# What does God mean when he says his name is Yahweh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2006, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619 "2006-05-21T08:22:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jebus\_H.Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Jebus\_H.Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jebus_H.Christ)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/21 "2006-05-22T04:17:25Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Yahbut 🙂 It’s obviously a symbolic name, to be sure – **and** His Name, insofar as He has one. As Hanville Svetz in Larry Niven’s time travel stories comments of his one-of-a-kind extinct animals, “You give things names to distinguish them from other similar things. You call him Fred to distinguish him from Pete. There’s only one of Horse, so he doesn’t need a special name.” Likewise, for the majority of their existence, the Israelites and Jews have been thoroughgoing monotheists. (There’s quite a bit of Scriptural evidence for an early henotheistic tradition, admitting the existence but not the puissance of other deities, whom YHWH would overcome.) So the Divine Name was self-selected. [/QUOTE] But it is possible that the story in E comes from oral tradition from before the Isaelites were strict monotheists when it would be important that their god have a name like the other gods in area such as the Canaanite god El. And for another viewpoint here is a quote from Richard Friedman’s Who Wrote the bible (page 82 of the paperback): > [@](#): > > Some investigators doing research on early Israelite history have concluded that, historically, only a small portion of the ancient Israelites were actually slaves in Egypt. Perhaps it was only the Levites. It is among the Levites, after all, that we find people with Egyptian names. The Levite names Moses, Hophni, and Phinehas are all Egyptian, not Hebrew. And the Levites did not occupy any territory in the land like the other tribes. These investigators suggest that the group that was in Egypt and then in Sinai worshiped the God Yahweh. Then they arrived in Israel, where they met Israelite tribes who worshiped the God El. Instead of fighting over whose God was the true God, the two groups accepted the belief that Yahweh and El were the same God. The Levites became the official priests of the united religion, perhaps by force or perhaps by influence. Or perhaps that was their compensation for not having any territory. Instead of land, they received, as priests, 10 percent of the sacrificed animals and produce. If either is the case, it is a reasonable possibility that Yahweh could have had the meaning “to be” added later and that at first it just was a name. This is all so confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Jebus\_H.Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Jebus\_H.Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jebus_H.Christ)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/22 "2006-05-22T09:55:06Z")
E also refers to Yahweh as the god of the Hebrews. And the Song of the Sea (from J and possibily the oldest writing in the Bible) specifically speaks of Yahweh in relation to other gods. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/23 "2006-05-22T11:17:05Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] For those who weren’t already aware, this is the same set of letters that get mistranslated as Jehovah. [/QUOTE] Just to say thanks for an extraordinarily informative and helpful post, and especially for this part about ‘Jehovah’, which had never been explained to me before. Excellent ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/24 "2006-05-22T11:46:15Z")
I am not a linguist (wish I was, but don’t have the facility with languages), but from my readings, I’ve stumbled across some interesting notions. 1.) As noted above, we don’t really know the pronnciation of YHWH, the interpolated vowels being something of a guess. 2.) When the Name doesn’t strand alone, but is used in a combining form, as in personal names, it’s effectively the much shorter “Yo” (as in “Joel” and “Jonathan” and “Joseph”) 3.) Biblical scholar Elias Auerbach has suggested (I don’t know if the idea is original with him) that Hebrew names could be “exalted” by having an additional syllable added to them, the “_he_ emphaticum”, he called it. In this way “Abram” became “Abraham”, “Sarai” became “Sarah”. It explains that weird double “A” in “Aaron”, which ought to be “Aharon”. God, being as holy as you can get, rates _two_ of these _he emphatica_, so “Yo” becomes “Yo-He-W-He”, the “W” being added so you can tell there are two of the emphatic syllables. 4.) The resulting “YHWH” somewhat resembles “I Am Who I Am”. The resmblance is coincidental, and the meaning is suitably mysterious, but not significant. That, I gather, is the theory. It seems a pretty interesting one to me. As an unrelated item of interest, I note that one of the Roman names for the chief god was Jove. In classical Latin “J” is pronounced like “Y” and “V” like “W”, so “Jove” becomes “Yowe”, which is awfully close to “Yahweh”. I’ve often wondered if this is fortuitous, or if there is a connection. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/25 "2006-05-22T12:50:04Z")
What a fascinating suggestion **CalMeacham**. I know the Father god was basically an Indo-European cultural icon and (though mutated) had spread through much of the Eurasian world – but I never associated him and Yahweh before. I looked on wiki for the word origins (which is like looking at McDonalds to sample local cuisine) but I all found was the Indo-European meanings – but it answers the origin Question I think – can anyone else tie this together? Wiki Quote: \* Linguistic studies identify his name as deriving from \*dyēus ph2ter (“god-father”), the Indo-European deity who also evolved into the Germanic _Tiwaz (after whom Tuesday was named), the Greek Zeus, and Dyaus Pita of the Vedic religion. Jove is a vocative form of the name, evolved from Dye_ ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/26 "2006-05-22T13:36:51Z")
[QUOTE=ianzin] Just to say thanks for an extraordinarily informative and helpful post, and especially for this part about ‘Jehovah’, which had never been explained to me before. Excellent [/QUOTE] The variants J vs. Y and V vs. W in rendering the Four-Letter-Name derive from the variations across languages in what those letters stand for. J in German and Latin has a /y/ sound; W in German is sounded as /v/, while in Classic Latin V carries a /w/ sound. Medieval Biblical scholars of course wrote in Latin, the language of classical erudition, while the earliest modern-vernacular writings on the Bible were in German. So variants of YHWH, YHVH, JHWH, and JHVH are all acceptable transliterations of yodh-he-vau-he, depending on which scholarly tradition you are tracking. Where Jehovah comes from, actually, is a misrendition of the Masoretic text. The custom, of course, being that the Divine Name was never actually spoken, except by the High Priest on Yom Kippur, when reading the Bible aloud one would view YHWH on the printed page and enunciate “Adonai,” i.e., “the Lord.” In the Masoretic text, with vowel marks, the vowel points for Adonai were supplied, leading the unwary to suppose that A-O-A (the final I seems to have been dropped) were the vowels for the word JHVH. Migrate that into English, where unstressed “broad” vowels move to the schwa sound, and you get “Juh-HO-vuh” written Jehovah. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/27 "2006-05-22T14:43:11Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] OK, I never thought I would find myself agreeing with **Malacandra** , but yeah. **ianzin** ’s behavior is totally out of line for this forum. Bash religion all you want, hell, I’m a person of faith and I bash religion myself. But do it in the Pit and let people trying to have a debate have the debate that was intended. This is the most blatant and disrespectful example of a thread hijack I’ve ever seen. . [/QUOTE] I agree. We’ve had debates about the Mutant registration act, for example, and many other 'what if’s". It’s like someone starting a debate “what if Hitler had invaded England?”- and a reply “well, he didn’t, so it’s a stupid question”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/28 "2006-05-22T14:51:00Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] …He selected the name by which He wanted Moses and the Israelites (with or without Desmond Dekker) to refer to Him. [/QUOTE] I’m fairly certain that Desmond called him “Jah.” 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/29 "2006-05-22T20:46:50Z")
In my opinion, an excellent English translation of _YHVH_ is _Beor_; that is, the verb _be_ plus the _-or_ suffix. It has a nice earthy Anglo-Saxon sound to it, but I don’t see it ever entering general use. A question: many religious people avoid writing _God_ by using _G-d_ instead. Do they also avoid writing _YHVH_? ---
**Author:** ![rwjefferson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@rwjefferson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rwjefferson)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/30 "2006-05-22T21:02:48Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] As I understand it…, “YHWH” is the archaic causative form of the verb “to be.” [/QUOTE] Existence. That is a good name for a force that gives both life and understanding. I am. r~ ---
**Author:** ![Jebus\_H.Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Jebus\_H.Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jebus_H.Christ)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/31 "2006-05-22T22:02:13Z")
Richard Friedman in the Bible with Sources revealed translates the third line of the Song of the Sea as: > [@](#): > > My strenght and song are Yah The NIV, ESV, and KJV (these sources use LORD in all caps instead of Yahweh or YHWH) give it as: > [@](#): > > The LORD is my strength and my song Can some who can read Hebrew say if the is a difference in the way YHWH is written in the first line that is different from the way it is written in the third line of the Song of Sea that causes Friedman to translate it “Yah” instead of YHWH as he does in other places where other sources use LORD. Here is the the Song of the Sea in Hebrew: > **[Exodus 15 / Hebrew - English Bible / Mechon-Mamre](https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0215.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![Jebus\_H.Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Jebus\_H.Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jebus_H.Christ)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/32 "2006-05-22T22:04:02Z")
> [@](#): > > strenght That should read strength. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/33 "2006-05-22T22:14:17Z")
[QUOTE=Pleonast] In my opinion, an excellent English translation of _YHVH_ is _Beor_; that is, the verb _be_ plus the _-or_ suffix. It has a nice earthy Anglo-Saxon sound to it, but I don’t see it ever entering general use. A question: many religious people avoid writing _God_ by using _G-d_ instead. Do they also avoid writing _YHVH_? [/QUOTE] Yes. Anything containing the name of G-d is sacred text. It cannot touch the ground, cannot be thrown away, etc. If I write yod hay vav hay (the actual letters, not their names. I don’t feel like figuring out Hebrew mapping on this keyboard) in pink crayon on a paper towel, that towel is now sacred text. The Name is never pronounced. You see those four letters, or yod yod, you just say “Adonai”. The Name is sometimes represented by a hay and an apostrophe. This keeps the paper, just paper. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/34 "2006-05-22T22:59:09Z")
[QUOTE=Jebus H. Christ] Richard Friedman in the Bible with Sources revealed translates the third line of the Song of the Sea as: The NIV, ESV, and KJV (these sources use LORD in all caps instead of Yahweh or YHWH) give it as: Can some who can read Hebrew say if the is a difference in the way YHWH is written in the first line that is different from the way it is written in the third line of the Song of Sea that causes Friedman to translate it “Yah” instead of YHWH as he does in other places where other sources use LORD. Here is the the Song of the Sea in Hebrew: > **[Exodus 15 / Hebrew - English Bible / Mechon-Mamre](https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0215.htm)** [/QUOTE] As I evidently did not make clear, the three Hebrew terms referencing the Deity are: _Elohim_ (and variants like El Shaddai, El Elohu), translated “God”; _Adonai_, translated the Lord (note initial cap.); and _YHWH_, rendered variously Yahweh, Jehovah, and the LORD (either full caps or using the small-caps styling I prefer not to figure out how to code here). Jah/Yah is the shorter rendering of YHWH, as in poetry. “My help is in the LORD” and “My help is in YHWH” are equivalent translations of the same Hebrew phrase. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/35 "2006-05-22T23:07:56Z")
[QUOTE=Pleonast] A question: many religious people avoid writing _God_ by using _G-d_ instead. Do they also avoid writing _YHVH_? [/QUOTE] No. It’s the same idea: G-d is “God” minus the vowels. YHVH is “Yahweh” minus the vowels. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/36 "2006-05-22T23:11:46Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] No. It’s the same idea: G-d is “God” minus the vowels. YHVH is “Yahweh” minus the vowels. [/QUOTE] You are completely and thoroughly wrong. Classic Hebrew is written without vowels. No word in the Torah, not one, includes vowels. For more on how you are wrong, see my above post. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/37 "2006-05-22T23:24:23Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] As I evidently did not make clear, the three Hebrew terms referencing the Deity are: _Elohim_ (and variants like El Shaddai, El Elohu), translated “God”; _Adonai_, translated the Lord (note initial cap.); and _YHWH_, rendered variously Yahweh, Jehovah, and the LORD (either full caps or using the small-caps styling I prefer not to figure out how to code here). Jah/Yah is the shorter rendering of YHWH, as in poetry. “My help is in the LORD” and “My help is in YHWH” are equivalent translations of the same Hebrew phrase. [/QUOTE] In my Temple, the name of God in this context was pronounced “Adonai” - but not written that way in the Hebrew. But that was not the name of God, just something to use instead of Yahweh, which is not the name of God either. My Hebrew teacher taught us that the true name of God had great mystical and magical power, and was written inside the Holy of Holies in the Temple, where only the High Priest could see it. Some folklore claims that Jesus snuck in there and read the name, which gave him the power to do miracles. I repeat, folklore, this is nowhere near an official position. I hope the people who really understand this issue will come in here and correct my over 40 year old blurry recollection. But I am quite certain that none of these tags is considered to be God’s true name in any respect. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/38 "2006-05-22T23:29:41Z")
**Voyager** The Kohain was the only one who knew how to pronounce the Name. He did this only on Yom Kippur. But, the true and ineffable Name of the G-d of Abraham _is_ spelled yod hay vav hay. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/39 "2006-05-23T02:50:53Z")
**Jebus** writes: > [@](#): > > Can some who can read Hebrew say if the is a difference in the way YHWH is written in the first line that is different from the way it is written in the third line of the Song of Sea that causes Friedman to translate it “Yah” instead of YHWH as he does in other places where other sources use LORD. See my post #24 above, specifically point #2 – In combining forms "Yo’, or evidently “Yah” (not surprising – they originlly didn’t have marks for vowels) stood for the Nam of God. Evidently it did sometimes when not combined, as well. If Auerbach’s theory is correct, then Yo/Yah is "God, as opposed to YHWH/Yahweh = “Great, Great God”. ---
**Author:** ![Othersider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@Othersider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Othersider)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619/40 "2006-05-23T03:52:00Z")
[QUOTE=ianzin] There is no evidence whatsoever to support the first two [/QUOTE] In the interest of striving for correctness, it appears to me that you don’t see any evidence to support the first two. Lots of people, including some more intelligent than you and I, believe there is evidence supporting them. Interpreting evidence is subjective, is it not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-god-mean-when-he-says-his-name-is-yahweh/357619.md?page=3)