Could someone explain "Yahweh"?

[Momo-P]

I know this is gonna sound strange, but I never really understood the whole thing with the Lord's name (Yahweh or Jehovah or isn't that just the same name?). Is it actually His real name or is it just another way of saying Lord in Hebrew? I mean, I believe I heard it's just another way of saying creator, and in that case it really is just another way of saying Lord, but...eh. Just wanna ask.

The idea of God with a name...just seems odd. ^^; I can accept Jesus because He was aiming to be human, but when He's not human? What's the point of having a name like the ones down here? He's not apart of this world, so it feels wrong for Him to have a personal name like people do...

Course now I feel bad for saying that if that really is His true name. x__x;

[Cap'n Nick]

Yahweh is God's name, but it's not a regular name. The word probably comes from the episode with Moses recorded in Exodus 3:14. Moses asks God his name, and God says, "I am who I am." "I am" in Hebrew is "e-hyeh". The third person form ("he is") is "ye-hyeh". Yahweh is another form of this word and the most likely source of its origin. So, God gave people something to call him by, but in doing so he also made it clear that he was beyond naming. Pretty clever, eh?

So, what about "Jehovah?" Well, the Jews, back in the day, wanted to avoid taking God's name in vain, and they decided that the best way to do this was to never use God's name at all. Whenever the word came up in the texts, the readers would say "Adonai" (Lord) instead of "Yahweh" to avoid using God's name. When vowels were added to the text (originally Hebrew did not use written vowels), the copyists used the vowels from the word "Adonai" to reflect this tradition. Later on, some people read the consonants from Yahweh with the vowels from Adonai, giving us "Jehovah."

Personally, I don't see a reason to refrain from using God's name more often. Praying to God or even discussing and learning about God don't seem like vain purposes at all. It's oaths, selfish prayers, and other things of that nature that I would want to avoid.

[Felix]

Wow, this is very fascinating. Thanks to Cap'n Nick for such an informative answer. I never knew all of that until now. Though I think Yahweh is probably the closest we could get to having a "name" for God, He also must have hundreds, possibly thousands of other names. I think God's real, true name is far too powerful and beyond us for us to hear or understand as mortals.

[mitsuki lover]

Another quirk of the Jewish scribes and copyists is that they would always put down the pen they were using whenever they came to the name of God.

[Kaligraphic]

Interestingly enough, the name Yahweh can be taken as an approximation of the sound of breathing - breathe in (yah), breathe out (weh). I find this especially interesting, given that spirit and breath/wind are the same words in Hebrew and Greek.

[Momo-P]

Yahweh is God's name, but it's not a regular name. The word probably comes from the episode with Moses recorded in Exodus 3:14. Moses asks God his name, and God says, "I am who I am." "I am" in Hebrew is "e-hyeh". The third person form ("he is") is "ye-hyeh". Yahweh is another form of this word and the most likely source of its origin. So, God gave people something to call him by, but in doing so he also made it clear that he was beyond naming. Pretty clever, eh?

Oh wow, so I was kind of right. XD I know sometimes in the past I even tried to figure out that whole "I am that I am" thing and all I could come up with was "So what? God doesn't have a name?" guess younger me was smarter than I give her credit for. XD

But anyways, thank you SO much for clearing this up! ^^

[GhostontheNet]

In brief, Yahweh is one estimated pronunciation of God's Name in Hebrew from the letters YHWH. Hebrew is a language in which vowels are not written, but rather implied from the context of the consonants, which is one reason Jews from at least sometime in the 2nd Temple era (353 B.C.-70 A.D.) refrained from pronouncing (or mispronouncing) the Name, preferring instead to use "Adonai" in spoken language. The meaning of YHWH is basically The EVER-LIVING. Similarly, the origin of the name Jehovah is that in Hebrew, there is some ambiguity between the phenomes y and j, and w and v, leading some to speculate that the Name is JHVH, thought to be pronounced Jehovah.

[Gabriel 9.0]

Its God's name in ancient Hebrew.

[Tyrel]

Yeah, YaWeH, is the Hebrew way of saying God's Name. It means something like "Eternal Is" or "Who Is" and comes from "I am that I am" which he spoke in the Torah to Moses. It is a name of God, if you will. Like the most sacred title he applies to himself with Moses, and which later Hebrew Writers began to call him in reverence and recognition of his Eternal Person.

Jehovah, is sort of a Christianized really poor transliteration of YaWeH, which comes from something like the Seventh Century {I think, don't take my word on it, I have the book in front of me, but I don't really want to look it up}.

Jehovah, is kind of like another Christianized term for yet another sacred Jewish Term. Just as Pentateuch, first given by Origen {to my memory}, is now the Christian word for what is recognized as "Torah".

YaWeH, just to give you a heads up, is a very Holy Word, and in Judaism, Holiness coming in touch with you makes you unclean, because you are unclean. When they debated or talked about what books were supposed to be treated as truly Sacred they would ask "what Scriptures make the hands unclean?". This doesn't seem to make sense to us, because we know about Germs and what not, but this was the ancient Jewish understanding and reverence. Thus, it is offensive to lightly toss around even Elohim, Hashem, or Mar, let alone actually saying YaWeH. If you say such a holy Word lightly, it equates to saying God's name in vain, and in addition, without proper reverence, because you do not even consider yourself unclean {and thus you insinuate the term isn't Holy}.

So, don't go around saying it in front of sensitive Jews, because that's insensitive.


EDIT;

In brief, Yahweh is one estimated pronunciation of God's Name in Hebrew from the letters YHWH. Hebrew is a language in which vowels are not written, but rather implied from the context of the consonants, which is one reason Jews from at least sometime in the 2nd Temple era (353 B.C.-70 A.D.) refrained from pronouncing (or mispronouncing) the Name, preferring instead to use "Adonai" in spoken language. The meaning of YHWH is basically The EVER-LIVING. Similarly, the origin of the name Jehovah is that in Hebrew, there is some ambiguity between the phenomes y and j, and w and v, leading some to speculate that the Name is JHVH, thought to be pronounced Jehovah.

Yeah, and I would add that Adonai was an originally Greek word, or from those roots, and was incorporated into daily speech during this time of Hellenization. Also, other terms such as Mar, where more freely used, such as, for example by the people at Qmran.