The Name of God
1 Speaking of the time of the end of this world �under the power of the evil one� (1John 5:19) Malachi predicted: �At that time, those who fear Yahuh will speak to each other,
each with his neighbor, and Yahuh will hear them and will pay attention to them,
and a book of remembrance will be written before him of those who fear Yahuh and
who think about his
name.
�They will be mine�, says Yahuh of hosts, �on the day that I will
create a precious good for me. Then I will have mercy on them, as a man has
mercy on a son who serves him�� (Malachi
3:16-17)
2
For the Disciples of Christ the fact of sanctifying God's name is
essential. Matthew writes that Jesus went up a mount and began to instruct his
followers. On that memorable day, he spoke of the things recorded in the
so-called �Sermon on the Mount�. He said, �Blessed are
those who beg asking for the spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is
constituted by them�, in Greek: �μακάριοι οὶ
πτωχοὶ
τῷ πνεύματι, ὅ̓τι αὐτῶν
ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν
οὐρανῶν
�. (Matthew
5:3)
Then he taught his disciples, who certainly were part of those who
beg for their spirit, how to pray in order to reach an intimate relationship
with God. Jesus said: �When you pray, go into your
room and shut the door and pray to your Father privately,
and your Father who sees in the private, will reward you�, then he said �you must pray like this:
�Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed
be thy name�� Note that in this well-known prayer, in which Jesus
said to ask God for the things we need each day, he said in the first place: �Hallowed be thy
name�, in Greek: �ἁγιασθήτω
τὸ ὄνομά σου·�. (Matthew 6:6-10)
But how could that
which is unknown be sanctified, respected and thought about? For this reason,
Jesus needed to teach his disciples the holy name of God, as John tells us,
quoting the words he says to his Father: �I
made your name known to the men you gave
me...� (John
17:6)
3 Now we ask, the first disciples, were they not Jews? Why then was it
necessary to make them know the name of the Father? Is not the name
of God written 6.828 times in the Hebrew Scriptures? The reason is
that due to a misunderstanding of the divine commandment recorded in Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11, which say: �You will not pronounce the name of your God Yahuh in
vain�, grew among the people an irrational fear to say the name of God.
We know that in the period of the Old Testament or Tanakh, the name of God was commonly
used. When was it that the fear to
utter his name began? In the Talmud we find that this superstitious fear started
around 300 years BC. A very broad perception of the word �Lashua�, which means "in vain�, made of this commandment a prohibition to
use the name of God, although, as explained in the Hebrew lexicon of Koehler and Baumgartner, this word
within the context of the sentence, has only the sense of �to utter the name without a reason... to use the name
incorrectly�.
Therefore, this commandment did not forbid saying the name of God, only
the improper use of it. Since then, each time the readers found YHUH, replaced
it with the word Adonay (Lord), and if they had to read the
words Yahuh God, so frequent in Scripture, they said Adonay
Elohim, which mean Lord
God.
4 Throughout the period of the Tanakh or Old Testament, the use of the
name of Yahuh, the use of the name of Yahuh, always with due respect, was
common, as has been dutifully shown by the archaeological finds. A clay tablet
found near the door Itsara of ancient Babylon, and dated between 595 and 570
BCE, reveals the presence in the country of the members of the royal family of
Judah as prisoners.
The list on the tablet includes the name of �Yahukin king of the land of Yahud� (Judah).
Yahukin, the king's name, means �Yahuh
glorifies� and this name, along with many others, demonstrates that the
name of God not only was said, it was also included in the names of the
people.
(1
sila = 0,84 liters; 22,9 Gallons;
88,76
Quarts)
5
In May of 1893, during the removal of some debris
from ancient ruins in Nippur, a group of workers made a startling discovery.
Buried under the rubble, there were 730 clay tablets written in Aramaic and
cuneiform syllabic script, they were part of a file belonging to the Murashu
family, inhabitants of Nippur in the 5th century before our era. (H.V. Helprecht, �The Babylonia Expedition of the University
of Pennsylvania�. Series A: �Cuneiform Texts�, 9th vol. 1898, page
13)
In the three tablets that we here show, is written �Yahuh is God�, and this is another example that in
that period, the name of the God of Israel was commonly
used.
6
Between the years 1932 and 1938, a British archaeological
commission found under the ruins of the guardhouse of the main gate of Lachish,
twenty-one ostracon or fragments of terracotta inscribed in Hebrew writing that
belonged to the period of the Babylonian conquest of the year 596 before our
era.
Some of these clay tablets contain urgent messages from Hoshayah, the
officer of an outpost near Jerusalem, and were addressed to Yahusha, the
garrison commander of Lachish, to inform of his concern for the progress of the
Babylonian army. Of the eight readable fragments, seven begin with a greeting
like this: �To my lord Yahusha, may Yah�h bring my
lord news of peace every day�.
The seven messages contain the name of God eleven times in total, and
testify about its use in everyday life.
7 In the Ptolemy�s period, the High Priest called Simon the Just, ceased
to pronounce the name of God in the blessings, (Talmud, Yoma 49b) and later on, it was
only said in the Temple. The Mishna
says: �In the Sanctuary, the name is said as it is
written but in the provinces, only by reference� (Talmud, Sotah 7:6, Sotah 38b, Tamid
7:2)
;
In the first century, when commenting on the events described on the
third chapter of Exodus, Flavius Josephus mentions the prohibition to use the
name of God and says: �Behold God declared Moses his
holy name, a name that never before had been declared to men and which I am not
allowed to pronounce�. (Jewish
Antiquities 2: 12:04) In the days of Jesus the Scriptures were read in the
Temple and the Synagogue, but the regulation of reading the Tetragrammaton as
Adonai was in effect. This is why Jesus says to his Father: �I made them know
your name and will make it known�. (John 17:26)
8
The influence of Greek philosophy supported the fear to say the name of
God. The writings of a contemporary of Jesus, the Jewish philosopher Philo of
Alexandria who regarded the Greek Plato as a man inspired by God, are a clear
example of the intrusion of philosophy in the beliefs of the Hebrews. The �Lexikon des Judentums� or Lexicon of
Judaism says under the name �Philo�,
that he �integrated the language and concepts of
Greek philosophy (Plato) to the revealed faith of the Hebrews� and �clearly influenced the Fathers of the Christian
Church�. He argued as did Plato, that God was indefinable and therefore,
nameless.
It has been said for a long time that the New Testament never contained
the name of God, even when it quoted the Hebrew Scriptures from the Greek
translation of the �Seventy�, because the only terms appearing in it are Kyrios
o Theos. However, has this claim a solid foundation?
Jerome, who in his �Latin Vulgate� translated the Greek �Septuagint� o �Seventy�, writes in his
preface of the books of Samuel and Kings: �We find
the name of God, the Tetragrammaton, even now, written in ancient Hebrew letters in some
of the Greek books�. And the three fragments of the version of the
"Seventy" we present here,
demonstrate the veracity of his claim.
9
The presence of the Tetragrammaton in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures
and in its Greek version of the �Seventy� is beyond doubt, even if we do not
find it in the manuscripts of the New Testament we have, except in Revelation 19:1..6, where it is enclosed
in the word �ἁλληλούϊα AlleluYa�
(Praise Yha)
We may find in some verses, evident traces of the presence of God's name, such
as in Matthew 6:9, in John 12:28,
and 17:6 and 26, or in we find in some verses,
evident traces of the presence of God's name, such as in Matthew 6:9, in John
12:28, and 17:6, 26, or in Hebrews
6:10.
Although we have no manuscripts containing the Tetragrammaton, we must
remember that we do not have the originals texts and that the oldest copies
available, come from fourth and fifth centuries. But even if these manuscripts
do not include the name of God, we have indirect evidence that the first texts
did.
For example, the first part of the Babylonian Talmud entitled �Shabbat� contains a set of rules to
establish the activities permitted on a Sabbath day, and display an argument on
the option to save from fire the manuscripts of the Scriptures. We read: �the blank pages (hagilyonim) and the books of the Minim
(Seferi-minim) cannot be saved from fire. Rabbi Joseph said: �On weekdays it is
necessary to cut the Names of God that the books contain, hide them and burn the
rest�. Rabbi Tarphon said: �May I bury my son, if I do not burn, along with the
names of God contained in them, all those arriving to my hands�. (Taken
from the book �Who Was a Jew?� of Lawrence H.
Schiffman)
This Talmudic text translates as: �We do not
save from fire (on Saturday) the Gospels and the books of the Minim. They must
be burned where they are, they and their
Tetragrammaton�.
10 Who were those called Minim? The word �min�, in plural �minim�, means �heretic,
sectarian or schismatic, and dissident�. (Hebrew-Spanish Dictionary by Judith B. Tarragona) Doctor H. Freedman explains that the term
�minim� was used to name the Jews who
accepted the Christian faith.
And what are the gilyonim? This word can be translated as �blank
spaces�, and in this context refer to the writings of those considered
�heretics�, like Peter, Paul, John and all the apostles and disciples of
Jesus.
Some words in the Talmud, previous to the argument of burning books in
Sabbath, day, read: �The books of the Minim
are like gilyonim (blank spaces)� and the
above mentioned dictionary, among the senses of the word gilyonim, includes �the
Gospels�.
To further support of the presence of God's name in the original New
Testament writings, Professor George Howard, from the University of Georgia
(USA) notes: �When the �Seventy� (version)
that the New Testament church used and quoted,
contained the divine name in Hebrew characters, the New Testament writers no
doubt included the Tetragrammaton in their quotations�. (Biblical Archeology Review, March 1978)
And we also have indirect evidence that Jesus and his apostles used freely the
name of God, through the fact that after his death, the Jews accused him of
working miracles �only because he had taken over the
secret name of God�. (The Book of
Jewish Knowledge)
11
But which is the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton? Until the
Middle Ages, the text of the Hebrew Scriptures called ketib remained without vowels, and
whenever the Tetragrammaton appeared in it, the reading was Adonay or
Elohim.
The fact that God's name was not said or read for hundreds of years, made
its pronunciation be forgotten and led to different interpretations of its
reading. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Masoretes or Sopherim
added the vowels to the ketib, which
then took the name of Masoretic
text, and the vowels of Adonay and of Elohim were inserted into the
Tetragrammaton, to suggest what word should be used according to the rule called
�kere�, which means: �it is written so... but I'll read it this way�, or,
�if you find �a�, you will read Adonay, and if you
find �e�, you will read
Elohim�.
This resulted in the spread of erroneous readings, as Jehovah or Yehovah,
and in the twentieth century, the reading became Yahweh (Yahueh), from in the
reading attributed to the Samaritans by Theodoret, of the word Ἰάω.
(Theodoreti Cyrensis Quaestiones in
Octateuchum, Madrid, 1979, page 112)
However and because of its systematic default, the name by which the
Creator was identified and was known by his people, has been replaced in most
versions of Scripture by the titles of Lord and God, thus following the
tradition of the Hebrew copyists. But in fact, all evidence shows that the
correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton must be Yahuh.
12 Let us return to the time of its origin, to the moment when from the
burning bush and through an angel, God identified Himself as the God of Abraham.
(Exodus 3:6) Moses, who would be sent to Egypt, a country with many gods and
goddesses, felt that if he declared the children of Israel: �The God of your fathers has sent me to you�, they
would want to know how they should name him, so he asked: �If they tell me �What is his name?� What shall I answer
them?� (Exodus 3:13) Then
God, to distinguish Himself from the all false gods, from the gods made by man,
replied: �ehyeh asher ehyeh�. (Exodus 3:14) With these words that have
the sense of �I am the one who is�, God refers to himself as
the only one to possess life from ever and forever, and says to Moses: �You shall say to the children of Israel �I am (ehyeh) sends me to you��.
Since then, Moses and the people of Israel called him Yahuh, (�He is�) a term from the third person singular of the verb �to be� (yahuh�) that loses the final e to become a
name.
In our language, verbs are called by the infinitive: to be, to believe,
to do etc. but in the Hebrew language the verbs are called by the third person:
he is, he believes, he sees, and so on. Thus, the name of Yah�h that comes from
the verb yahuhe, includes the grammar root
and the full meaning of the verb. The apostle John, who knew the significance of
all these things, writes out their real meaning when he calls God:
�ο ων και ο ην
και ο ερχομενος�, "He who is and who was and who comes". (Revelation 1:4)
13 Even if the non syllabic Hebrew writing, makes difficult the
restoration of the right pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, we can restore it
through the syllabic cuneiform characters, that the archaeological research in
the Assyrian-Babylonian area makes available by providing several tablets that
record many Hebrew names that include the Tetragrammaton in them, for example:
Yiremiyahu or Jeremiah, and many others.
Clement of Alexandria who lived in the second century of our era,
supports this reading by writing the name of God in Greek as �Ιαού�, in Greek the diphthong ού
reads ύ. (Stromata V; 6:34) And a credited
historian like Giuseppe Ricciotti, supports in his History of Israel (Ed. Luis Miracle,
2nd volume, page 174) the fact that Yahuh is most probably, the correct reading
of the Tetragrammaton.
The famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 reminds us that:
SHMAA YISRAEL YAHUH ELOHEINU YAHUH ECHAD |
HEAR ISRAEL YAHUH IS OUR GOD YAHUH IS ONE
|
|
|
14 Before ascending in heaven, Jesus said to his disciples: �All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Go and make disciples of all nations in my name, teaching them to observe all
the things I commanded you. And see! I am with you every day until the world
ends�. (Matthew
28:18..20)
Jesus had said to his father: �I made your name
known to the men you gave me...� and
these words of his are certainly in harmony with the will of God, that since
ancient times tell us through his prophets: �Make my name be
known throughout the earth�, (Exodus 9:16) and �Certainly, my
people will know my
name�, (Isaiah 52:6)
�because he is attached to me, I will save and defend
him, for he knows my name�.
(Psalm 91:14)
Moses told the people: �Listen O Israel, Yahuh, our God Yahuh, is one� (Deuteronomy 6:4), and the psalmist
wrote: �Those
who know your name will trust you, since
you, Yah�h do not forsake those who seek
you�, (Psalm 9:10) �Praises to Yah�h, my mouth will announce and all the living
will constantly bless his holy name forever and ever�. (Psalm 145:21)
At this time, near his arrival, Jesus fulfills again his promise to His
Father: �I
made them know your name and will make it known�. How does he do it?
He does it through his disciples, who are those who seek above all, the truth
that quenches the thirst of the spirit and who strive to obey and publish all the things he ordered. Let us
do all the necessary things to make known the name of our loving God and Father,
Yahuh.