YHWH from the Enclopedia Judiaca

The personal name of the God of Israel is written in the Hebrew Bible with the four consonants YHWH and is referred to as the "Tetragrammaton." At least until the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. this name was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the Lachish Letters, written shortly before that date. But at least by the third century B.C.E. the pronunciation of the name YHWH was avoided, and Adonai, "the Lord," was substituted for it, as evidenced by the use of the Greek word Kyrios, "Lord," for YHWH in the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was begun by Greek-speaking Jews in that century. Where the combined form Adonai YHWH occurs in the Bible, this was read as Adonai Elohim, "Lord God." In the early Middle Ages, when the consonantal text of the Bible was supplied with vowel points to facilitate its correct traditional reading, the vowel points for Adonai with one variation—a sheva with the initial yod of YHWH instead of the hataf-patah under the aleph of Adonai—were used for YHWH, thus producing the form YeHoWaH. When Christian scholars of Europe first began to study Hebrew, they did not understand what this really meant, and they introduced the hybrid name "Jehovah." In order to avoid pronouncing even the sacred name Adonai for YHWH, the custom was later introduced of saying simply in Hebrew ha-Shem (or Aramaic Shema , "the Name") even in such an expression as "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of YHWH" (Ps. 118:26). The avoidance of pronouncing the name YHWH is generally ascribed to a sense of reverence.

More precisely, it was caused by a misunderstanding of the Third Commandment (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) as meaning "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain," whereas it really means "You shall not swear falsely by the name of YHWH your God" (JPS).

The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced "Yahweh." This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the-yahu or-yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names. In the opinion of many scholars, YHWH is a verbal form of the root hwh, which is an older variant of the root hyh "to be." The vowel of the first syllable shows that the verb is used in the form of a future-present causative hiphil, and must therefore mean "He causes to be, He brings into existence." The explanation of the name as given in Exodus 3: 14, Eheyeh-Asher-Eheyeh, "I-Am-Who-I-Am," offers a folk etymology, common in biblical explanation of names, rather than a strictly scientific one. Like many other Hebrew names in the Bible, the name Yahweh is no doubt a shortened form of what was originally a longer name. It has been suggested that the original, full form of the name was something like Yahweh-Asher-Yihweh, "He brings into existence whatever exists"; or Yahweh Zevaot (I Sam. 1:3, 11), which really means "He brings the hosts [of heaven- or of Israel?] into existence." "The Lord of Hosts," the traditional translation of the latter name, is doubtful.

According to the documentary hypothesis, the literary sources in the Pentateuch known as the Elohist and the Priestly Document never use the name Yahweh for God until it is revealed to Moses (Ex. 3:13; 6:2–3); but the Yahwist source uses it from Genesis 2:4 on, thus implying that it was at least as old as Abraham.

If the name is really that old, then Exodus 6:2–3 must be understood as meaning that from the time of Moses on, Yahweh was to be the personal name of the God who brought the people of Israel into existence by bringing them out of Egypt and established them as a nation by His covenant with them at Sinai.