The name of God

The name of God exists over 7000 times in the Bible, more than any other name. Though we shouldn’t use God’s name in vain, there is no reason to not use it at all, respectfully.

The name

A good Bible translation uses God’s name as much as possible. If you have a translation that doesn’t, consider getting one that does. Seeing God’s name gives you a much more personal feeling that titles such as ”Lord” can’t convey.

Most translations have God’s name at least at Psalms 83:18.

Psalms 83:18 KJV— That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

Here it is rendered Jehovah. Others render it as Yahweh. It doesn’t matter what pronounciation you prefer as long as you use it.

To illustrate: Jesus name was probably pronounced Yeshuah in hebrew or Isus in greek, but the important thing is to use it, no matter how it is pronounced.

Same with ”Jehovah”. It’s not a spell or magic formula that needs to be pronounced perfectly to be effective.

Going deeper

”Jehovah” in hebrew consists of four consonants: יהוה

From right to left:

• Yodh י
• He ה
• Wav ו
• He ה

So: Yodh-He-Waw-He. Or ”Y-H-W-H” if pronounced as consonants.

Only consonants sound very rough and strange, so what vowels to use? Some suggest Y-a-h-w-e-h.

Personally, I reason like this:

What is interesting with these letters is that they can also be seen as vowels.

Yodh can be pronounced like an ”i” or the letter E in english. He pronounced as a vowel becomes an ”ah” sound. And Wav has an ”ou” sound. So if you pronounce it as vowels you’d get:

I-ah-ou-ah.

Using these vowels as guide, the pronounciation would be something in the neighborhood of:

Y-ah-ouw-ah. Yahowah.

It rhymes well with the popular ”Jehovah” with the exception that it uses a soft Y rather than a hard J. But hebrew doesn’t have the hard J anyway.

This is just my thought about the pronounciation. But as I said, that’s not the most important, as long as you actually use it.

Meaning

What does Jehovah mean?

If you drop the Yodh, it becomes ”howah” which means ”to do something” or ”to exist”.

Now each letter in the hebrew alphabeth has its own meaning, and I will write more about this later, but the meaning of Yodh is ”do, act, be willing, cause” and it was originally a picture of a hand.

So ”do/act/cause” + ”to exist/to do” = Cause to exist. Suiting for the creator and the one to whom nothing is impossible. If Jehovah wants it to happen, it will happen.

Letter by letter

Yodh means ”to do/act/be willing”

He is a bit more abstract. It was a picture of an open window or a surprised person and it has the connotation of something surprising, miraculous happening. Kind of like ”Voila!”, ”Preso!” Its vowel pronounciation is ”ah” just like someone is surprised or in awe. It is often associated with the holy spirit.

Wav means nail and is also used as the word ”and” because it ”nails” words together. It also has the meaning of something being nailed down, definite, certain.

So Yodh-He-Waw-He becomes:

Willing to do - something (miraculous) - [then] definitely - something (miraculous) [will happen]

So we know that if Jehovah wants something to happen, it will definitely happen. This strengthens our faith in him.

Submitted September 14, 2018 at 05:14PM by SonOfAdamSonOfGod https://ift.tt/2MvbgRh