What Is His Name

This blog is going to be very controversial and will unfortunately cause many arguments. Dissension is not my goal, truth is. Within the body of Messiah, often we get caught up on technicalities. Like how to properly say the true name of God. Often when you don't do something like others, involving religion. Those in that religion will cast you away or distance themselves for your current position taken.

In my own walk I have come to believe His name was properly pronounced "Yahweh", I never really dug deep to investigate if this was truly the case. I studied many things but, His name wasn't my highest priority although it should have been. I do not believe if someone does not know the true name of God, that they are not saved. This blog is to defend the reason why I call Him "Yehovah" in my website and will call Him by this name when I call on Him.

Many will ridicule me and disbelieve my decision but, my obligation is to the Most High; not to man. I am not implying others must call Him by this name, I will not judge others who call Him something else. This blog is to show why the pronunciation "Ye-Ho-Vah" is historically accurate and where the other versions arose from. Also to give a defense to why I have decided to make this correction. This will be a very long blog so in order to fully understand, reading everything is essential. If you decide not to read and research the claims made. I feel that person has not right to judge or imply anything of me, as I do not imply or judge anything of them.

Proverbs 18:12-13 "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, But humility goes before honor. He who gives an answer before he hears, It is error and shame to him."

The name of the Creator has become a hot topic recently. Many prescribe to the name "Yahweh" but, have we looked into the origins of this name and is it truly the name of the Creator? I will simply make my case using as much evidence as I can find that it is not accurate rendering of the Most High's name. I will not argue with anyone about this subject, I am writing this blog to explain my position and why I stand here.

So let's begin with the information.

Isaiah 52:6 "Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, 'Here I am."

Isaiah 42:8 "I am Yehovah, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.”

We have an obligation to know what the name of the Creator really is. It may be difficult to find because of the amount of deception floating around these days. Although, completely being able to hide His name would be impossible if He desires all generations to know this name.

Exodus 3:15 "God, furthermore, said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'Yehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations."

So far my comments are just claims, so let's get into some evidence why I have come to the pronunciation of "Ye-Ho-Vah" not Jehovah, that is spelled and spoken completely different. I am not nor ever will be a Jehovah witness either. I believe the Torah and the prophets and Yeshua is the promised Messiah.

Isaiah 8:20 "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

Why has the name of God of the Bible been lost to us?

I will list research from others and I will use sources from rabbinic theology and dogma. This doesn't mean I agree with what Judaism teaches, simply stating facts on why the name has been declared unspeakable to them. Which is a part of why non Jews come up with false pronunciations.

For many centuries Judaism has had a severe prohibition against uttering Elohim’s (God’s) name. The Rabbinic law code in use today; the Mishnah Berurah says:

“It is forbidden to read the glorious and terrible name as it is written, as the sages said ‘He that pronounces the name as it is written has no portion in the world to come’. Therefore it must be read as if it were written Adonai (Mishnah Berurah 5:2)”

As early as the third century BC, there is evidence of a contrived superstition in the Mishnah tractate of the Sanhedrin. It states:

“The following have no portion in the world to come: Abba Saul says: Also one who pronounces the divine name as it is written.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1)

However, there is absolutely no evidence that this complete ban concerning Elohim’s name goes back to ancient times. The Talmud records how the ban was begun:

The Greeks decreed that the name of God may not be spoken aloud; but when the Hasmoneans grew in strength and defeated them they decreed that the name of God be used even in contracts... when the Rabbis heard about this they said, ‘Tomorrow this person will pay his debt and the contract will be thrown on a garbage heap’ so they forbade its use in contracts.” (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 18b)

The Encyclopedia Judaica, article “God, Names of” (volume 7, page 680) states:

“At least until the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. this name was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the Lachish Letters, written shortly before that date.”

History records that the prohibition against the name of YHVH began as one of the anti-Semitic edicts pronounced by the arch villain Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in 168 BC. This was part of Antiochus #4’s policy of brainwashing the Jews, in an attempt to turn them into Greeks! The same edict banned circumcision and Sabbath observance and required every Jew to sacrifice pigs to Zeus and Apollo. Later, men loyal to Judah Maccabee defeated the Greeks and re-dedicated the Temple in 165 BC. These Hasmoneans annulled the anti-Semitic decrees of the Greeks. Not only did they restore the use of the name of YHVH, but also they passed a law requiring the use of the name of YHVH in contractual agreements, so that the Jews would reacquire the habit of using Elohim’s name.

You may wonder what YHVH (usually YHWH), known as the Tetragrammaton stands for. It is Elohim’s name without vowels. These four letters are the four Hebrew consonants of Elohim’s name; pronounced Yod, He, Vav and He. The third letter is the Hebrew letter Vav, so a W would not really be the best English equivalent. For centuries a great debate raged, particularly around the time of the Protestant Reformation as to whether or not the vowel points were originally present in the Hebrew text. The Catholics generally maintained that the original form used only consonants. They taught that after the 70 year captivity, Ezra added the tiny vowel points (symbols) for clarity of pronunciation, because the younger generation was forgetting Hebrew but that this introduced error. In that way they could point to the superiority of the Latin Vulgate.

Protestants generally maintained that the original Hebrew was complete with vowels, jots and tittles. Apparently they were in agreement with Yeshua:

Matthew 5:18 I am certain that until Heaven and Earth go away, not one yod or one point will ‘disappear’ from the Torah until everything comes to pass."

The Essenes were the Jewish sect responsible for recording the Dead Sea Scrolls. They had severe cultist rules. Becoming an Essene required several years of initiation. Violation of their laws could result in permanent “excommunication” from the Assembly. The fundamental document of the Essenes was a book called “Rule of the Community”. The Rule of the Community bans using the name of YHVH: Anyone who spoke Elohim’s name aloud, under any circumstances, even accidentally, was permanently expelled.

Have you ever lost something that was right under your nose? Could Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, the standard reference for well over 100 years possibly have it right? Strong’s defines the “banished Name”, that the King James translators rendered as “LORD”, as “Yehovah”, with the emphasis on the last syllable, while also showing the relatively recent.

Although they exchanged the "Y" for the "J" which essentially changes the name. They still knew the proper spelling origianlly. "Jehovah" is not even sounded out the same way as "Yehovah" even though the spelling looks similar. Many people will assume that it is the same name. Since there were no "J's" in Hebrew, it could not possibly be the same. Not to mention the Catholic Church introduced the "J" in the true name of God. After everything we have shown in this website; do you really wanna trust the Roman Catholic Church?

So now the question, where did the name Yahweh come from?

The most regrettable effect of the ban on Elohim’s name is that the exact pronunciation was concealed from generations of people who did not subscribe to the superstition concerning His name. Today, some few are seeking the pronunciation of His name and a few are finding it. Perhaps the most popular supposition of the pronunciation is “Yahweh”. The name “Yahweh”, according to a tract that I was given promoting the name Yahweh, said that the name continued “to be employed by healers, exorcists, and magicians, and is found on many magical papyri.” My first thought after reading this was “Gypsies, tramps and thieves”. That apparently is the best that the “Yahwehists” can produce as evidence. The Catholics eventually sided with Yahweh. “Jehovah” is another name attributable to Catholic sources. We’ll look at that.

Yahweh is said by a great many bible scholars and church theologians to be the correct pronunciation of the Creator of Israel's name [YHVH= yode ,he ,vav ,he], but is it? The Roman Catholic church is and has been the mightiest church the world has ever seen, and in our time having more than one billion followers. It's history goes right back to Roman Emperor Constantine the great who established Christianity as a legal religion in Roman Empire times. Would you be amazed to know that the chief god of the Ancient Romans is still being praised and worshipped unknowingly today in our time by a great multitude of Christians and Jews worldwide? The chief god of the Ancient Romans is known to us today as Jupiter, King of the gods, but Jupiter has an older more ancient name. In English it is Jove and in classical Latin it is spelled IOVE and pronounced Yahweh. If we check a pronunciation chart of classical Latin in a book called Vox Latina, which is one of the most respected and authoritative books on the pronunciation of classical Latin we find that "I" is pronounced as a double "EE" sound as in the word sheep and the "O" is pronounced as a "AH" sound as in the word father and the "V" is pronounced as a "W" as in the word whale and the "E" is pronounced as "EH" as in the word pet. If we put these sounds together EE + AH + W + EH it pronounces YAHWEH. The EE sound + AH sound = YAH and W + EH = WEH, put the two sounds together and it pronounces YAHWEH spelled IOVE in classical Latin which is the King of all the Roman gods. THE ANCIENT ROMANS WORSHIPED AND PRAISED THE NAME OF YAHWEH. One thing is for sure, YHVH is a Hebrew deity,and IS NOT a Roman deity named YAHWEH = IOVE / JUPITER.

Modern Hebrew writing has no vowels. What most people don’t know is that Scripture writers added tiny symbols for vowels a thousand years ago, because the spoken language was going extinct, so they took this preventive measure. When it comes to the YHVH, it is commonly presumed that the vowels were all replaced with the vowels of the word “Adonai”. Virtually every modern scholar deliberately ignores the vowels of YHVH, which are still written in the Hebrew texts, preferring various impossible to prove speculations. The popular theory that Elohim’s (God’s)’s name is pronounced “Yahweh” has no Scriptural support. The Anchor Bible Dictionary says: “The pronunciation of YHWH as Yahweh is a scholarly guess.” If “Yahweh”, one of the most trusted of the “sacred names” is a baseless supposition, then how much evidence is there for the myriads of other speculations?

The Encyclopedia Judaica asserts that the true pronunciation of YHVH was never lost, but look at the only source they cite to support their claim!

Encyclopedia Judaica, volume 7, from the article “God, Names of” on page 680.

“The true pronunciation of the name YHVH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian [Catholic] Church testify that the name was pronounced “Yahweh”. This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex.15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the final syllable of very many Hebrew names.”

Here is a quotation from The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, published in New York in 1941, volume 5, page 6, article “GOD, NAMES OF”:

The Tetragrammaton or Four-Lettered Name (YHVH), which occurs 6,823 times, is by far the most frequent name of God in the Bible. It is now pronounced ‘Adonai’; but the [Catholic] church father Theodoret records that THE SAMARITANS pronounced it as ‘Iabe adonai’, and Origen transcribes it as ‘Iae’, both pointing to an original vocalization ‘yahveh’.”

Again, this Jewish encyclopedia relies totally on what some of the Catholic “church fathers” said. The rabbinic Jews themselves have no clue concerning the correct pronunciation.

JewishEncyclopedia.com—“The only free [public domain] Jewish encyclopedia on the Internet”, also relates the same Samaritan and Catholic sources—search “Yahweh”.

The New Bible Dictionary, published in 1972 by Inter-Varsity Press in London, states the following on page 478 in the article “God, names of ”:

“The pronunciation of Yahweh is indicated by transliterations 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).”

The Catholic “Church Fathers” acknowledged that their pronunciation of YHWH came from the Samaritans. But Yeshua said that the Samaritans didn’t even know what they worshiped!

John 4:9 & 22 "The Samaritan woman asked Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I’m a Samaritan woman? (Because the Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans”). 22 You Samaritans don’t know what you worship, but we worship what we understand, because Life comes from the Jews."

Are we to believe that the people who didn’t even know what they worshiped, are supposed to be the only authority on how YHVH should be pronounced?

Yahweh in Magic Egyptian Papyri:

For a nearby reference The Encyclopedia Wikipedia also attributes the name Yahweh to magic. “many combinations and permutations of names of powerful agents that occur in Egyptian magical writings are discussed...” But in the magical texts “Iave (Jahveh Sebaoth), as well as Iaßa, occurs frequently. In an Ethiopic list of magical names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples, Yawe is found.” The article goes on to quote “the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906’s Article: Tetragrammaton, under the Article Heading: ‘Church Fathers and Magic Papyri’, the editors write: ‘It was in connection with magic that the Tetragrammaton was introduced into the magic papyri and, in all probability, into the writings of the Church Fathers, these two sources containing the following forms, written in Greek letters: 1) Iaoouee, Iaoue, Iabe; 2) Iao, Iaho,Iae; 3) Aia; 4) Ia. It is evident that [these forms are merely different ways of] writing the same word, though “Iabe” [essentially Yahweh] is designated as the Samaritan pronunciation... There is evidence from more than one source that the modern Samaritan priests pronounce the name Yahweh or Yahwa.” But Yahweh is definitely not a Hebrew name.

Codex Leningrad

How can the scholars ignore this reality? Until recently copies of the Scriptures have been produced with Elohim’s name shown with the printers own preference. Some have no vowels at all while others added the vowels of Adonai: Yahovah. In the earliest complete manuscripts YHVH is written YeHVaH with no vowel between the H and the V (tho every other Hebrew word has vowels between EVERY two consonants!). Ben Asher’s Leningrad Codex, which preserves the most accurate complete text of Scripture, preserves two of the three vowels in every instance. The Aleppo Codex, while partially destroyed during the mid 20th century, also preserves these vowels. Modern reproductions of the ancient manuscripts, such as Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensia (BHS), and the Hebrew University Bible Edition (HUB) also contain the spelling YeHVaH.

It is glaringly apparent that a vowel is missing between the H and the V of YeHVaH, and incidentally 4 consonants must form at 3-4 syllables. The rules of Hebrew grammar demand a vowel between every two consonants. So in YeH_VaH, any beginning Hebrew reader can see that a vowel is missing. Why is a vowel missing? Perhaps it’s a good thing that this warning had not been issued yet. The scribe's would leave out one vowel in hopes of not breaking the oral made made tradition. Ironically, the scribes who omitted the second vowel did so seeking to avoid this curse! But this would also break the Torah of Yehovah.

Deuteronomy 4:2 ""You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yehovah your God which I command you."

Which is why Yeshua says:

Mark 7:9 "And he said unto them, full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition."

The medieval scribes omitted the vowel following the first H of YeHVaH to prevent readers from accidentally saying Elohim’s name aloud. In the Aleppo Codex, the most accurate but incomplete Biblical manuscript, YHVH is actually spelled Yehovih where it says “Lord God”. It seems that the “i” in Yehovih was inserted to remind reads to substitute Elohim (God), so as to read “Adonai Elohim” rather than redundantly saying “Adonai Adonai”. In the Aleppo, when YHVH is used by itself, it has the vowels Yeh_vah. The “Masoretic” scribes who copied the Scriptures in the Middle Ages were obviously concerned that a reader might say aloud Yeh_vah, but were not concerned about Yehovih, a mispronunciation that might “safely” be spoken.

But how can we know what the middle vowel of Yeh_vah is? By comparing Yeh_vah with Yehowih, we have all of the letters accounted for! The missing vowel can easily be presumed to be “o”. The Masoretic scribes knew the name to be Yehovah, but masked its pronunciation by omitting the “o”. The most amazing finding is that in the earliest manuscripts, the scribes actually “forgot” to suppress the exact spelling consistently! In the LenB19a Masoretic manuscript, the earliest complete Masoretic manuscript that the renowned BHS edition was based; Elohim’s name is written as Yehovah at least fifty times, out of a total of 6828. In every instance where the middle vowel was miraculously preserved, it is an “o”.

Further confirmation indicating that the missing vowel in Yeh?vah is “o” is found among other inspired names. Many Hebrew names utilize part of Elohim’s own name. Yehoshua (Joshua) who had the same name as the Messiah and that name means “YHVH saves”. Also Yeh, when it appears at the beginning of a name reveals the middle vowel.

YEHO'ASH יְהוֹאָשׁ

YEHOCHANAN יְהוֹחָנָן

YEHONATAN יְהוֹנָתָן

YEHORAM יְהוֹרָם

YEHOSHAFAT יְהוֹשָׁפָט

YEHOSHUA יְהוֹשֻׁעַ

YEHOYAKHIN יְהוֹיָכִין

YEHOYAKIM יְהוֹיָקִים

At the beginning of a Hebraic name which has the Creator's name in it; it is spelled -Yeho-

At the end of a name it appears -Yahu-

We must look at how the Hebrew four letters appear in the Creators name Y-H-V-H

Which would clearly be YEHOVAH. The scribes purposely left out one vowel the "O" to attempt to hide the name of God from the public in order to not reveal it's identity. Although the masses were kept in darkness but, the rabbi's would pass down the true pronunciation to their students every seven years.

Let's also look at the Hebrew Scriptures where Yehovah declares His name.

Exodus 3:15 "And God said moreover unto Moses: 'Thus shalt you say unto the children of Israel: Yehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.

Now in Hebrew:

וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כֹּה-תֹאמַר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם; זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם, וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר

Link for verification: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0203.htm

Notice the vowel points clearly cannot be "Yahweh"

Also another clue His name is not pronounced "Yahweh" is the fact that no rabbi's in Israel would appear to be upset or concerned when calling the Father "Yahweh" but on the other had hand if you speak the name of "Yehovah" and you will quickly find there is a anger level that arises. Now keep in mind it is a Hebraic pronunciation so if you try be sure to say it correctly.

I will call Him by His name. Those who choose to use another version is their preference. I have listed the reasons why I choose not to.

A great book on this topic is "His hollowed name revealed, again" By Keith Johnson

Yehovah Bless you all!