Tetragrammaton: Encyclopedia II - Tetragrammaton - Meaning

Tetragrammaton - Meaning

According to one Jewish tradition, the Tetragrammaton is related to the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb הוה (ha·wah, "to be, to become"), meaning "He will cause to become" (usually understood as "He causes to become"). Compare the many Hebrew and Arabic personal names which are 3rd person singular imperfective verb forms starting with "y", e.g. Hebrew Yôsêph = Arabic Yazîd = "He [who] adds"; Hebrew Yiḥyeh = Arabic Yahyâ = "He [who] lives".

Another tradition regards the name as coming from three different verb forms sharing the same root YWH, the words HYH haya [היה]: "He was"; HWH howê [הוה]: "He is"; and YHYH yihiyê [יהיה]: "He will be". This is supposed to show that God is timeless. Other interpretations include the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." This can be seen in the traditional Jewish account of the "burning bush" commanding Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM [אהיה] has sent you." (Exodus 3:13-14) Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM" [אהיה אשר אהיה]. This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists" or "He who causes to exist".

This meaning has caused an English colloquial expression saying that this or that person is "the Big I Am round here".

The name YHWH was not always applied to a monotheistic God: see Asherah and other gods, Elohim (gods) and Yaw (god).

Tetragrammaton - Using consonants as semi-vowels

In Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written and the rest are written only ambiguously, as the vowel letters double as consonants (similar to the Latin use of V to indicate both U and V). See Matres lectionis for details. For similar reasons, an appearance of the Tetragrammaton in ancient Egyptian records of the 13th century BC sheds no light on the original pronunciation. ². Therefore it is, in general, difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling only, and the Tetragrammaton is a particularly bad example: two of its letters can serve as vowels, and two are vocalic place-holders, which are not pronounced. Not surprisingly then, Josephus in Jewish Wars, chapter V, wrote, "…in which was engraven the sacred name: it consists of four vowels". In Greek, they are Ιαου, which comes out to Yau, since iota is used to represent semi-vocalic 'y' (and omicron+ypsilon="oo").

Further, Josephus's four vowels are confirmed by theophoric stems in personal names, always: Yaho/Yahu/Y:ho/Y:hu.[1] These yield in English Yau and Yao, which are pronounced the same. Once again, the heh is not pronounced here in Hebrew, but is used instead as a place holder. Moreover, Gnostic texts, such as those Marcion wrote, discuss the Judaic god extensively, and spell the Tetragrammaton in Greek, Ιαω, that is "Yao." Lastly, Levantine texts (including those from ancient Ugarit) render the Tetragrammaton Yaw, pronounced "Yau."[2]

Tetragrammaton - Using the vowels of YHWH

Josephus wrote that the sacred name consisted of four vowels. Many sacred name ministries who believe that YHWH consists of four vowels pronounce these four vowels as "ee-ah-oo-eh" and believe that indicates God's name was either "Yahweh" or "Yahuweh". In what may be a coincidence, the Greek name "ιαουε" would have been pronounced "Yah-oo-eh". (Iota is used as both a vowel and a semi-vowel.)

Tetragrammaton - Vowel marks

To make the reading of Hebrew easier, marks or points above and below the letters were added to the text by the Masoretes, to function as vowels. See Niqqud for details. Several manuscripts from the 7th century and on contain vowel marks over the Tetragrammaton. Unfortunately, these do not shed much light on the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton itself. For example the Leningrad codex contains no fewer than six different variations on the vowel marks of the Tetragrammaton.

An added problem comes from the fact that the diacritical vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton may have served a purpose different than indicating the pronunciation. When the term is read out loud by Jews, the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the word Adonai ("my Lord(s)"), Elohim ("God(s)"), Hashem ("the name"), or Elokim (no meaning), depending on circumstances (see Jewish use of the word below). Since someone reading the text aloud might inadvertently pronounce the name, the diacritical vowels of Adonai or Elohim are normally printed with the consonant letters of the Tetragrammaton, to remind the reader to make the change, so the text contains the letters YHWH interlaced with the vowel marks of Adonai/Elohim (a masoretic device known as Q're perpetuum which was also applied in a number of other cases, such as giving the spelling הוא in the Pentateuch an "i" vowel diacritic to indicate that sometimes it should be pronounced as a feminine pronoun hi, rather than a masculine pronoun hu). This is the case in modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, and also explains a number of medieval codices. In other words, these marks do not and were never intended to explain how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.

In particular, there is a possible explanation of the vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton in the Ben Chayim codex of 1525 (see its importance below). It is worth noting that the aleph in Adonai has a hataf-patah (pronounced "ah" in Modern Hebrew) under it while the yod in the Tetragrammaton has a sheva (pronounced as a very short "eh" in Modern Hebrew). This can be explained by rules of Hebrew grammar, which forbid a sheva under an aleph, although this explanation is not entirely satisfactory.

The first English transcription of the Tetragrammaton appeared on the title page of William Tyndale's translation of 1525 as "IEHOUAH." Thus began a period where the word was rendered like "Jehovah," which to modern Jehovah's Witnesses is the only sacred name of god and, they believe, was even used in the Greek of the New Testament. The Jerusalem Bible (1966) uses Yahweh exclusively.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Meaning", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki