Jehovah

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Jehovah is an English reading of יְהֹוָה, the most frequent vocalized version of the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name, in the Hebrew Bible as vocalized by the Masoretes.

In Jewish culture the Tetragrammaton is not pronounced, instead the above vocalization indicates that the reading Adonai is to be used. In places where the preceding or following word already is Adonai, the vocalization of the Tetragrammaton is different, indicating that the reading Elohim is to be used. Details of vocalization differ between the various extant manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.

Jewish tradition teaches that יְהֹוָה has the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי (Adonai), but the vowel points of these two words are not precisely the same, and scholars are not in total agreement as to why יְהֹוָה does not have the precise same vowel points as Adonai has.

Early English translators, unacquainted with Jewish tradition, read this word as they would any other word, and transcribed (in very few places, namely those where the Name itself was referred to) Jehovah.

"Iehouah" in 1530 A.D. English.

"Iehovah" in 1611 A.D. English.

"Jehovah" in 1671 A.D. English.

"Yehowah" used by some using another transcription of the consonants of the Tetragrammaton (See Yahweh).

Some have proposed Yahweh as possible original pronunciation. There are also other proposals.

Jehovah is the most commonly spoken English pronunciation^[1] of the Tetragrammaton.

Outside of the English-speaking world, the use of the name Jehovah is mostly associated with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their official opinion (as expressed in the Watchtower pages [2], [3]):

The truth is, nobody knows for sure how the name of God was originally pronounced. Nevertheless, many prefer the pronunciation Jehovah. Why? Because it has a currency and familiarity that Yahweh does not have.

Would it not, though, be better to use the form that might be closer to the original pronunciation? Not really, for that is not the custom with Bible names.

To take the most prominent example, consider the name of Jesus. Do you know how Jesus' family and friends addressed him [...]? The truth is, no human knows for certain, although it may have been something like Yeshua (or perhaps Yehoshua). It certainly was not Jesus.

[edit] Modern usage of the rendering Jehovah in printed publications

The following works, either always or sometimes render the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah:

• The King James (Authorized) Version, 1611: four times as the personal name of God (in all capital letters): Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; Isaiah 26:4; and three times in place names: Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; and Judges 6:24.
• Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible by J.N. Young, 1862, 1898 renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6831 times.
• A literal translation of the Old Testament (1890) and the New Testament (1884), by John Nelson Darby, renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6810 times in the main text.
• The American Standard Version, 1901 edition, consistently renders the Tetragrammaton as Je-ho’vah in all 6,823 places where it occurs in the Old Testament.
• The Modern Reader's Bible, 1914, by Richard Moulton, uses Jehovah at Ps.83:18; Ex.6:2-9; Ex.22:14; Ps.68:4; Jerm.16:20; Isa.12:2 & Isa. 26:4
• The New English Bible, published by Oxford University Press, 1970, e.g. Gen 22:14; Exodus 3:15,16; 6:3; 17:15; Judges 6:24
• The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible copyright © 1976-2000 by Jay P. Green, Sr., renders the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah 6866 times.
• The Living Bible, published by Tyndale House Publishers, Illinois 1971, e.g. Gen 22:14, Exodus 4:1-27; 17:15; Lev 19:1-36; Deut 4: 29, 39; 5:5, 6; Judges 6:16, 24; Ps 83:18; 110:1; Isaiah 45:1, 18; Amos 5:8; 6:8; 9:6
• The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., Brooklyn, NY 1961 and last revised in 1984. Renders the Tetragrammaton about 7,200 times.

Some religious groups, notably Jehovah's Witnesses and the King-James-Only Movement, continue using the pronunciation Jehovah, either because the name has become a distinguishing feature of a worldwide organization which cannot be changed, or because it has become well established in usage among followers, while the correct pronunciation of יהוה is unknown. Some groups maintain that the proposed Yahweh is incorrect and invalid and that Jehovah alone is the correct pronunciation.

[edit] History

Under the heading "יהוה c. 6823", the editors of the the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon write that יְהֹוָה occurs 6518 times in the Masoretic Text.

[edit] Early transcriptions of יהוה similar to "Jehovah"

• Ιεωα: (Ieōa, /ˈj:oʊɐ/) in Hellenistic magical texts #

'#' marks forms listed by Sir Godfrey Driver.

[edit] Early transcriptions of יְהֹוָה similar to "Jehovah"

Transcriptions of יְהֹוָה similar to
"Jehovah" occurred as early as the
13th century.

• 1278: Jehova/Yohoua: in the work Pugio fidei by the Spanish monk Raymond Martin (Raymundus Martini).^[2]
• 1303: Yohouah: in the book entitled:Porchetus' Victory Against the Ungodly Hebrews.by Porchetus de Salvaticis.^[3].[4]
• 1518:Iehoua:in De Arcanis
  Catholicæ Veritatis,1518, folio
  xliii by Pope Leo X's confessor
  Peter Galatin (Galatinus)
• 1530:Iehouah:Tyndale's Pentateuch
• 1611:Iehovah:King James Bible of 1611
• 1671:Jehovah:1671 [OT] / 1669 [NT] edition of the King James Bible

The editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon write that the pronunciation "Jehovah" was unknown until 1520 when it was introduced by Galatinus; but it was contested by Le Mercier, J. Drusius, and L. Capellus, as against grammatical and historical propriety.

Note that the English transcription "Jehovah" appears in King James Versions as early as the 1670's and in subsequent versions. The critique of the English transcription Jehovah, as well as the critique of Galatinus's Latin Transcription "Iehoua", and the earlier English transcriptions "Iehouah" and "Iehovah", is based on the belief of scholars, that the vowel points of יְהֹוָה are not the actual vowel points of God's name. Thus while most scholarly sources say that scholars are critiquing the name "Jehovah", Galatinus's Latin Transcription "Iehoua" and the earlier English transcriptions "Iehouah" [1530 A.D.] and "Iehovah" [1611 A.D.] were being critiqued, before the English transcription "Jehovah" [1671] ever started to appear. From a pronunciation standpoint in English, 'Iehouah' has the same pronunciation and sounds idential to 'Jehovah.'

All three transcriptions have the vowels "e" and "o" and "a", and scholars believe that those vowels are from another word [i.e. Adonay / Adonai], but as noted in the introduction of this article, the vowel points of יְהֹוָה and the vowel points of "Adonay / Adonai" are not precisely the same. [See Section 3 and Section 3.1 for more information]

[edit] Kethib and Qere and Qere perpetuum

The original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was provided with vowel marks by the Masoretes to assist reading. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the Qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the Kethib), they wrote the Qere in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowels of the Qere were written on the Kethib. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted: this is called Q're perpetuum.

One of these frequent cases was God's name, that should not be pronounced, but read as "adonai" ("My Lord [plural of majesty]"), or, if the previous or next word already was "adonai", or "adoni" ("My Lord"), as "elohim" ("God"). This combination produces יְהֹוָה and יֱהֹוִה respectively, non-words that would spell "yehovah" and "yehovih" respectively.

The first early modern English Bible translators to transcribe God's name into English did not contact Jewish scholars, and did not know of the Q're perpetuum custom, but transcribed "יְהֹוָה" into English as they saw it. It therefore became Iehouah in 1530 (Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch), Iehovah in 1611, and Jehovah in editions of the KJ's dated 1670 or so; the spelling gradually settling down as Roman alphabet J and V became distinct letters from I and U. The transcription Iehouah was used in the 16th century by many authors Roman Catholic and Protestant, but not Coverdale's Bible translation in 1535. ^[4]

[edit] Examining the vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי

In the table below, Yehovah and Adonay are dissected

Note in the table directly above that the "simple shewa" in Yehovah and the "hatef patah" in Adonay are not the same points. The same information is displayed in the table above and to the right where "YHWH intended to be pronounced as Adonai" and "Adonai, with its slightly different vowel points" are shown to have different vowel points.

The difference between the vowel points of ’ǎdônây and YHWH is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. Shva and hataf-patah were allophones of the same phoneme used in different situations: hataf-patah on glottal consonants including aleph (such as the first letter in "Adonai"), and simple shva on other consonants (such as the 'y' in YHWH).

[edit] Critique of the transcription Jehovah in the 17th century

The transcription Jehovah [a.k.a. Iehouah] was used in the 16th century by many authors, both Catholic and Protestant. A publication by John Drusius at the beginning of the 17th century [e.g. 1604] was the start of a bitter debate that lasted for a century. Fuller, Thomas Gataker, and Johann Leusden wrote five discourses defending the transcription "Jehovah" [or Iehouah, Iehovah] against the five discources written by Drusius, Amama, Cappellus, Buxtorf, and Altingius which opposed the transcription Jehovah.
Hadrian Reland collected and published these ten discourses in 1707. [5]

Note that while Louis Cappel and John Buxtorf are both listed as authors who opposed the transcription Jehovah, they each were involved in serious controversy with each other concerning the origin of the Hebrew vowel points.

[edit] Summary of the criticism of the transcription Jehovah

The following text is found in William Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible". William Smith gives his summary of the results of the ten discourses mentioned in the previous section:

• In the decade of dissertations collected by Reland, Fuller, Gataker, and Leusden do battle for the pronunciation Jehovah, against such formidable antagonists as Drusius, Amama, Cappellus, Buxtorf, and Altingius, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, fairly beat their opponents out of the field; the only argument of any weight, which is employed by the advocates of the pronunciation of the word as it is written being that derived from the form in which it appears in proper names, such as Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, &c.
• Their antagonists make a strong point of the fact that, as has been noticed above, two different sets of vowel points are applied to the same consonants under certain circumstances. To this Leusden, of all the champions on his side, but feebly replies.

• The same may be said of the argument derived from the fact that the letters מוכלב, when prefixed to יהוה, take, not the vowels which they would regularly receive were the present pronunciation true, but those with which they would be written if אֲדֹנָי, adonai, were the reading; and that the letters ordinarily taking dagesh lene when following יהוה would, according to the rules of the Hebrew points, be written without dagesh, whereas it is uniformly inserted.

William Smith concludes:

• Whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah.

[edit] In defense of the transcription Jehovah

As mentioned in the previous section, the defenders of the transcription Jehovah believed that theophoric names such as Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, etc, indicated that Jehovah was the actual name of God.

The following text is found in the first sentence of the article:JEHOVAH in William Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible":

"JEHOVAH ( יְהֹוָה, usually with the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי ; but when the two occur together, the former is pointed יֱהֹוִה, that is with the vowels of אֱלֹהִים, as in Obad. i. 1, Hab. iii. 19:"

The two vocalizations of the Tetragrammaton shown above, were both critiqued by John Drusius in 1604 A.D., however as noted below, Davidson defends the vowel points of יְהֹוָה. [See also sub section 3.1 above.]

In Scott Jones Article:Jehovah under the heading "Davidson on the Tetragrammaton", Davidson explains why he believes that the fact that the Masoretes did not point יְהֹוָה with the precise same vowel points as are found in Adonay indicated that the vowel points of יְהֹוָה are the actual vowel points of God's name.

• The vocalized Hebrew spelling "Yahweh" is found in no extant Hebrew text.
• The central "ou" or "o" in some Greek transcriptions point to a pronunciation with a "u" or "o" vowel in the middle, i.e. "Yehowa".

However Greek, since it stopped using the digamma, when transcribing foreign words and names has had to write the "w" consonant sound as a vowel "u" or similar (or in later times as β, after the Greek pronunciation of β changed from "b" to "v").

For arguments for the pronunciation "Yahweh", see Yahweh. __________________________________________________________________________________________

The Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures: Heb., הוהי (YHWH) (quoted from NWT, app 1A)

“Jehovah” (Heb., הוהי, YHWH), God’s personal name, first occurs in Ge 2:4. The divine name is a verb, the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb הוה (ha·wah′, “to become”). Therefore, the divine name means “He Causes to Become.” This reveals Jehovah as the One who, with progressive action, causes himself to become the Fulfiller of promises, the One who always brings his purposes to realization. See Ge 2:4 ftn, “Jehovah”; Compare Ex 3:14 ftn.

The greatest indignity that modern translators render to the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures is the removal or the concealing of his peculiar personal name. Actually his name occurs in the Hebrew text 6,828 times as הוהי (YHWH or JHVH), generally referred to as the Tetragrammaton (literally meaning “having four letters”). By using the name “Jehovah,” we have held closely to the original-language texts and have not followed the practice of substituting titles such as “Lord,” “the Lord,” “Adonai” or “God” for the divine name, the Tetragrammaton.

Today, apart from a few fragments of the early Greek Septuagint where the sacred name is preserved in Hebrew, only the Hebrew text has retained this most important name in its original form of four letters, הוהי (YHWH), the exact pronunciation of which has not been preserved. Current circulating texts of the Greek Septuagint (LXX), Syriac Peshitta (Sy) and Latin Vulgate (Vg) substitute the mere title “Lord” for God’s unique name.

The text located in the U.S.S.R., namely, the Codex Leningrad B 19A, used for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), vowel-points the Tetragrammaton to read Yehwah′, Yehwih′ and a number of times Yeho·wah′, as in Ge 3:14. The edition of the Hebrew text by Ginsburg (Gins.) vowel-points YHWH to read Yeho·wah′. While many translators favor the pronunciation “Yahweh,” the New World Translation continues to use the form “Jehovah” because of people’s familiarity with it for centuries. Moreover, it preserves, equally with other forms, the four letters of the divine name, YHWH or JHVH.—See ad under “Jehovah.”

The practice of substituting titles for the divine name that developed among the Jews was applied in later copies of the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and many other translations, ancient and modern. Therefore, A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott (LS), p. 1013, states: “ὁ Κύριος,=Hebr. Yahweh, LXX Ge. 11.5, al.” Also, the Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, by E. A. Sophocles, Cambridge, U.S.A., and Leipzig, 1914, p. 699, says under κύριος (Ky′ri·os): “Lord, the representative of הוהי. Sept. passim [scattered throughout].” Moreover, Dictionnaire de la Bible, by F. Vigouroux, Paris, 1926, col. 223, says that “the Septuagint and the Vulgate contain Κύριος and Dominus, ‘Lord,’ where the original contains Jehovah.” Regarding the divine name, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, edited by J. Payne Smith, Oxford, 1979 reprint, p. 298, says that Mar·ya’ “in the [Syriac] Peshita Version of the O. T. represents the Tetragrammaton.”

Jehovah’s name was first restored to the English Bible by William Tyndale. In 1530 he published a translation of the first five books of the Bible into English. He included Jehovah’s name once, in Ex 6:3. In a note in this edition Tyndale wrote: “Iehovah is God’s name . . . Moreover, as oft as thou seist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) it is in Hebrew Iehovah.” From this the practice arose among translators to use Jehovah’s name in just a few places, but to write “LORD” or “GOD” in most places where the Tetragrammaton occurs in Hebrew. This practice was adopted by the translators of the King James Version in 1611, where Jehovah’s name occurs only four times, namely, in Ex 6:3; Ps 83:18; Isa 12:2; 26:4.

Further, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Vol. 1, Chicago (1980), p. 13, says: “To avoid the risk of taking God’s name (YHWH) in vain, devout Jews began to substitute the word ’adōnā(y) for the proper name itself. Although the Masoretes left the four original consonants in the text, they added the vowels ē (in place of a for other reasons) and ā to remind the reader to pronounce ’adōnā(y) regardless of the consonants. This feature occurs more than six thousand times in the Hebrew Bible. Most translations use all capital letters to make the title ‘LORD.’ Exceptions are the ASV [American Standard Version] and New World Translation which use ‘Jehovah,’ Amplified [Bible] which uses ‘Lord,’ and JB [The Jerusalem Bible] which uses ‘Yahweh.’ . . . In those places where ’adōnā(y) yhwh occurs the latter word is pointed with the vowels from ’ēlōhim, and the English renderings such as ‘Lord GOD’ arose (e.g. Amos 7:1).”

DIVINE NAME IN THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES (NW)

The very frequency of the appearance of the name attests its importance to the writers of the Hebrew Scrptures. The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,828 times in the Hebrew text (BHK and BHS). This is confirmed by the Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament, Vol. I, edited by E. Jenni and C. Westermann, 3rd ed., Munich and Zurich, 1978, cols. 703, 704. The New World Translation renders the Tetragrammaton as “Jehovah” in all occurrences except Jg 19:18, where see ftn.

Based on the readings in LXX, we have restored the Tetragrammaton in three places and rendered it as “Jehovah,” namely, in De 30:16; 2Sa 15:20 and 2Ch 3:1, where the footnotes in BHK give הוהי.

According to BHK and BHS footnotes, in Isa 34:16 and Zec 6:8 the divine name should be read instead of the first-person singular pronoun “my.” We restored the divine name in these two places and rendered it as “Jehovah.”

The name “Jehovah” occurs 6,973 times in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures of the New World Translation, including three combination names (Ge 22:14; Ex 17:15; Jg 6:24) and six occurrences in the superscriptions of the Psalms (7; 18 [3 times]; 36; 102). These nine occurrences are included in the 6,828 times in BHK and BHS.

THE SHORTER FORM OF THE DIVINE NAME: JAH

The shorter form of the divine name occurs 50 times in the Masoretic text as Yah, rendered “Jah.” Following is a list of its occurrences: Ex 15:2; 17:16; Ps 68:4, 18; 77:11; 89:8; 94:7, 12; 102:18; 104:35; 105:45; 106:1, 48; 111:1; 112:1; 113:1, 9; 115:17, 18, 18; 116:19; 117:2; 118:5, 5, 14, 17, 18, 19; 122:4; 130:3; 135:1, 3, 4, 21; 146:1, 10; 147:1, 20; 148:1, 14; 149:1, 9; 150:1, 6, 6; Ca 8:6; Isa 12:2; 26:4; 38:11, 11. __________________________________________________________________________________________

[edit] Resulting consensus

Reland agreed with the opponents of "Jehovah", and since his days the majority opinion has been roughly what is expressed in the article JEHOVAH of the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906 [16], that the pronunciation was "Yahweh". See also:

• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Jehovah
• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Tetragrammaton

[edit] More recent opinions

The "JEHOVAH" article in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906 agrees with (1) [17]. Most modern scholars agree with it.

The editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament write "יַהְוֶה" under the heading "יהוה", and describes "יַהְוֶה" as:

"n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel."

[edit] Use of "Jehovah" in English

• 1395: The Wycliffe Bible translation followed Jewish tradition and wrote 'Adonai', e.g. in Ex. 6:3. However, note that Wycliffe translated from Latin - namely the Latin manuscript(s) he had available to him; they do NOT contain the Tetragrammaton or any other Hebrew letters.
• 1530: "Iehouah" appeared in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (at Exodus 6.3 for instance) upwards of 20 times. This custom continued with Miles Coverdale's translation in 1535, John Rogers Matthew Bible in 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, Bishop's Bible of 1568, the King James of 1611, the Revised Version of 1885 and the American Standard Version in 1901. The Revised Standard Version (1952) was the first mainline English translation to not use Jehovah in the main text. Nor does it tranliterate 'alleluia' [sometimes 'Hallelujah'] in any of the four occurrences found in many English translations [in the 19th chapter of Revelation].
• 1611: יְהֹוָה is translated "IEHOVAH" ("JEHOVAH" from at least the 17th century on) in all uppercase in four places in the King James Bible of 1611 A.D.(Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2, Isaiah 26:4), and three times in placenames (e.g. Jehovah-jireh). Elsewhere in the King James Bible it is rendered as GOD or LORD. ^[7]
• The Looney Tunes animated character Yosemite Sam repeatedly uses the catch phrase "Jumpin' Je-hosiphats!", which is a reference to excentric followers of Jehovah.

[edit] References

de:Jehovah el:Τετραγράμματο#Η μορφή Ιεχωβά fr:Jehovah ia:Jehovah hz:Jehova