Jehovah or Yahweh? What is the Correct Pronunciation?
One way to determine how a name is spelled is to look at other Biblical names that contain parts of the Divine Name (theophoric names), like
Jehoaddah, Jehoaddan, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jehohanan, Jehoiachin, Jehoiada, Jehoiakim, Jehoiarib, Jehonadab, Jehonathan, Jehoram, Jehoshabeath, Jehoshaphat, Jehosheba, Jehoshua, Jehozabad, Jehozadak etc.
Did you notice a pattern here. They all start with JEHO.
What about words the end with the latter element of the Divine Name?
Here are some that are:
Puvah, Kibbroth-Hattaavah, Ivvah, Ishvah, Hodevah, Chavvah. Alvah
All of the words/names end with VAH.
We translate theophoric names with parts of "Jehovah" without argument or vitriol. When you see the name "Jehoshaphat" in the Bible, is it accompanied by a footnote declaring that the true pronunciation is lost? Does the footnote declare that since we cannot know for sure that Jehoshaphat is proper, that we will simply replace it with a title, or we will just call him "son of Asa?" Of course not. Did you know that no one when Jesus was alive actually called him "Jesus." Will you now replace that name with a title? Did you know that the Biblical name of "James" is "Giacomo" in Italian, and "John" is "Giovanni." Does this upset you? No, of course not. Therefore no one should be upset about the pronunciation of JEHOVAH.
But what else do we know about this name?
Notice the very interesting statements in the Catholic Encyclopedia
(1913) (http://www.newadvent.org)
"Jehovah (Yahweh): The proper name of God in the Old Testament; hence the Jews called it the name by excellence, the great name, the only name,.... Finally, the word is found even in the "Pugio fidei" of Raymund Martin, a work written about 1270 (ed. Paris, 1651, pt. III, dist. ii, cap. iii, p. 448, and Note, p. 745). PROBABLY THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH ANTEDATES EVEN R. MARTIN. No wonder then that this form has been regarded as the true pronunciation of the Divine name by such scholars as Michaelis ("Supplementa ad lexica hebraica", I, 1792, p. 524), Drach (loc. cit., I, 469-98), Stier (Lehrgebäude der hebr. Sprache, 327), and others."
What of Michaelis? Johann David Michaelis in his German translation of the Old Testament of the eighteenth century...said in part: "On the other hand, the name Jehovah [Jehova in German] is used. . . . so I considered it to be a matter of integrity in translation to identify it, even though it might not always be pleasing to the German ear." ....Several of my friends insisted that I not at all insert this foreign word. . . . Jehovah is a Nomen Proprium, and, just as properly as I retain other nomina propria [such as] Abraham, Isaac, Jacob... In the translation of a classical author one would not have the slightest hesitance toward the use of the names Jupiter, Apollo [and] Diana; and why then should the name of the Only True God sound more offensive? I do not therefore see why I should not use the name Jehovah in the German Bible."
How God's Name Was Pronounced, Biblical Archaeology Review, Mar./Apr. 1995 Volume 21 Number 2; page 30:
"1) Among the magical papyri the name appears as IAWOUHE (Ya-oh-oo-ay-eh), but it is difficult to know how much this pronunciation had to do with the Tetragrammaton...so it is not certain how many of these syllables were thought to belong to the name. At least, however, it has more syllables than two, and the central vowel is not omitted, as is done in Yah-weh.
"2) Clement of Alexandria spelled the Tetragrammaton IAOAI (Ya-oo-ai), IAOE (Ya-oo-eh), and IAO (Ya-oh). In none of these is the central oo or oh vowel omitted.
"3) Rabbis often deduced the meaning of a word by taking the word apart and interpreting each part...By this logic Clement argued that the Tetragrammaton had the same consonants as the verb "to be," so it meant the one who caused things to be, but he did not pronounce the word according to any form of that verb. His conjecture was homiletic ally thought provoking, but not scientifically or historically correct...Reams of paper and gallons of ink have been expended over the years justifying a pronunciation Westerners deduced on the basis of Clement's conjecture. It may all be irrelevant to the subject....The word spelled Ya-hoo or Ya-hoh may have been pronounced Yahowah or Yahoowah, but in no case is the vowel oo or oh omitted. The word was sometimes abbreviated as "Ya," but never as "Ya-weh." This can be illustrated further by studying the proper names of the Bible that were based on the Tetragrammaton....Yah-ho-na-than..."Yaho-cha-nan"...Eli-yahoo ...Anyone who cares to check the concordances will find that there is no name in the entire Scriptures that includes the Tetragrammaton and also omits the vowel that is left out in the two-syllable pronunciation Rainey upholds. (Anson F. Rainey is Hebrew professor of Tel Aviv University)
"There is still one other clue to the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton— Hebrew poetry. For example, from the poem of Exodus 15, read aloud verses 1, 3, 6, 11, 17 and 18, first pronouncing the Tetragrammaton as "Yahweh" and then read it again, pronouncing the same word as "Yahowah." Notice the rhyme and poetic beat of the two. In this way the reader can judge which one is the more likely pronunciation used in antiquity.
"The name "Yahowah" is not a ghost word, as Rainey declared. Clement of Alexandria's conjecture that the Tetragrammaton was based on the verb "to be" overlooks the pronunciation of the proper names in the Scripture that include some portion of the Tetragrammaton. Clement did not have access to the scrolls and may never have seen the Aramaic Papyri. Nevertheless, he spelled the Tetragrammaton in Greek employing the central vowel that Rainey omitted in his determination that the proper name was Yahweh....
The way Rudolf Kittle translates YHWH is more accurate than "Yahweh", he translates it "Yehowah. Why? Became YHWH is a 3 syllable word, not a two syllable word like "Yahweh" is. George Buchanan of Wesley Theological Seminary favors the use of "Yahowah" or "Yahoowah." He explains how he came up with those: "In ancient times, parents often named their children after their deities. That means that they would have pronounced their children's names the way the deity's name was pronounced. The Tetragrammaton was used in people's names, and they always used the middle vowel." A few examples of proper names found in the Bible that include the shortened form of God's name are Jonathan, which appears as Yohnathan or Yehohnathan in Hebrew. It means "Yaho or Yahowah has given." Elijah's name is Eliyah or Eliyahu in Hebrew, which means: "My God is Yahoo or Yahoo-wah." Also, Jehoshaphat is Yehohshaphat meaning "Yaho has judged." The two syllable pronunciation of YHWH as "Yahweh" would not allow for the "o" vowel sound to exist as part of God's name. But in dozens of Biblical names that incorporate the divine name, this middle vowel sound appears in both the original and the shortened forms, as in Jehonathan and Jonathan. Professor Buchanan says about God's name: "In no case is the vowel oo or oh omitted. The word was sometimes abbreviated as 'Ya,' but never as 'Ya-weh.'... When the Tetragrammaton was pronounced in one syllable it was 'Yah' or 'Yo.' When it was pronounced in three syllables it would have been 'Yahowah' or 'Yahoowa.' If it was ever abbreviated to two syllables it would have been 'Yaho.' " (Biblical Archaeology Review)
Gesenius in his Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament Scriptures agrees saying: "Those who consider that YHWH [Yehowah] was the actual pronunciation are not altogether without ground on which to defend their opinion. In this way can the abbreviated syllables YHW [Yeho] and YH [Yo], with which many proper names begin, be more satisfactorily explained." -George Wesley Buchanan, Professor Emeritus, Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC
However, if the word were spelled with four letters in Moses' day, we would expect it to have had more than two syllables, for at that period there were no vowel letters. All the letters were sounded. At the end of the OT period the Elephantine papyri write the word YHW to be read either yahu (as in names like Shemayahu) or yaho (as in names like Jehozadek). The pronunciation yaho would be favored by the later Greek from iao found in Qumran Greek fragments (2d or 1st centuries B.C.) and in Gnostic materials of the first Christian centuries.—Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
"In the history of the English language however, the letter J has a written counterpart in the German J, although the latter J in German is pronounced like an English Y. The bulk of theological studies having come from the German sources, there has been an intermixed usage in English of the J and the Y. Our English translations of the bible reflect this, so we have chosen to use J, thus Jehovah, rather than Yahweh, because this is established English usage for Biblical names beginning with this Hebrew letters. No one suggests that we ought to change Jacob, Joseph, Jehoshaphat, Joshua etc. to begin with a Y, and neither should we at this late date change Jehovah to Yahweh." -Bible Translator Jay P. Green, Sr.
Francis B. Denio, a man who studied and taught Hebrew for 40 years adds:
"Jehovah misrepresents Yahweh no more that Jeremiah misrepresents Yirmeyahu. The settled connotation of Isaiah and Jeremiah forbid questioning their right. Usage has given them the connotations proper for designating the personalities which these words represent. Much the same is true of Jehovah. It is not barbarism. It has already many of the connotations needed for the proper name of the covenant God of Israel. There is no other word which can faintly compare with it. For centuries it has been gathering these connotations. No other word approaches this name in fullness of associations required. The use of any other word falls so far short of the proper ideas that it is a serious blemish in a translation." On the Use of the Word Jehovah, JBL 46, 1927, 147-148
See also 200 Books on the Divine Name Jehovah on DVDrom (Yahweh, Tetragrammaton, YHWH) and Divine Name Controversy & Mysteries - 50 Books on CD
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