Correcting the WWUTT guys on the NAME of God

Normally, the WWUTT guys are spot on. This one is problematic, though. In the past, the letter "J" has done double duty by making the "Y" sound, as in the word "Hallelujah." We have retained both the "Y" pronunciation of the "J" as well as the old spelling of "Hallelujah," and that makes this just about the perfect example for this illustration.

So, in antiquity, the English "J" has done double duty as a "Y." (In the same way the "C" does double duty as both an S and a K, as in the words "city" and "cat.")

In the second century, after the fall of the Temple, the Jews continued to rebel against the Romans. So Rome made it a crime to speak the name of the Jewish God in public... Read THIS article on "Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion" to find someone executed for "speaking the NAME as it is written." The Romans wrapped him in a Torah scroll and lit him on fire. Shortly after this comes the ban on speaking the NAME from the Jews.

How do I know?

For a very clear example, take a look at Ruth 2:4, where both Jewish nobility and Jewish peasantry speak the name openly to one another.... but really, in the OT, the name appears almost 7000 times, and was obviously in very common use.

So how is it pronounced? Take a look at the following image:





 This is the NAME of God written, with all the vowels, from the Aleppo codex from the 10th century... a thousand years ago, and 600 years before the video suggests that someone borrowed the vowels from another word and changed the HOLY NAME of God.

From right to left, those letters are

Yud........... י

Hay............ה

Vav.............ו

Hay............ה

or "YHVH" like we transliterate them. But every Hebrew letter must be followed by a vowel... the vowels are the dots and dashes above and below the letters.

so the Yud is followed by a "schwa," which makes the same sound as the "schwa" in English.. that is, a short "eh" sound.

The next letter is an "Hay." It has no vowel either above or below it... its vowel is above the "Vav," which follows. That vowel, the dot above the Vav, is called the "Cholem," and makes the "o" sound.

The final vowel is below the Vav, and is the "Kamatz." it makes the short "a" sound, or "ah."

The final letter is another "hay," which ends the word by slightly extending the "ah" sound of the "Kamatz."

According to the Aleppo codex, published in the 10th century, the proper pronunciation is

Yehovah.

Now, remember how the "J" used to do double duty as a "Y?"

Jehovah is the ancient English spelling of Yehovah, which actually is the proper NAME of God.



For MUCH more information on this (and MANY other Hebrew topics!!) check out the work of my good friend Nehemia Gordon at his site, www.nehemiaswall.com