The Sacred Name YHVH
Part 2
Pronouncing a Word
You Can ONLY Learn to Pronounce a
Word Correctly by Hearing it Spoken
NOT by Reading it!
Generally speaking, Most Children
Learn How to Pronounce Words in
Their Own Language
By hearing those words
pronounced long before they can
read those words.
Let me Give You an Example of a
Word in English:
pneumonoultramicroscop
icsilicovolcanoconiosis
Yes, this is REALLY an English word!
According to the Oxford English
Dictionary
This is "a word invented in imitation of
polysyllabic medical terms, alleged to
mean ‘a lung disease caused by the
inhalation of very fine sand and ash
dust (mostly volcanic silica ash dust)’
but occurring only as an instance of a
very long word.”
Here You DO Have Vowels to Help
You Pronounce the Word!
And most North American
English-speaking people will
STILL have difficulty
pronouncing it!
This is NOT True of the Biblical
Hebrew words!
They do NOT have Vowels!
The Biblical Hebrew Language
The Hebrew Bible was originally
written only in Consonant’s.
Until The Massoretes
During the early part of the
tenth century (895-1000 A.D.)
there was a group of Jews called
the Massoretes.
The Massoretes were a group of
Scribes/Scholars
headquartered
mostly in Tiberius and Jerusalem,
who devised a system of
pronunciation and grammatical
guides to preserve the proper
pronunciations of God’s Word.
These Jewish scribes as all
scribes were meticulous in their
copying of the text. The texts
they had were all in capital
letters, and there was no
punctuation or paragraphs.
The Masoretic text
The Masoretic text has a system of dots and
dashes called “pointing” (nikudot - these are
vowel pronunciations) which had been
added to the consonants in order to aid in
the words pronunciation.
The Masoretic text is the standard text used
today for all Bible translations. Without
these aids we would have no idea how to
pronounce certain words.
Nikudot – Vowel Points
Without Vowels…
Even in our own language it would
be difficult to figure out what the
word exactly is or how to
accurately pronounce it.
For example when we take away the
vowels in our English language we may
not know how to pronounce a word for example:
Love- lv, weather-wthr, redemption
would look like rdmptn, or Rsrrctn
(resurrection).
How Much Less in a Language that
is NOT Our Native Language:
Hebrew
Even with the aids there is no
absolute assurance of certain words
spoken correctly the way the
originally were, case in point God's
name represented without the vowels
YHWH.
Still, You Need to Know How it
Sounds! You cannot Just Read it!
So, Let’s take the Original Hebrew
without the Nikudot and see if we can
pronounce this sentence in Leviticus
19:18 :
The Tetragrammaton – 4 Letters
In the Hebrew Bible God's personal
name is the most often used noun.
It occurs 6,823 times.
In Hebrew texts it is spelled only
with consonants: Y-H-V-H, and it is
called the "Four-Letter" name or
Tetragrammaton in Greek.
Strong’s Exhaustive #3068
Lord – YHVH
From hayah; (the) self-Existent or Eternal One.
Used OVER 6000 Times in the
Older Testament
ALSO Need to Use Your Interlinear
with your Strongs!
Looking up the Name “Lord”
does NOT always help you
identify the YHVH passages!
The Word “Adonai” (Lord) is
ALSO used!
God Revealed The Name
YHVH to Moshe in Exodus 3:14
‫ ֶא ְהיֶה אֲ שֶ ר‬,‫מֹּשֶ ה‬-‫ֹלהים ֶאל‬
ִ ֱ‫וַי ֹּאמֶ ר א‬
‫ כֹּה ת ֹּאמַ ר לִבְ נֵי‬,‫ֶא ְהיֶה; וַי ֹּאמֶ ר‬
.‫ ְשלָחַ נִי אֲ לֵיכֶם‬,‫ ֶא ְהיֶה‬,‫י ְִש ָר ֵאל‬
14
And God said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM';
and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children
of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.'
Exodus 3:15
‫ת ֹּאמַ ר‬-‫ כֹּה‬,‫מֹּשֶ ה‬-‫ֹלהים ֶאל‬
ִ ֱ‫וַי ֹּאמֶ ר עֹוד א‬
‫ יְהוָה אֱ ֹלהֵ י אֲ ב ֵֹּתיכֶם אֱ ֹלהֵ י‬,‫בְ נֵי י ְִש ָר ֵאל‬-‫ֶאל‬
‫ ְשלָחַ נִי‬,‫ַאבְ ָרהָ ם אֱ ֹלהֵ י יִצְ חָ ק וֵאֹלהֵ י ַי ֲעקֹּב‬
.‫ וְ זֶה זִ כְ ִרי ְלדֹּר דֹּר‬,‫ ְש ִמי ְל ֹּעלָם‬-‫אֲ ֵליכֶם; זֶה‬
15
And God said moreover unto Moses: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel:
The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial
unto all generations.
Now, According to God in Exodus 6
2
God spoke to Moshe; he said to him, "I am
ADONAI. 3 I appeared to Avraham, Yitz'chak and
Ya'akov as El Shaddai, although I did not make
myself known to them by my name, Yud-Heh-VavHeh [ADONAI]. 4 Also with them I established my
covenant to give them the land of Kena'an, the
land where they wandered about and lived as
foreigners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning
of the people of Isra'el, whom the Egyptians are
keeping in slavery; and I have remembered my
covenant.
However the YHVH is Written in
Scripture Even BEFORE God Revealed
it to Moshe in Exodus 3:15!
Genesis 2:5 No shrub of the field was yet in
the earth, and no herb of the field had yet
sprung up; for the LORD God (‫ֹלהים‬
ִ ֱ‫)יְהוָה א‬
had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till the ground.
Yet By Outward Appearances it
Would Appear that Abraham
KNEW the Name of the Lord!
,‫עָ שָ ה שָ ם‬-‫ אֲ שֶ ר‬, ַ‫ הַ ִמזְ בֵ ח‬,‫ ְמקֹום‬-‫ֶאל‬
ׁ‫ בְ שֵ ם‬,‫שנָה; ַוי ְִק ָרא שָ ם ַאבְ ָרם‬
ֹּ ‫בָ ִרא‬
.Genesis
‫ יְהוָה‬13:4 …unto the place of the altar, which
he had made there at the first; and Abram called
there on the name of the LORD.
We Have Talked About this in My
D’rash on the Parsha of Exodus 6
AND we shall talk about it later in this
series, but suffice it for now that the p’shat
(plain and simple meaning) of Exodus 6 is
that Avram DID NOT KNOW the Name (or
the character of God as reflected in the
NAME) when he “called upon the Name of
the Lord.”
The NAME - Tetragrammaton
By the time the Massoretes began to
copy these texts – the Jews were
beginning to embrace the belief that
THE NAME (“haShem”) was too sacred
to utter.
So the Massoretes came up with an
ingenious plan: Where YHVH’s Name
was written they would use the vowels
from the word Adonai.
Variations of Pronunciations of
Hebrew YHVH by Simply Changing
Vowel Points (Nikudot)
Use White Board
Bottom Line: You Cannot KNOW
How a Word (any Word – including
the Sacred Name of God) is
Pronounced
If you cannot Hear it
Regarding the True
Pronunciation of the Sacred
Name of God
Historically: Who Last Knew
How it Was Pronounced?
The Last Group of Men Who
Actually Knew the Sacred Name
and How it Was Pronounced –
(AND They had to Hear it)
Were the Cohanim!
The priests – descendants of Aaron the
High Priest, brother of Moshe and
Miriam.
When they Pronounced the Sacred
Name of God over the People
That Occurred Up to the
Destruction of the Temple in 70
CE.
After that, because there was no more
Temple, there was no more Temple
service and evidently the passing on of
the Name from father to son ceased
amongst the cohanim!
Now Even They Don’t Know
I have a number of friends who are
leaders (AND who are cohanim) in
the Messianic Movement and they
tell me that they don’t know the
Name!
Now
Either they are lying to me and
don’t want “the Name” (Hebrew:
“haShem”) brought out to be
possibly be taken in vain by the
Gentiles or they truly DON’T
KNOW!
I Believe that They Honestly Don’t
Know!
But When Yeshua Returns –
Revelation 19 We ALL Will Know
the Name
11
Next I saw heaven opened, and there before
me was a white horse. Sitting on it was the one
called Faithful and True, and it is in
righteousness that he passes judgment and goes
to battle. 12 His eyes were like a fiery flame, and
on his head were many royal crowns. And he
had a name written which no one knew but
himself.