THE TETRAGRAMMATON

The Tetragrammaton is a Greek word meaning a four lettered word which is the mysterious name for God in the Hebrew Scriptures considered to sacred to utter. The letters are even debated as J H V H (3068-Strongs) seems to be the most consistent (others-YHWH, YHVH,  and IHUH) .  It is thought that the Jew used the word adonai  (lord-136) in place of this word and even substituted (supposedly) the vowels for this word adonai into the tetragramatron forming the commonly acceptable word Jehovah. The Hebrew had no vowel pointings evidently until the Ben Asher family assigned the system of pronunciation of the Hebrew from 600-900 AD. In the Dictionary of Bible and Religion (by  Gentz) it is suggested the name Jehovah resulted from the word Yehovah being pronounced with a J as many languages such as German seldom use the letter Y. This also suggests the vowels of adonai were added to J H V H making Jehovah. In the Septuagint which was the Jewish translation of the Bible to the Greek they also avoided pronouncing this word and translated  the Greek word Kyrios meaning Lord. Problems arise when words are transliterated as the word for one language is use to sound like the word in another language. In other words transliterate means to carry across the sound of words so that the same word will be recognized in the language when spoken from one language to another.  Some letters or sounds can be lost as mentioned above. A man from Norway for instance in English could pronounce Jehovah without the J sound yet he means Jehovah not Yehovah as it sounds in English. The Norwegian name Joar is pronounced “you are” yet spelled with a J so we can see some things are lost in transliteration as well as in translation. If we go to Exodus 3:14-15 we can understand better the tetragrammaton. EXODUS 3:14-15   And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD 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. “I am that I am” in the Hebrew is Strongs 1961 (havah) meaning to become or to exist. In The Judaic Encyclopedia the explanation of the name is given in Exodus 3:14 as Eheyeh-Asher-Eyeyeh is said to be more of a folk etymology, common in Biblical explanation of names rather than a scientific approach. Obviously the dictionary states the shortened form name of God here was much longer than Yahweh or Jehovah. It seems Yahweh and Jehovah are the same word as the Jew leans to Yahweh and the others to Jehovah. In Exodus 3:15 the Hebrew word for Lord is Yhovah (3068) (from 1961) meaning the existing one.

To better understand the name let us look at the name Jesus  in ACTS 9:5    And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.  Paul heard in his native tongue and the transliteration is from the Hebrew Yeshua (3091) meaning Jehovah is salvation and is the same word as for Joshua. We can see plainly the revelation is that Jesus of the New Testament is Jehovah of the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul being a Jew would never have called Him Yeshua (Joshua) unless he knew it was the God of the Hebrews.