookmark, Correcting the Name in Your Bible.)
Yahshua: A Name Given in Hebrew to a Hebrew
Because there is no J sound in the Hebrew,
the prefix “Je” does not exist in Hebrew. The combination word “Jesus” is not
Greek, it’s not Hebrew. In fact, it is completely without philological meaning
in any language. Yet, Gabriel told Mary and Joseph that the Messiah’s Name,
being given from the very highest Authority in the heavens, was special. It had
a specific connotation, a precise and very important MEANING. The angel said He
would be given this Name because “He shall save His people from their sins.”
Scholars acknowledge that the name given through Gabriel was the Hebrew Yahshua. (See any good study Bible with marginal notes on
Matt. 1:21 and Luke 1:31, as well as the Biblical sources listed here.) “Yahshua” means “Yahweh is salvation.”
It must be noted that whenever a message
was given from on high, it was to those who understood Hebrew, which is called
by some the “heavenly language.” Thus, when the angel told Joseph, a Jew, that
the Savior would be born of Mary, a Jewess, that he was to call the baby a
specific name, this name would hardly have been a Latin-Greek name such as
Jesus! How His name came to us as Jesus in our English Bible such as the King
James instead of Yahshua is interesting.
The Savior’s true Name in Hebrew letters
look like this: ucwhy. Read
from right to left, as in all Semitic languages, His Name begins with a (y)
(known in English Bibles as “jot,” Mat. 5:18, but in the Hebrew is the yothe or yod).
Yothe carries the
sound of i as in machine. This “ee” sound is then followed by an a, which is much like an “ah” sound.
This diphthong is pronounced “ee-ah” or “Yah,” which
is the short form of the Heavenly Father’s name “Yah-weh.”
We see it in the suffix “halleluYah” and in the names
of many people of Scripture (IsaYah, JeremiYah, ObadiYah, ZechariYah, ZephaniYah, etc.).
Add the suffix “shua”
(meaning “salvation”) and we have Yahshua, the
“Salvation of Yah.”
That
the language spoken was Hebrew is clear from Matthew 1:23, where the Savior is
referred to as Emmanuel, a purely
Hebrew word meaning “El with us,” and
is so transliterated for us in that passage.
You can see for yourself that the name of
your Savior was Yahshua by referring to Strong’s Concordance Greek Dictionary.
Look up the name “Jesus” in Strong’s,
which shows that it first appears in Matthew 1:1, with the reference No. 2424.
Turn to the Greek Dictionary in the back of Strong’s (Greek, because it is in the New Testament) and note the
following entry:
‘Ihsous Iesous, ee-ay-sooce’; of Hebrew origin [No.3091]; Jesus (i.e. Jehoshua),
the name of our Lord and two (three) other Israelites:-Jesus.
We learn the Savior’s name is of Hebrew
origin from No. 3091. In the Hebrew section of Strong’s, No. 3091 has the Hebrew characters that are
transliterated into English as follows:
uwcwhy Yehowshuwa’, yeh-ho-shoo’-ah: or ucwhy Yehowshu’a, ye-ho-shoo’-ah from No. 3068 and No. 3467; Jehovah-saved; Jehoshua (i.e. Joshua), the Jewish leader: -Jehoshua, Jehoshuah, Joshua. Compare Nos. 1954, 3442. By the time of Yahshua’s birth, the accepted form among the Jews was not Yahoshua,
but the shortened form Yahshua. In the Old Testament
this name is spelled Joshua and is found in Numbers 13:16 of the King James
text where Moses changed the name of the Israelite general from Oshea (or Hosea) to Yahshua. That
is, from salvation or savior to “Salvation of Yah.”
Most
reference works agree with Kittle’s Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament statement on page 284, which states that
the name Yahoshua was shortened after the exile to
the short form Yahshua.
The fact that the Greek Dictionary (No.
2424) refers the reader back to the Hebrew section of Strong’s Concordance clearly shows that the name Jesus stems from
the Hebrew Yahshua.
It is rather doubtful the derivation of Jesus is from the pagan deity “Zeus” of
the Greeks. However, some draw a relationship to the “salvation” or “healing”
of Ea-Zeus. According to the Dictionary of Comparative Religion (p.622), “The Greeks generally identified the chief god of other peoples with
Zeus (e.g. Amun, Hadad,
Yahweh).” From Bux and Schone, Worterbuch der Antika, under “Jesus,” we find: “Jesus: really adapted
from the Greek, possibly from the name of the Greek healing goddess Ieso (Iaso).”
Although some evidence could support a
conclusion for a Greek deity connection, it is more likely that “Jesus”
resulted from a crude attempt to transliterate (bring over the sound) from
Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then to English, losing the true vocalization with
each step.
Young’s Analytical Concordance has one line for Jesus which reads:
JE’-SUS, ‘Ihsous, from Heb. uwcy saviour.
As already noted, the early Christians were
ignorant of Hebrew and cared less for the language of “those detestable Jews.”
Therefore, they relied upon the Greek Septuagint (LXX) Old Testament as their source instead of going directly to the
Hebrew texts.
‘Adonai’ Replaces Sacred
Name
The early translators who gave us the
English version of the Bible were not Hebrew scholars. They based their
understanding mostly on the Greek texts, the Septuagint for the Old Testament
and the extant Greek texts for the New Testament. Generally they were ignorant
of Hebrew and sometimes lacked in their knowledge of Hebrew grammar, syntax,
and vocabulary.
Because of the animosity between the Jews
and their Roman rulers, it was a common practice for Roman soldiers to search
for and destroy any religious Hebrew texts of the Jews and Messianic believers
alike. Initially, the Romans made no distinction between Jews and converts of
the early Assembly, for their worship appeared basically the same. Both
worshiped on the weekly Saturday Sabbath and observed the annual festivals, both
read from the same Old Testament Hebrew scrolls in their study and worship. It
was not until the third century that a distinction was made between traditional
Jewish worship and those who had gone on to accept Yahshua as the Messiah.
The admitted ignorance of the early
Christian scholars of the Hebrew language lies at the root of the misspelling
and variations of the sacred Name. The Jews often ridiculed and derided these
Christians who claimed to be scholars, but stumbled in their efforts to pronounce
Hebrew words.
By
the time of the Messiah the custom of not pronouncing the sacred Name in public
by the Jews became mandatory. This practice had apparently developed from the
warning in Leviticus 24:16, “And he that blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall
surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as
well as the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemes the
name of Yahweh shall be put to death.” By not using the Sacred Name, one
could not blaspheme it, and so it was not invoked except by the high priest on
the Day of Atonement.
Thus came about the custom in the synagogue
of reading “adonai” instead of the Sacred Name when
the Tetragrammaton (hwhy) appeared in the texts. The logic being, by calling upon
a substitute instead of invoking the Name, the Name could not be blasphemed.
In Jeremiah 44:26 we read another verse
that stifled any public utterance of the Sacred Name, especially during the
captivity. “Therefore hear you the word
of Yahweh, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; behold, I have sworn by
My great name says Yahweh, that My name shall no more be names in the mouth of
any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, ‘Yahweh Elohim lives.’”
This became especially critical when the
Jews were taken captive to Babylon. Psalm 137 relates that they refused to sing
the songs of Zion (using Yahweh’s Name) in a strange land lest the Name and
worship be subject to ridicule by the gentiles. Thus the ban on uttering the
sacred Name became firmly entrenched and was the general practice by the time
the Savior came to earth.
While the Jewish zealots would not invoke
(vocalize) the sacred Name, it was their custom to write it in the sacred
texts, carefully placing the vowels of Adonai over
the Tetragrammaton to warn the reader not to utter
the sacred Name, but to use “adonai.” The scribes
did, however, place the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in the
Greek Septuagint translation. Christian scholars did not understand these
sacred four Hebrew letters (hwhy)
and translated them into the Greek as pipi, thinking
it was the doubling of two Greek letters – pi (pipi) --- read left to right rather than from right to
left as in Hebrew. When the proper pronunciation was pointed out to them they
inserted the Greek letters Iao, which closely
corresponded to YHWH.
Kurios, Theos: Greek Substitutes for Name
Recent discoveries of Greek manuscripts of
the Old Testaments reveal that the sacred Name was preserved in Hebrew or
Aramaic letters in the first and second centuries B.C.E.
Writings in the Journal of Biblical Literature, professor George Howard observes,
“From these findings we can now say with almost absolute certainty that the
divine name hwhy was not rendered by Kurios [Kurios] in the
pre-Christian Greek Bible, as so often has been thought. Usually the Tetragram was written out in Aramaic or in paleo-Hebrew letters or was transliterated into Greek
letters” (Vol. 96, 1977, p. 65).
The Greek translators later entirely
eliminated the Hebrew Tetragram, a Greek word meaning
“four letters,” substituting the Greek Kurios [Lord] or Theos [God] for the Hebrew Tetragrammaton,
as they believed that the Greek text was as sacred as the Hebrew. However,
neither Kurios nor Theos is a transliteration of the Hebrew hwhy. Kurios and Theos are not names. They do not represent the Tetragrammaton, nor do they have the same meaning.
Howard writes, “Toward the end of the first
Christian century, when the church had become predominately Gentile, the motive
for retaining the Hebrew name Yahweh was lost and the words kyrios and theos were substituted for it in Christian copies
of Old Testament Septuagint’s…Before long the divine name was lost to the
Gentile church except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates
or remembered by scholar,” Biblical Archaeology Review, March
1978.
Thus, the sacred Name not only was obscured
by zealous Jews, but also the Greek substitutes soon found their way into both
the Old and New Testament translations.
Why the Terms ‘God’ and ‘Lord’?
It can readily be seen that if the Greek text was considered as sacred as the Hebrew, then the Greek replacements for the Tetragrammaton were thought to be on an equal footing with the Hebrew Name. When the Bible was translated into other languages, the Greek texts were used because translators had a better understanding of the Greek than they did the Hebrew. Being that Kurios and Theos are Greek terms, a more
familiar substitute was customarily used in each language in which the Scriptures
were translated. Thus, “Kurios” was rendered “Lord”
in English texts and “Theos” was replaced with “God.”
These designations, however, should never have been used as surrogates for the
sacred Name. Their connotations tell why.
Lord comes from the Old English hlaford, meaning
“keeper of the loaf.” It refers to a person who feeds dependents, as in the
head of a feudal estate (Webster’s New
World Dictionary). The meaning
of Lord corresponds almost precisely with the heathen deity Baal. “God” derives
from the Old Teutonic root gheu, meaning to invoke and to pour, as in a molten image
(“God,” Oxford English Dictionary).
(See further explanations below.)
This base root for god, gheu, has another derivative –
giddy—from the Old English gydig, and gidig, meaning “possessed, insane, from the Germanic gud-igaz,
“possessed by a god” (American Heritage
Dictionary under gheu).
This source makes the remarkable statement, “Giddy can be traced back to the
same Germanic root gud-that has given us the word God.”
Ancient Roots of ‘God’ and ‘Lord’
Many Bible references reveal that the
Hebrew word “Baal” has the same meanings as our English word “Lord.” See the
footnotes and center column references on Hosea 2:16 in various Bibles (for
example: “Baali = My Lord” – Companion Bible note). Throughout the Book of Judges we find that
Israel continually fell back into the worship of the Baalim (Lords). In 1Kings 16:29-17:1, Ahab became a king and plunged Israel into
full-scale Baal worship. An interlinear version will show that in 1Kings 18:19
and 21 the word is “ha Baal,” meaning “the Lord.” For an apostate Israel,
Yahweh had become the “ha Baal” (the Lord) of Israel. (See top of page 37,
“Baal – Lord”.)
Rather than having a special, close
relationship with Israel through His Name, Yahweh now found Israel worshiping
in a common title used for the idols of the nations around them.
The prophet Isaiah excoriated Israel for
their abominations in serving pagan idols. One of the most prominent was the
Syrian god of fate or luck, otherwise known as Gad: “But you are they that forsake Yahweh, that forget my holy mountain,
that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto
that number” (Isa. 65:11). “Troop” is translated from the Hebrew Gad,
pronounced “God” (see Strong’s Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, No. 1409, and note the
phonetic Gawd in this reference.).
Our word “God” and its Germanic roots “Gott” and “Gut” are connected to the ancient Syrian idol
“Baal Gad,” which Yahweh judged Israel for worshiping. The New Bible Dictionary says of Gad, “A pagan deity worshiped by the
Canaanites as the God of Fortune for whom they ‘prepare a table’” (Isa. 65:11)
Read what The Anchor Bible Dictionary says about “Gad”: “A Deity (or spirit) of fortune
mentioned in Isa. 65:11 as being worshiped, along with Meni (a god of fate or destiny), by apostate Jews, probably in postexilic Judah,”
Vol. II, p. 863. Further, this resource tells us, “The place name Baal-gad
(Josh. 11:17) could be interpreted as ‘Lord Gad’ or as involving an epithet
(gad) joined to the divine name Baal” (Ibid.)
Do you grasp the significance of what you
just read? The heathen nations that Joshua was directed to destroy had a place
called Baal-gad, which is none other than “Lord-God,” a reference to Isaiah
65:11 and the worship of this “deity” by those who forsake Yahweh! As the
Anchor Bible Dictionary affirms: “The apostates of Isa. 65:11 were looking to
Gad [God], not Yahweh, as the source of well-being and prosperity” (Vol. II, p.
864).
In Hastings’ A Dictionary of the Bible, we find that the word Gad or God was
“originally an appellative” and used as a divine name in pagan worship (see Gad, p. 76).
Lips Speaking Guile
A few who would contest the truth of the
sacred Name will counter with an argument like, “You are saying that I need the
exact Hebrew pronunciation of the Savior’s Name or I have no salvation. So
anyone with a lisp and unable to form the exact Name as in Hebrew is lost.”
With
this argument they summarily reject the ONLY NAME under heaven given to mankind
for salvation by Yahweh Himself. Acts 4:12 says there is only ONE Name by which
we are saved. “Neither is there salvation
in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved.”
Rest assured that He Who has created man’s
tongue would not give us a Name we cannot pronounce! If a physical disability
makes the Name difficult to pronounce, Yahweh would surely look with favor on
one’s willingness to do so regardless of the success. Yahweh seeks a ready and
compliant heart (2Cor. 9:7); that is what matters. We are to walk joyfully in
all truth as Yahweh reveals it to us, growing in grace and knowledge, Ephesians
4:13.
Some may also ask whether those who never knew
or called on His saving Name in their lifetimes would be relegated to the lake
of fire. The teaching of Scripture is that we are judged by what we know, not
by what we don’t know. If we don’t know something is wrong, we must first be
taught that it is wrong before we can be held accountable. This is clear from
Acts 17:30, in what Paul told the ignorant Athenians who were worshiping idols
on Mars Hill:
“And
the times of this ignorance Yahweh winked at; but now commands all men
everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). “Winked at” means overlooked. What
constitutes sin for which we are held accountable is when we know the truth but
reject it (James 4:17). (See Yahshua’s comment in
Matt. 11:21-23.)
His People Will Revere His Name
Posing arguments to circumvent the Name is
nothing but a futile attempt to spurn deeper truth. It amounts to sheer
rebellion –a stubborn effort to absolve oneself of any responsibility to call
upon the one and only revealed, saving Name.
The real test is whether one seeks to
follow ALL truth without argument or polemics, and to do so as closely as one
is able. As we demonstrate our complete desire to rid our worship of every
error, Yahweh sees our dedication and adds His blessings to our obedience.
Yahshua said that
the mark of His true Assembly is that it would not reject His true Name. He
tells the true Philadelphia Assembly, “I
know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can
shut it: for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and HAVE NOT
DENIED MY NAME” (Rev. 3:8).
We must revere and call upon His rightful
Name with the deepest respect and reverence, because it belongs to our
soon-coming King. We may choose to deny His Name now, but we will not DARE deny
it as we prostrate ourselves before the King of the universe when He comes in
His full, majestic glory and in His royal Name Yahshua!
For those who reject the Name and scorn
those who hallow it, Yahweh issues some stern warnings. “Hear the word of Yahweh, you that tremble at his word; Your brethren
that hated you, that cast you out for MY NAME’S SAKE, said, Let Yahweh be
glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed”
(Isa. 66:5).
Do YOU Break the Third Commandment?
To those who consider themselves sincere
Bible students striving to please our Heavenly Father by keeping His
Commandments, the following should prove most interesting. Many verses in the
Bible teach that the truly converted who love Yahweh will keep His Commandments
dealing with proper worship of the Heavenly Father (Deut. 6:5-6; John 14:15,
21; 1John 2:5; Rev. 22:14).
“For
this is the love of Yahweh, that we keep His Commandments: and His Commandments
are not grievous” (1John 5:3).
Sabbath-keeping groups, especially, strive
to keep the Commandments, contending that they properly keep every one of the
Ten. But the Third Commandment is the most overlooked or ignored of all the
Ten! It is broken virtually every day.
The Third Commandment expressly deals with
the holiness of Yahweh’s Name. “You shall
not make wrong use of the name of Yahweh your Elohim:
for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man that misuses His name,” TSS. Ridiculing, disregarding, ignoring
or denying His Name and using a substitute is certainly the wrong use of His
Name, and is breaking the Third Commandment.
Many Called By His Name – Yesterday and Today
The short form “Yah” in the Name “Yahweh”
is found in the King James Version in Psalm 68:4, where modern translators
mistakenly rendered it “Jah.” As we know by now, the J should by a Y.
The poetic form “YAH” is found as the
suffix in many Hebrew names such as IsaYAH, JeremiYAH, ZachariYAH, ZephaniYAH, HezekiYAH, and NehemiYAH. His Name is also found in the prefix of a number
of Hebrew names such as YAHchobed (Jochobed, mother of Moses), YAHed (Joed), YAHel (Joel), YAHezer (Joezer), YAHha (Joha), and YAHnadab, (Jonadab). Most of
these have also been disguised with the mistaken letter J.
Many of the Psalms command and encourage
all to call upon Yahweh’s Name. Notice these examples, taken from The Sacred Scriptures, which instead of
the title “L-rd,” has the proper names restored:
“I
will give thanks to Yahweh according to His righteousness: and I will sing
praise to the NAME of Yahweh most high.” (Psalm 7:17) “O, Yahweh, our
Sovereign, how excellent is your NAME in all the earth. Who have set your glory
above the heavens.” (Psalm 8:1)
“O
Yahweh, our Sovereign, how excellent is your NAME in all the earth.” (Psalm
8:9)
“I
will sing praise to your NAME, O you Most High,” (Psalm 9:2)
“And they that know your NAME will put their trust in you: For you,
Yahweh, have not forsaken them that seek you,” (Psalm 9:10)
“Therefore
I will give thanks to you, O Yahweh, among the nations and will sing praises to
your Name.” (Psalm 18:49)
“Some
trust in chariots, and some in horses; But we will make mention of the NAME of
Yahweh our Elohim.” (Psalm 20:7)
“I
will declare your NAME to my brethren; in the middle of the assembly I will
praise you.” (Psalm 22:22)
“Save
me, O Elohim, by your NAME, and judge me in your
might.” (Psalm 54:1)
“Sing unto Elohim, sing praises to His NAME:
cast a highway for Him that rides through the deserts; His NAME is Yah; and
exult before Him.” (Psalm 68:4)
The Psalms are for everyone to read, as
both the Savior and the New Testament writers frequently quoted from them. The
Psalms are filled with admonitions calling our attention to the importance of
Yahweh’s awesome and powerful name. They cannot be ignored.
The title of the Bible book following
Deuteronomy properly should be “Yahshua,” not Joshua.
It is the same Hebrew name as our Savior Yahshua. The
question naturally arises, why do we not find Yahweh’s and Yahshua’s name in our Bibles? Certainly if the sacred Names are that important, then we
should find the name of the Heavenly Father and His Son on almost every page.
The Bible lays the blame at the feet of the scribes and translators:
“How
do you say, we are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us? But behold, the
false pen of the scribes has worked falsely,” Jeremiah 8:8, TSS.
“Which think to cause My people to forget My NAME by their dreams which
they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten My NAME
for Baal.” (Jeremiah 23:27)
Through ignorance or by design the
translators of the Bible were negligent in rendering the Mighty One of the
Hebrews as Yahweh (His true Name) and that of His Son Yahshua and not Jesus. The true Name Yahweh was replaced by the common substitutes.
(Write for the eye-opening ministudy, Discovering
the Name Yahshua in the King James Bible.)
Common Questions Asked About the Name
Following are the questions and objections
most often rise in regard to the personal Name of the Father and Son.
Attempting to answer every objection the human mind may devise could prove an
almost endless exercise with those who are just trying to avoid honoring their
Creator as He commands us to. But for those with a genuine inquiry, we respond
to the following.
Q. “There are no vowels in the Hebrew letters of the sacred Name YHWH,
so how can we know how to pronounce it correctly?”
A. If the Hebrew cannot be
properly deciphered because of lack of vowels, then our entire Old Testament
translation – originally written in a Hebrew script without vowels – is
unreliable!
Remarkably, of the 22 letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, Yahweh preserved His Name with three of the four letters that in the
Hebrew ARE used as vowels as well as consonants: yothe (y), hay (h), and waw (w). (The aleph, a, is also used as a
vowel.) This fact can be verified in nearly any Hebrew grammar, including: A Beginner’s Handbook to Biblical Hebrew (Horowitz), p. 7
under “Vowel Letters”; The Berlitz Self-Teacher, p. 73 under “The Vanishing Dots”; Hebrew Primer and Grammar (Fagnani and Davidson) p. 10 under “The Quiescents and Mappiq,” and How
the Hebrew Language Grew (Horowitz), p. 28. In addition, about the seventh
century, Jewish scribes known as Masoretes preserved
the pronunciation of the Hebrew with diacritical marks or vowel points added to
Hebrew words (Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary, p. 699).
Three of these vowel-letters form the Tetragrammaton or Yahweh’s Name, why (the hay is repeated). But
we need not rely solely on modern scholarship for this information. We can take
the word of an eyewitness! The first century Jewish general, priest, and
historian Flavius Josephus (37-100?) writes about the sacred Name engraved on
the headpiece of the high priest: “A mitre also of
fine linen encompassed his head, which was tied by a blue riband,
about which there was another golden crown, in which was engraven the sacred name [of Yahweh:] it consists of FOUR VOWELS” (Wars of the Jews, Book
5, chapter 5, p. 556).
Q. “Hasn’t
the pronunciation of the Name been lost?”
A. It is not unusual for some
who reject the Name Yahweh to argue that because of the aversion of the Jews to
using the Name or even to uttering it, that the correct pronunciation became
lost. This is the same ineffectual argument put forth by those who reject the
Sabbath, saying that the Sabbath has been lost so no one knows which day it is.
Would Yahweh command that all men call on
His revealed, personal Name – an eternal Name that is His very memorial to all
generations (Ex. 3:15), a name that is the only Name giving salvation – and
then allow it to vanish in the midst of time?
Just as the Jews were given the sacred
trust of preserving Yahweh’s Word and statues (Rom. 3:1-2), keeping and
sustaining the Sabbath in its proper weekly sequence down through history, they
also have preserved the proper pronunciation of the Name through the Hebrew
language. Jewish history says that the priest spoke the sacred Name 10 times
annually on the Day of Atonement down through the centuries. A Name so revered
would never be lost on the priesthood. Ask most any Jew in Israel today whether
“Yahweh” is the true pronunciation and he or she will acknowledge that it is.
Scholarship also reveals the proper pronunciation. One does not even need to go
beyond a standard encyclopedia for the facts.
The Encyclopedia Biblica tells us, “The controversy as to the
correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, whether
as Yahwe, or Yahawe, Yahwa, or Yahawa…has been
gradually brought to an end by the general adoption of the view, first
propounded by Ewald, that the true form is Yahwe” (Divine Names,
p. 3311).
The eminent Encyclopaedia Judaica confirms this, “The true pronunciation of the name YHWH [Yahweh] was never
lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name
was pronounced ‘Yahweh,’” Vol. 7, p.680.
This is validated in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition: “Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used the form Yahweh, thus this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost. Greek transcriptions
also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.” Vol. X, p. 786.
Other references substantiate proper
pronunciation as “Yahweh.” The 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 12, p.
995, makes the following comment under the heading “Jehovah”:
“The pronunciation ‘Jehovah’ is an error
resulting among Christians from combining the consonants Yhwh (Jhvh) with the vowels of ‘adhonay,
‘Lord,’ which the Jews in reading the Scriptures substituted for the sacred
name, commonly called the tetragrammaton as
containing four consonants…The Rabbinic tradition that after the death of
Simeon the Just (fl.290 B.C.) It was no longer pronounced even on these occasions,
is contradicted by the well-attested statement that in the last generation
before the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) it was uttered so low that the sounds
were lost in the chant of the priest. After that event the liturgical use of
the name ceased, but the tradition was perpetuated in the Rabbinic schools; it
continued also to be employed by healers, exorcists and magicians, and is found
on many magical papyri. It is asserted by Philo that only priests might
pronounce it and by Josephus that those who knew it were forbidden to divulge
it. Finally the Samaritans shared the scruples of the Jews, except that they
used it in judicial oaths….The early Christian scholars therefore easily learnt
the true pronunciation.”
Another reference tells us, “The early
Christian scholars therefore easily learnt the true pronunciation. Clement of
Alexandria (d. 212) gives Iaove or Iaovai (or in one manuscript Iaov),
Origen (d. 253-54) ‘Ian, and Epiphanius (d. 404) IaBe (or Iave in one manuscript); Theodoret (d. 457) says that the Samaritans
pronounced it IaBe…” (Vol. 12). Samaritan poetry
employs the Tetragrammaton and then rhymes it with
words having the same sound as Yah-oo-ay (Journal of Biblical Literature, 25,
p.50 and Jewish Encyclopedia, vol.9,
p.161).
The following authorities also leave no
doubt as to the proper and correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name:
→ “The pronunciation Yahweh is
indicated by transliteration of the name into Greek in early Christian
literature, in the form iaoue (Clement of Alexandria) or iabe (Theodoret; by this time Gk. b had the pronunciation of v)…Strictly speaking, Yahweh is the
only ‘name’ of God. In Genesis wherever the word sem (‘name’) is associated with the divine being that name is Yahweh,” Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary, 1979 page 478.
The Latin v spoken of here had the same sound as the English w, sharing a close affinity with the u (Harper’s
Latin Dictionary). That is why the w (“double u”) is made up of two v’s. The v was
used as a vowel, only later becoming a consonant. It came from the u, which it follows in the alphabet.
→ “It is now held that the original
name was IaHUe(H), i.e. Jahve(h, or with the English values of the letters, Yahweh(h, and one or other of these forms is now generally used by
writers upon the religion of the Hebrews” (Oxford
English Dictionary under “Jehovah”).
→ “The saying of God, ‘I am who I
am,’ is surely connected with His name that is written in the Hebrew
consonantal text as Yhwh, the original pronunciation
of which is well attested as Yahweh” (Catholic
Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 5, page 743).
→“Such a conclusion, giving ‘Yahweh’
as the pronunciation of the name, is confirmed by the testimony of the Fathers
and gentile writers, where the forms IAO, Yaho, Yaou, Yahouai, and Yahoue appear. Especially important is the statement of Theodoret in relation to Ex. lvi.,
when he says: ‘the Samaritans call it [the tetragrammaton]
‘Yabe,’ the Jews call it ‘Aia’…” The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia,
“Yahweh,” page 471.
→ Writings in Biblical Archaeology Review, Professor Anson F. Rainey, professor
of Semitic Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, confirms that “Yahweh” is the
correct pronunciation: “I mentioned the evidence from Greek papyri found in
Egypt. The best of these is Iaouee (London Papyri, xlvi, 446-483). Clement of Alexandria
said, “The mystic name which is called the tetragrammaton…is
pronounced Iaoue,
which means, “Who is, and who shall be.”’
“The internal evidence from the Hebrew
language is equally strong and confirms the accuracy of the Greek
transcriptions. Yahweh is from a
verbal root developed from the third person pronoun, *huwal *hiya. In Jewish tradition, it is
forbidden to pronounce the Sacred Name and its true pronunciation is supposed
to remain secret. The fact is that Jewish tridents (who put the vowel points in
the Hebrew text) borrowed the vowels from another word, either adonai ‘my
lord(s),’ or elohim ‘God.’ They avoided the very short a vowel in this borrowing because it might
have led the synagogue reader to make a mistake and pronounce the correct first
syllable of the Sacred Name, namely –ya. The vocalized form one finds in the Hebrew Bible is
usually Yehowah,
from which we get in English the form Jehovah. Yehowa/Jehovah is nothing but an artificial
ghost word; it was never used in antiquity. The synagogue reader saw Yehowah in his
text and read it adonai”
(BAR, Sept.-Oct. 1994).
→ Seventh-day Adventist and Hebrew
scholar. Raymond F. Cottrell, writes, “The English spelling of Yahweh is now
almost universally believed to reflect accurately the ancient, original
pronunciation of YHWH. In keeping with the common practice today of pronouncing
proper names translated from a foreign language with as nearly the original
vocalization as possible, it would be altogether correct and proper for us to
use the name Yahweh wherever the word YHWH (“Lord”) occurs in the Old
Testament, and also whenever we are speaking of the true God in Old Testament
times. This practice is becoming more and more common among Bible scholars and
informed Christians,” Review and Herald, Feb. 9, 1967.
Q. “’Yahweh’ is Hebrew but I speak English. Why shouldn’t I use the
English ‘God’?”
A. To this we ask, IS “God”
English? Hardly. “God” traces back to the Dutch god, to the Germanic gott and back to the Teutonic guth. Names are transliterated,
which means the sounds are carried across unchanged into another language. They
are not translated into other languages. “But what about similar forms like
John, Juan, and Johann? Or Peter and Pedro?” Some may ask. True, different
languages have analogous version of certain names, but that does not change the
fact that your given name remains the same no matter which country you travel
to. (Notice, too, how closely these name versions RESEMBLE reach other, unlike
“Yahweh” and the completely dissonant and unrelated “God.”)
Names simply don’t change from language to
language. If a foreign head of state visits America, we don’t attempt to come
up with an English version or translation for his or her name. For example, in
English news reports Boris Yeltsin is still called “Boris Yeltsin.” Hosni
Mubarak remains “Hosni Mubarak.” Trying to come up with an English equivalent
of names would be an exercise in futility, because there would be none.
Furthermore, doing so would change the person’s name and render the new name
useless as a means of identification. The same is true of Yahweh’s Name – only
one Name, Yahweh, expresses Him and defines who He is. Yahweh and ONLY Yahweh
Himself can change His Name, if He so desires. Yet throughout Scripture we find
that “Yahweh” is what He Himself demands to be called. “This is my Name
forever,” He told Moses in explaining who He was, “and this is my memorial to
all generations,” Exodus 3:15.
Israel also thought that any name commonly
used in worship was suitable in the worship of Yahweh. What a grievous error!
Because “Baal” was so popular with their pagan neighbors, they began to use it
in calling on Yahweh. So Yahweh said in His wrath against Israel, “I will also
cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths,
and all her solemn feasts…And I will visit her upon her days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked
herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, says Yahweh…And it shall be that day, says
Yahweh, that you shall call me Ishi; and shall call me
no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be
remembered by their name” (Hos. 2:11, 13, 16-17).
Q. “He has many names. Wouldn’t all worship go to Him anyway, no matter
what name we use?”
A. This is the same logic the
pagans used, which went something like this: “He is Bel-Merodach in Babylon, Baalzebub in Philistia, Zeus in Greece,
and we Romans will just call Him Jupiter.” Never mind that each name meant a
different way of worship. The prophet Micah brings this out in 4:5, revealing
the false “walk” expressed by each different name.
“For
all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the
name of Yahweh our Elohim for ever and ever.” His
name is more than a label. It connotes a well-defined, specifically commanded
way of worship that belongs only to Him who bears the Name Yahweh.
Saying Yahweh has many names is a
misconception stemming from the practice of classifying Yahweh’s personal,
revealed Name with generic titles, as if there were no difference. This false
belief that He has “many names” traces to the Jews of the Middle Ages. In
attempting to conceal the sacred Name, these Jews elevated generic terms and
titles to the rank of His personal Name, then used them as substitutes for the
Name.
His titles include: El, Eloah (singular, meaning mighty one) and Elohim (plural);
These titles are sometimes combined with the other descriptive words: El Elyon (the most high Mighty One); El Shaddai (the all-powerful Mighty One); El Olam (“Mighty One
of eternity”); El Dauth (“Mighty One of knowledge”);
El Roi (“Mighty One of seeing”).
The New
Bible Dictionary maintains, “Strictly speaking, Yahweh is the only ‘name’
of God. In Genesis wherever the word sem (‘name’) is
associated with the divine being that name is Yahweh…Yahweh, therefore, in
contrast with Elohim, is a proper noun, the name of a
Person, though that Person is divine,” p. 478. Another reference says of
“Yahweh,”: “This is a personal proper name par excellence of Israel’s God…” and
“It is the personal name of God, as distinguished from such generic or
essential names as ‘El, ‘Elohim, Shadday,
etc.” (The International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia, pp. 1254, 1266).
Certain attributes are at times connected
with His Name: Yahweh-Yireh (“Yahweh provides”);
Yahweh-Nissi (“Yahweh is my banner”); Yahweh-Shalom
(“Yahweh Send Peace”); Yahweh-Zidkenu (“Yahweh our
Righteousness” – the name by which Yahshua shall be
known, Jer. 23:6); Yahweh-Shammah (“Yahweh Is There”);
Yahweh-Rapha (“Yahweh Our Healer”); Yahweh-Mekaddishkem (“Yahweh-Elyon (“Yahweh Most High”); Yahweh-Roi (“Yahweh my
Shepherd”); Yahweh-Shua (“Yahweh is salvation”).
These adjuncts used with the sacred Name
are descriptive designates and must not be confused with His personal Name.
Even less, the title “god” cannot possibly contain the meaning that these
special titles connote, let alone be used as a personal name for the Majesty of
the heavens. “Mr.” is a title, not a name, as is “Sir,” “Dr.”, and “President.”
Each defines a person’s standing, position or rank, but does not identify him
or her apart from any others within the same title. “There are gods many and
lords many,” Paul writes in 1Corinthians 8:5. So which “deity” do we mean when
we use “God” and “Lord”? Capitalizing them does not make names of these common
terms.
Yahweh inspired the prophet to write, “I am
Yahweh: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my
praise to graven images” (Isa. 42:8). Yahweh names Himself. This is what He
expects to be called. In Exodus 23:13 He warns: “And in all things that I have
said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods,
neither let it be heard out of your mouth.”
Psalm 83:18 tells us He has only one Name:
“That men may know that you, whose name ALONE is Yahweh, are the most high over
all the earth.”
In the New Testament, Acts 4:12 reads,
“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is NONE OTHER NAME under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Q. “But
doesn’t He know who I mean no matter what I call Him?”
A. Suppose your name were
Michael. Would you know I meant you if I called out, “Hey, Sam”? Habitually
calling you by another name would deeply offend you and cause you to wonder why
I stubbornly refused to use your name. Besides, the name Sam signifies someone
else entirely. Yahweh also is offended when we refuse to get serious about His
Name. He warns in Malachi 2:2, “If you
will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name,
says Yahweh of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your
blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart.”
John 4:24 tells us, “Yahweh is Spirit: and
they that worship Him MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth.” His Name is
part of that necessary truth.
It’s clear and simple. Yahweh tells us what
His Name is. He commands us to call Him by that Name. We don’t have the option
of calling the Mighty One of the entire universe whatever we wish.
We cannot rename Yahweh. Nowhere in the
Bible is man given the authority to change His Creator’s Name. Never does the
worshiper tell the one he worships how He will be worshiped! Yahweh tells us…we
don’t tell Him. To bestow a name is the prerogative of a superior, as when Adam
exercised his dominion over the animals by giving them names, or as when a
parent names his or her children. It is always the prerogative of the superior
to name the inferior, never vice versa.
Mankind was given dominion or stewardship
over the earth (Gen. 1:28), and to show his responsibilities, Adam was allowed
by Yahweh to name all the creatures (Gen. 2:19-20). Yahweh has control of the
earth, heaven and the seas, and man has stewardship only over the creation on
earth. We have no authority in heavenly things, such as calling our Creator
what we wish.
Yahweh says I am “jealous for my holy
Name,” Ezekiel 39:25. We must take those words to heart. If we do, He promises,
“And it shall come to pass, that
whosoever shall call on the name of Yahweh shall be delivered: for in mount
Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as Yahweh has said, and in the
remnant whom the Yahweh shall call” (Joel 2:32; see Rom. 10:13).
Knowing “who you mean” makes no difference
to Him if you refuse to give him the honor and glory He demands. Even IF He
knew who you meant, the point is, He COMMANDS His people to call on His
revealed, personal, Covenant Name (Ex. 23:13). His Name represents Him and His truths.
No other name, title or designation does that. No other title or substitute
name reveals Him as the One who will be whatever His people want or need Him to
be. That is the essence and meaning of the Name “Yahweh.”
We cannot say we know who He is and claim
to worship Him according to that knowledge if we are using titles that miss the
mark completely when it comes to identifying, describing, and defining the One
we honor. Through the prophet Isaiah He said, “Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in
that day that I am he that does speak: behold it is I” (Isaiah 52:6).
Writing in a Seventh-day Adventist
publication, Associate Editor Don F. Neufeld provides this insight: “’Yahweh’
is the name that identifies the God of the Hebrews. Where the Philistines
worshiped Dagon, the Egyptians, Amon and the
Ammonites, Milcom, the Hebrews worshiped Yahweh…When
the voice said, ‘I am Yahweh,’ there was no doubt in any listener’s mind as to
the identity of the speaker. He was the god of the Hebrews. So far as it is
known, no other peoples called their god by this name” (The Advent Review and Sabbath
Herald, 1971).
If you would honor another human being’s
wishes by using his or her personal name, how much more should you revere your
Creator’s request by calling on Him by His Name? He’s the only One who can give
salvation!
Consider: If names don’t really matter,
does it matter to you whether Yahweh has YOURS right when it comes to His Book
of Life? Consider what Yahshua says: “He that overcomes, the same shall be clothes
in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but
I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels…And whosoever
was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire”
(Rev. 3:5, 20:15).
Q. “The sacred Name was not known before Moses, and therefore it was not a
salvation Name for those who came before Moses, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This being the case, why is it necessary for us?”
A. This argument stems from a
serious misunderstanding of Exodus 6:3: “And
I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh was I not known to them.”
As the Companion Bible explains, the word “known” means perceived and
understood. “The name [Yahweh] was known as the covenant name; but was not
known so as to be understood.” In other words, the patriarchs had not seen a
dimension of Yahweh that Moses and those after him would see –they would soon
understand fully what His Name meant by the acts of deliverance, sustenance,
and love for His people that He was about to perform (Ex. 9:16; Ezek. 20:5,
Amos 3:2). He would become whatever His people needed of Him, which is the
intrinsic meaning of the Name Yahweh.
The following verses reveal the error of
this argument and show that Yahweh’s Name was indeed known by the patriarchs and used before
Moses:
►Eve called on His Name – Genesis 4:1
► Abraham called on the Name Yahweh –
Genesis 12:8; 14:22; 15:2,
7;
21:33; 24:3;
► Abimelech used Yahweh’s Name – Genesis 20:4
► Isaac called upon Yahweh’s Name –
Genesis 26:25
► Yahweh revealed His Name to Jacob –
Genesis 28:13
► Anciently men “began to call on the
Name Yahweh” – Genesis 4:26
Q. “Hanging on the torture stake, our Savior cried out to Yahweh, ‘Eli,
Eli, lama sabachthani,’ that is to say, ‘My God, My
God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46). If He could use this title,
what’s the problem if I use ‘God,’ too?”
A. By quoting Psalm 22:1 here, Yahshua was fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 22:22,
showing that He was the promised Messiah. It also demonstrates that our Savior
spoke Hebrew, or the Aramaic dialect of Hebrew. The Savior was NOT calling His
Father “My God” – an appellation from a completely different language – but “My
El,” which in Hebrew means “Mighty One” or “Powerful One” (the yod or “i” on the end of El means
“my”). It is one of the titles referring to Yahweh, but is not a substitute
name. Yahshua also once in prayer called Him by the
Hebrew abba, meaning father, Mark 14:36. But neither
is abba a
name.
Any time a title becomes so dominant that
it is used as a replacement for the sacred Name, that designation expunges the
only Name whereby we are saved, regardless as to whether that title has had a
previously acceptable association with Him.
Churchianity uses
the titles “God” and “Lord” in the same way Israel used “Baal” (see Jer.
23:26-27, where Yahweh says, “their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal”).
These titles have become total, exclusive substitutes that are historically
associated with pagan images (review the subheading, “Ancient Roots of ‘God’
and ‘Lord,’ p. 27).
Q. “Where is there any record that Yahshua ever spoke or taught His Father’s Name Yahweh, or that the Name is in the New
Testament?”
A. In His prayer to Yahweh, Yahshua in John 17:26 specifically said that He had
“declared unto them [the world] your name, and will declare it.” If He declared
it then He spoke it.
Even though it may be somewhat hidden in
our English text, we find ample examples where Yahshua called on His Father’s Name Yahweh and taught it as well. In Matthew 6:9, Yahshua opened His Model Prayer with the affirmation of the
holiness of Yahweh’s Name: “Hallowed be Thy Name.” Yahweh’s Name is the only
Name that is called holy in Scripture. Man’s names are not. (Thus, it is
unnecessary to change other Biblical names to their Hebrew originals.)
Yahshua recognized Yahweh’s Name as sanctified, and even said He would proclaim it: “I
will declare Your Name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Assembly will I
sing praises unto you,” Hebrew 2:12.
In the many passages where our Savior
quoted the Old Testament, He of necessity would use Yahweh’s Name. For
instance, Luke 4:4, where He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3: “And Yahshua answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of Yahweh.”
Many other examples could be shown where
Yahweh’s Name appears in the Old Testament text and where Yahshua quotes these same passages word for word. A few of these include: Matthew 4:10
(from Deut. 6:13); Matthew 21:42 (from Psalm 118:23); Mark 7:6 (from Isa.
29:13); Luke 20:37 (from Ex. 3:4-6) and John 6:45 (from Isa. 54:13). (For much
more on this subject, request our ministudy, Our
Savior Spoke the Sacred Name.)
In the Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew, professor George Howard details the Hebrew text of the
14th century Jew, Sem-Tob ben-Isaac ben-Shaprut. Howard
describes how the sacred Name occurs 19 times in the work, mostly where Kurios and Theos appear in the
Greek, but in three places where no correspondent Greek word appears. Howard
observes that the Shem-Tob Matthew cannot be a
translation of a Greek text, as “no pious Jew of the Middle Ages would have
dignified a Christian text by inserting the Divine Name.”
Howard adds, “The conclusion that seems
inescapable is that Shem-Tob found the Divine Name
already in his [Hebrew] gospel text, having received it from an earlier
generation of Jewish tradents. He permitted the
Divine Name to remain in the text perhaps because he was unsure himself about
what to do with it,” pp. 230-231.
Q. “If it is so important, why isn’t there evidence of the Name outside
of the Hebrew Scriptures?”
A. Yahweh gave His Name to the
Hebrew peoples because they were His chosen. Those who would take hold of the
promises given first to Abraham are grafted in to the trunk of Israel, as
Romans 9 and 11 explain. Naturally we would find His Name most prominent among
the Israelites and their Scriptures and records. But there indeed are other
places where the Name Yahweh has been found.
As we have shown, the Tetragrammaton was discovered on the Moabite stone in 1868, erected by Moabite King Mesha in 900 B.C.E. (p. 25).
Also
found in the 1930’s were a number of pottery fragments on which were written
personal letters at the time of the Babylonian conquest of Judah (597-587
B.C.E.). Known as the Lachish Letters, one letter is to
the commander of a garrison at Lachish, where the writer sends a greeting in
“the name of Yahweh.” The fragments also contain about 20 proper names, most
compounded with the name of Yahweh (The
Dictionary of Bible and Religion, p. 594).
Surprisingly, extra-Biblical evidence for
the Name is mounting even on this continent. Indications are that a connection
existed between Native Americans and the Semitic peoples of the Middle East.
In Adair’s
History of the American Indians, Frenchman James Adair in 1775 detailed
many similarities in language, organization, and custom that the Indians of the
southeast U.S. share with ancient Israelites. Having spent time among them, he
noted that the Indians “frequently sing Hallelu-Yah Yo He Wah,” p. 32. He wrote on
page 37, “The American Indians are so far from being Atheists, as some godless
Europeans have flattered themselves, to excuse their own infidelity, that they
have the great sacred name of God, that describes his divine essence, and by
which he manifested himself to Moses…” On page 48 Adair continued, “They have
another appellative, which with them is the mysterious, essential name of God –
the Tetragrammaton, or great four-lettered name –
which they never mention in common speech…” He also noted, “…the American
Indians…say YAH at the beginning of their religious dances…” p. 50.
Writing in The Ancient American (March-April 1994), David Allen Deal discusses artifacts discovered between
1874 and 1920 in the state of Michigan. The artifacts bear Egyptians motifs and
hieroglyphics, Deal observes. Mostly religious in nature, they contain drawings
of the Genesis Creation, Garden of Eden, Noah’s flood and New Testament themes.
He notes that three letters in a previously unknown cuneiform style are found
on nearly every piece. He writes, “I felt the letters had to stand for the name
YHW,” which he notes represents the sacred Name Yahweh. In his book, Discovery of Ancient America, Deal also
writes about paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton discovered in New Mexico and Tennessee.
Q. “Yahweh confused all the languages at the Tower of Babel, and because
Hebrew was extant at that time, how can we be sure that the original
pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name wasn’t changed?”
A. Both Shem and Noah spoke
the language of Adam and Eve. We have no evidence that this language was
anything other than Hebrew, the language of the oldest Biblical manuscripts.
(Shem was the great-grandfather of Eber, from whom we
get the name “Hebrew.” He naturally would speak the same language as his
great-grandson. Eber was the great-great-great-great-grandfather
of Abraham.) Certainly neither of these righteous men had anything to do with
building a pagan Tower of Babel. Not having been there and involved in this
rebellion, their Hebrew language would not have been affected by the
confounding of languages at Babel. We can trace the lineage of the patriarchs
and see how their Hebrew language continued from the beginning.
Abraham lived to see his grandchild Jacob
(Israel). Abraham was alive in the days of Shem, who was born before the flood.
Obviously Abraham would have spoken the same language that his family line used
before and after the flood: pure Hebrew.
Q. “Doesn’t Psalm 138:2 say His Word is magnified above His Name?”
A. In the King James this
passage reads, “I will worship toward thy
holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth: for
thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”
Other versions render this verse
differently: “I bow down toward thy holy temple and give thanks to thy name for
thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness; for thou hast exalted above everything
thy name and thy Word” – Revised
Standard Version.
”I will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have
exalted above all things your Name and your Word” – The New International Bible.
“I prostrate myself toward thy holy temple;
and give thanks to thy name for thy kindness and thy faithfulness; for thou
hast magnified thy name over all” –Smith
and Goodspeed.
“I will bow down toward thy holy temple,
and give thanks to Thy name for Thy loving kindness and Thy truth; For Thou
hast magnified Thy word according to all Thy name” – New American Standard.
None of these translations tells us that
His Word is to be exalted over His Name. His Name gives weight to His Word and
cannot be separated from it.
Had the translators added the right
punctuation, because the Hebrew has none, the verse could just as easily have
been rendered: “For You have magnified Your word, above all, Your Name.” This
would give the passage the same meaning as is found in the New American Standard and Smith
and Goodspeed versions, where His Name is the
foundation for all other truth.
Q. “You spell the Heavenly Father’s Name ‘Yahweh,’ but I have also seen it
spelled ‘Yahowah’ or ‘Yahuweh.’
Why is this?”
A. The Cairo Geneze, by Paul Kahle, published in London says, “Not before 1100 was an o added to the word hwhy and this seems to indicate the pronunciation [Adonay]” (The Translations
of the Bible, chapter 3, pp. 172-173, footnote 4).
It was a vowel sign for the letter o that was put in the middle of the Tetragrammaton. This led to the erroneous “Jehovah.” The Lexicon for the Books of the Old Testament says: “The wrong spelling Jehovah occurs since about 1100.” It then offers
arguments in favor of Yahweh as “the correct and original pronunciation”
(Koehler and Baumgartner, 1951 ed., vol. 1, p. 369, col. 1).
Because early Christians were not Hebrew
scholars, they did not understand that the Tetragrammaton was pointed with the vowels for AdOnAY. Scholars maintain that the letter o or u is a vestige of this Rabbinical practice.
This technique was popular where the name why formed the beginning of a personal name, for example ucwhy (Yahshua), which was
altered to Yehoshua by vowel pointing through the
diacritical marks above and below the Hebrew letters (see subheading “How Did ‘Yahshua’ Become ‘Jesus?’” and request the ministudy, Spelling
the Sacred Name: V or W?)
Q. “Doing or asking in Yahweh’s name merely means ‘by His authority.’ How
can you say it means pronouncing a Hebrew Name?”
A. Attempting to sever Yahweh
from His very being, nature, personality, and essence through calling on
another name is nothing more than a feeble attempt to quiet one’s conscience
about the importance of His revealed, personal Name. It is true to do something
“in a name” can mean by the authority of that individual. But in the Bible it
means so very much more.
What such reasoning cannot get around is
the fact that Yahweh’s Name is definitive – it expresses the character and very
personality of the Creator and Sustainer who bears it. His Name is nothing less
than an extension of His being. It expresses His quintessence. Yahweh’s Name is
composed of the very verb of existence – haYa. His Name is alive and
active. It means He will be whatever His people need of Him. To call on a dead,
generic term expecting the same results as calling on His dynamic Name is an
insult, once we know that He has a personal, vigorous, life-giving, healing,
and Covenant Name that embodies salvation itself to those who call on Him.
‘My People Shall Know My Name’
No other Name can reveal the true Heavenly
Father, and the truth of who He is, as His personal Name Yahweh does. This
singular truth alone renders all arguments for using substitutes null and void.
Consider these passages that testify to the
necessity of the sacred Name:
Ø
Salvation is strictly in Yahweh’s Name and in His Name
alone.
“Neither is there salvation in any other:
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved” (Acts. 4:12). “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on
the name of Yahweh shall be delivered…” (Joel 2:32) “The name of Yahweh is a
strong tower: the righteous runs into it, and is safe” (Prov. 18:10)
Ø
We are commanded to call on Him in His Name when we
pray or praise Him:
“From the rising of the sun unto the going
down of the same Yahweh’s Name is to be praised” (Ps. 113:3).
Ø
Those who revere and call on His Name are special to
Yahweh:
“Because he has set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he has known my
name” (Ps. 91:14). “Then they that feared Yahweh spoken often one to another:
and Yahweh hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written
before him for them that feared Yahweh, and that thought upon his name. And
they shall be mine, says Yahweh of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels;
and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him” (Mal.
3:16-17).
Ø
The saints will gather in His Name:
“And I will strengthen them in Yahweh: and
they shall walk up and down in his name, says Yahweh” (Zech. 10:12). “And I
will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is
refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I
will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, Yahweh is my Elohim” (Zech. 13:9).
Ø
His people have not denied His Name:
“I know your works: behold, I have set
before you an open door, and no man can shut it: for you have a little
strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name” (Rev. 3:8). “I
know your works, and where you dwell, even where Satan’s seat is: and you hold
fast my name, and have not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas
was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwells” (Rev.
2:13).
Ø
His people and His future city shall know and be
called by His personal, revealed Name Yahweh:
“Therefore my people shall know my name:
therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that does speak: behold, it
is I” (Isa. 52:6). “O Yahweh, hear; O Yahweh, forgive, O Yahweh, hearken and
do; defer not, for your own sake, O my Elohim: for
your city and your people are called by your name” (Dan. 9:19). “If my people,
which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my
face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2Chron. 7:14). “That they may
possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my
name, says Yahweh that does this” (Amos 9:12). “Even every one that is called
by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have
made him” (Isa. 43:7). “Why should you be as a man astonied,
as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet you, O YAHWEH in the midst of us, and we
are called by your name; leave us not” (Jer. 14:9). “Your words were found, and
I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart:
for I am called by your name, O YAHWEH Elohim of
hosts” (Jer. 15:16).
Ø
The very Elect will be sealed in His Name:
“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the
mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his
Father’s name written in their foreheads” (Rev. 14:1). “And they shall see his
face; and his name shall be in their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4).
Ø
His Name will be a test of our obedience:
“Pour out your fury upon the heathen that
know you not, and upon the families that call not on your name…” (Jer. 10:25;
Rev. 13:17 with 14:1).
Ø
His Name is the focus of those who rebel against
Yahweh:
“A son honours his
father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? And I be a master, where is my fear? Says Yahweh of
hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, wherein have we
despised thy name?” (Malachi 1:6) “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against
Yahweh, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in
heaven” (Rev. 13:6). “And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the
name of Yahweh, which has power over these plagues: and they repented not to
give him glory” (Rev. 16:9).
Ø
Punishment awaits those who refuse and shun His Name
and His worship:
“But cursed be the deceiver, which has in
his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices unto Yahweh a corrupt thing: for I
am a great King, says Yahweh of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the
heathen” (Mal. 1:14). “Pour out your wrath upon the heathen that have not known
you, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name” (Ps. 79:6).
“Pour out your fury upon that heathen that know you not, and upon the families
that call not on your name…” (Jer. 10:25). “He that believes on him is not
condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of Yahweh” (John 3:18). “And the
nations were angry, and your wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they
should be judged, and that you should give reward unto your servants the
prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear your name, small and great; and
should destroy them which destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18).
His Name Offers Protection, Salvation
The saving nature of Yahweh’s Name will be
dramatically demonstrated when the age-ending plagues are unleashed on this
world. Just as the four angels standing at the four corners of the earth are
about to release their devastation, John in Revelation 7 notices another angel
intervening. That angel issues a specific command to the four others: “Hurt not
the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of
our Elohim in their foreheads” (verse 3).
Just how are Yahweh’s servants “sealed”? We
find that answer in Revelation 14:1: “And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the
mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s
NAME written in their foreheads.”
His Name is an identifying mark and offers
protection against the impending calamity from a wrathful Yahweh that will
devastate this earth. How can He punish those who have His Name in their minds
and hearts? In the ninth chapter we witness what happens to those without the
protection of His Name: “And it was commanded them [locusts] that they should
not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but
only those men which have not the seal of Elohim in
their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but
that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment
of a scorpion, when he strikes a man. And in those days shall men seek death,
and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them”
(Rev. 9:4-6).
Again,
notice what exactly it is that Yahweh’s people, then saved and living in the
Kingdom at New Jerusalem, have sealed in their foreheads: “And there shall be no
more curse: but the throne of Elohim and of the Lamb
shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face;
and his Name shall be in their foreheads” (Rev. 22:3-4).
Imagine the shame of rebelling against His
Name today, only to have it in one’s forehead in the Kingdom! This gives us
serious doubts as to whether someone who deliberately rejects His Name will
even BE in the Kingdom.
The prophet Ezekiel foretold what Yahweh
would do in the Kingdom.
“So will I make my holy name known in the
midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any
more: and the heathen shall know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel”
(39:7).
Join those who call upon Yahweh’s Name. The
Book of Acts may yet have the final chapter, 29, written some day, and we hope
you will join us in prayer that our names will be in that register book of
Yahweh’s people and will not be blotted out!
His Name Is the Foundation for All Truth
Now that we have seen that Yahweh’s Name is
basic to the truth of the Scriptures, we can also realize how it forms the
foundation of True Worship, which shapes the spiritual temple.
When Yahweh says His people will know His
Name, He means that through His revealed Name that He Himself is revealed. By
telling His people His Name and then saving them, He manifests His innermost
character and very nature. As the Concise
Bible Handbook says, “’To know’ in the Old Testament goes beyond the mere
possession of information, to the active enjoyment of fellowship with the
person known,” p. 54. He is our Heavenly FATHER. We worship Him in an intimacy
that no other name or title can possibly express. His Name binds His people in
a Covenant relationship.
For the past 2,000 years churchianity has been constructing another building, which
rests upon another cornerstone cut from a quarry of Greco-Roman teachings.
These beliefs are cemented with paganistic practices,
humanistic philosophies, Hellenistic and Latin customs, and include a Savior
bearing a Latinized Greek name. This spiritual building does not rest upon the
foundation of the true Redeemer of Israel. Our Bible is HEBREW, not Greek or
Roman.
Scripture clearly reveals that salvation is
available only in “the Stone which the builders have rejected,” Acts 4:12. That
same verse also states, “There is no other Name under heaven given to men by
which we must be saved,” NIV. Verse one reveals that those being spoken to were
the priests and Sadducees, and Hebrew was the language of the Temple.
His Name is to be carried to all people as
we follow Paul’s example: “But Yahshua said
unto him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name
before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts
9:15). Yahweh promises that His Name shall be great among the gentiles. All the
world will honor and offer prayers to His Name, Malachi 1:11:
“For from the rising of the sun even unto
the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in
every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my
name shall be great among the heathen, says Yahweh of hosts.”
The last message to be given before the
return of the Savior is the proclamation of Yahweh’s Name in the power and
spirit of EliYAH: “Behold, I will send you EliYAH the prophet before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of YAHWEH: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite
the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).
We are to believe in the Name, John 3:13,
1John 3:23. We are kept in His Name, John 17:11, Proverbs 18:10. We are
justified in His Name, 1Corinthians 6:11. His Name dwells among us, Deuteronomy
12:5, 2Samuel 7:13. His Name influences and controls us in behavior and
worship, Leviticus 18:21; Romans 15. Full worship is to be where Yahweh chose
to place His Name, Deuteronomy 12:11. And one day ALL nations shall revere and
call upon His Name, Revelation 15:4.
Turn back to the truth first given to the
patriarchs, and come to KNOW your
Heavenly Father by calling on His personal, revealed Name Yahweh.
© 2007 Yahweh’s Assembly in Yahshua
2963 County Road 233, Kingdom City, Missouri 65262
View us online at: www.YAIY.org
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