By Popular Demand, Part Duex

Finishing up Dave's question "What does YAHWEH mean and how is that different than Elohim?" There are a number of sites that can be found such as http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/namesgod.htm, http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/YHVH/yhvh.html, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=N, http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.cfm#link14. These provide good information to get started. I know I really should get to a library and look up this stuff in actually reference books. The Internet can’t necessarily be trusted, blah, blah, blah… But the truth is I’m a child of technology. I don’t trust everything out there on the ‘net but there are a lot of great resources in cyberspace. At least that’s what I was thinking I would do. Then I procrastinated so long I figured I might as well go to the Indy Central Library and check it out. So I did. Anyway, back to God and the different names. What does YAHWAH mean? The simple answer is, well, there is no simple answer here. YAHWEH is not found in the Bible, at least not with the vowels. In Hebrew it was written YHWH. According to Herbert Lockyer in his book ‘All the Divine Names and Titles in the Bible’ published by Zondervan in 1975, it is sometimes called the Tetragrammaton (meaning four-lettered name) or simply “The Name”. There are a number of other expressions used to refer to YHWH, as the reverence for this name of God was so high, it was feared to write it, let alone pronounce it. In ‘The Names of God’ by Ken Hemphill, published in 2001 by Broadman & Holman, Hemphill states that the Jewish scholars known as Masoretes took the vowels from Adonai and put them together with YHWH to create Jehovah. YHWH translates as JHWH in German, which is where the prefix J comes from. Lockyer mentions that most scholars agree that although Jehovah is probably not a correct rendering for The Name, it is so widely seen and has become familiar enough that it would not do to substitute something strange instead. YHWH, or Jehovah, is God’s proper name, occurring a whooping 6,823 times in the Old Testament. Hemphill points out that most English translations will use the word LORD in all capitals when translating YHWH. When God tells Moses “I AM WHO I AM.” in Exodus 3:14 (NIV), God is using His proper name so to speak. God is also giving the meaning of YHWH there in Exodus. It comes from the Hebrew verb “to be”. Hemphill says “Therefore, it [YHWH] is tied to the idea of life itself. “To be” is “to live”. “To be” at its very essence is to have life. Thus the name implies that God is absolutely self existent. He is the One who in Himself possesses life and permanent existence.” (Hemphill, 20) So what does Elhoim mean? In contrast to YWHW which is translated as LORD in all uppercase letters, where one sees the word Lord, in upper and lower case letters that is being translated from Elohim. From ‘The Names of God’ by Andrew Jukes, published 1967 by Kregal Publications, it was pointed out that Elohim is inherently plural, referring to God’s triune nature. As God speaks in the first few chapters of Genesis, this makes sense, if only builds on the mystery of who God is. Examples include Genesis 1:26a “Let us make man in our own image”, Gen 3:22 “the man is become like one of us”, and Gen 6:7 “Go to, let us go down and confound their language.” According to Nathan Stone, author of ‘Names of God’ published by Moody Bible Institute in 1944, Elohim expresses “the general idea of greatness and glory.” The word Elohim derives from the Hebrew “to declare” or “to swear”. Thus the idea of God’s convent relationship with mankind is established in His name. Seriously how cool is all that? I would not take my word for it. Pick up any of these books and check out the vast beauty that is found in the names of God. Hope that answers your question Dave.