The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...

'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ''he''. The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "to exist", "to cause to become", or "to come to pass".Translation notes for While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, the form ''

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he po ...

'' is now accepted almost universally, though the vocalization '' Jehovah'' continues to have wide usage. The books of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

and the rest of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Esther, Ecclesiastes, and (with a possible instance of the short form in verse 8:6) the Song of Songs contain this

name. Observant

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and those who follow

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

ic Jewish traditions do not pronounce nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as ''Yahweh'' or '' Yehovah''; instead they replace it with a different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel. Common substitutions in Hebrew are

Adonai Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is th ...

("My Lord") or Elohim (literally "gods" but treated as singular when meaning "God") in prayer, or '' HaShem'' ("The Name") in everyday speech.

Four letters

The letters, properly written and read from right to left (in Biblical Hebrew), are:

Origins

Etymology

The Tetragrammaton is not attested other than among the Israelites, and seems not to have any plausible etymology. The Hebrew Bible explains it by the formula ''Ehye ašer ehye'' (" I Am that I Am"), the name of God revealed to Moses in

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * E ...

3:14. This would frame Y-H-W-H as a derivation from the Hebrew triconsonantal root היה (''h-y-h''), "to be, become, come to pass", with a third person masculine ''y-''

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...

, equivalent to English "he",. It thus probably means "he causes to be, to become," etc. It has הוה (''h-w-h'') as a variant form, ''The New Brown–Driver–Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic'' by Frances Brown, with the cooperation of S.R. Driver and Charles Briggs (1907), p. 217ff (entry יהוה listed under root הוה). thereby affording translations as "he who causes to exist", "he who is", etc.; although this would elicit the form Y-H-Y-H (יהיה‎), ''not'' Y-H-W-H. To rectify this, some scholars proposed that the Tetragrammaton represents a substitution of the medial ''y'' for ''w'', an occasionally attested practice in Biblical Hebrew as both letters represented '' matres lectionis''; others proposed that the Tetragrammaton derived instead from the triconsonantal root הוה (''h-w-h''), "to be, constitute", with the final form eliciting similar translations as those derived from ''h-y-h''. Modern scholarly consensus, however, considers ''Ehye ašer ehye'' to be a folk etymology; a later theological gloss invented at a time when the original meaning of the Tetragrammaton had been forgotten.

Vocalisation

YHWH and Hebrew script

Like all letters in the Hebrew script, the letters in YHWH originally indicated consonants. In unpointed Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written, but some are indicated ambiguously, as certain letters came to have a secondary function indicating vowels (similar to the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

use of I and V to indicate either the consonants /j, w/ or the vowels /i, u/). Hebrew letters used to indicate vowels are known as ' ''(imot kri'a)'' or '' matres lectionis'' ("mothers of reading"). Therefore, it can be difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling, and each of the four letters in the Tetragrammaton can individually serve as a ''mater lectionis''. Several centuries later, between the 5th through 10th centuries CE, the original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was provided with vowel marks by the

Masoretes The Masoretes ( he, בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה, Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe- scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily i ...

to assist reading. In places where the word to be read (the ''qere'') differed from that indicated by the consonants of the written text (the ''ketiv''), they wrote the ''qere'' in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowel marks of the ''qere'' were written on the ''ketiv''. For a few frequent words, the marginal note was omitted: these are called qere perpetuum. One of the frequent cases was the Tetragrammaton, which according to later Rabbinite Jewish practices should not be pronounced but read as "

" (/"my Lord"), or, if the previous or next word already was

, as " Elohim" (/"God"). Writing the vowel diacritics of these two words on the consonants YHVH produces and respectively, ghost-words that would spell "Yehovah" and "Yehovih" respectively. The oldest complete or nearly complete manuscripts of the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

with Tiberian vocalisation, such as the ''

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the ...

'' and the '' Leningrad Codex'', both of the 10th or 11th century, mostly write (''yhwah''), with no pointing on the first ''h''. It could be because the ''o'' diacritic point plays no useful role in distinguishing between ''Adonai'' and '' Elohim'' and so is redundant, or it could point to the ''qere'' being (''š^əmâ''), which is

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

for "the Name".

Yahweh

The scholarly consensus is that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was ''Yahweh'' (): "The strong consensus of biblical scholarship is that the original pronunciation of the name YHWH ... was Yahweh."

R. R. Reno Russell Ronald Reno III (born 1959), known as R. R. Reno, is the editor of ''First Things'' magazine. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University. Biography Reno was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959, and ...

agrees that, when in the late first millennium Jewish scholars inserted indications of vowels into the Hebrew Bible, they signalled that what was pronounced was "Adonai" (Lord); non-Jews later combined the vowels of Adonai with the consonants of the Tetragrammaton and invented the name "Jehovah". Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka state: "The Qre is ''the Lord'', whilst the Ktiv is probably (according to ancient witnesses)", and they add: "Note 1: In our translations, we have used ''Yahweh'', a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional ''Jehovah.''"Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica). Part One: Orthography and Phonetics. Rome : Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblio, 1996. . Already in 1869, when, as shown by the use of the then traditional form "Jehovah" as title for its article on the question, the present strong consensus that the original pronunciation was "Yahweh" had not yet attained full force, '' Smith's Bible Dictionary'', a collaborative work of noted scholars of the time, declared: "Whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not ''Jehovah''." Mark P. Arnold remarks that certain conclusions drawn from the pronunciation of as "Yahweh" would be valid even if the scholarly consensus were not correct.

Thomas Römer Thomas Christian Römer (born 13 December 1955, in Mannheim) is a German-born Swiss biblical scholar, exegete, philologist, professor, and Reformed minister. After teaching at the University of Geneva, he became professor of the Old Testament a ...

holds that "the original pronunciation of Yhwh was 'Yahô' or 'Yahû. The adoption at the time of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

of "Jehovah" in place of the traditional "Lord" in some new translations, vernacular or Latin, of the biblical Tetragrammaton stirred up dispute about its correctness. In 1711, Adriaan Reland published a book containing the text of 17th-century writings, five attacking and five defending it. As critical of the use of "Jehovah" it incorporated writings by Johannes van den Driesche (1550–1616), known as Drusius;

Sixtinus Amama Sixtinus Amama (also Sextinus) (13 October 1593 – 9 November 1629) was a Dutch Reformed theologian and orientalist. Amama was among the first to advocate a thorough knowledge of the original languages of the Bible as indispensable to theologians ...

(1593–1629); Louis Cappel (1585–1658); Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629);

Jacob Alting Jacob Alting (27 September 1618 – 20 August 1679) was a Dutch philologist and theologian. He was professor at the University of Groningen: in 1643 in oriental languages and in 1667 in theology. His publications were overseen in 1687 by Balthas ...

(1618–1679). Defending "Jehovah" were writings by

Nicholas Fuller Nicholas Fuller (c. 1557 – 1626) was an English Hebraist and philologist. Life The son of Robert Fuller by his wife Catharine Cresset, he was a native of Hampshire, and was born about 1557. He was sent to schools at Southampton, kept by Joh ...

(1557–1626) and Thomas Gataker (1574–1654) and three essays by Johann Leusden (1624–1699). The opponents of "Jehovah" said that the Tetragrammaton should be pronounced as "Adonai" and in general do not speculate on what may have been the original pronunciation, although mention is made of the fact that some held that ''Jahve'' was that pronunciation. Almost two centuries after the 17th-century works reprinted by Reland, 19th-century Wilhelm Gesenius reported in his ''Thesaurus Philologicus'' on the main reasoning of those who argued either for /''Yah h'' or /''Yahweh'' as the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, as opposed to /''Yehovah'', citing explicitly as supporters of the 17th-century writers mentioned by Reland and implicitly Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) and

Johann Friedrich von Meyer Johann Friedrich von Meyer (12 September 1772 – 28 January 1849) was a German translator, politician, and senator of Frankfurt, who published a translation of the Bible in 1819 (''Die heilige Schrift in berichtigter Übersetzung mit kurzen Anmer ...

(1772–1849), the latter of whom Johann Heinrich Kurtz described as the last of those "who have maintained with great pertinacity that was the correct and original pointing". Edward Robinson's translation of a work by Gesenius, gives Gesenius' personal view as: "My own view coincides with that of those who regard this name as anciently pronounced

like the Samaritans."

Non-biblical texts

Texts with Tetragrammaton

The oldest known inscription of the Tetragrammaton dates to 840 BCE: the Mesha Stele mentions the Israelite god ''

''. Of the same century are two pottery sherds found at

Kuntillet Ajrud Kuntillet Ajrud ( ar, كونتيلة عجرود) is a late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE site in the northeast part of the Sinai Peninsula. It is frequently described as a shrine, though this is not certain. Excavations Kuntillet Ajrud (Arabic ك ...

with inscriptions mentioning "Yahweh of

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...

and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah". A tomb inscription at

Khirbet el-Qom Khirbet el-Qom () is an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum, West Bank, in the territory of the biblical Kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron, 14 km to the west of the latter. Excavations Archaeological excavations were co ...

also mentions Yahweh. Dated slightly later (7th century BCE) there are an ostracon from the collections of Shlomo Moussaieff, and two tiny silver amulet scrolls found at Ketef Hinnom that mention Yahweh. Also a wall inscription, dated to the late 6th century BCE, with mention of Yahweh had been found in a tomb at

Khirbet Beit Lei Khirbet Beit Lei or Beth Loya is an archaeological tell in the Judean lowlands of Israel. It is located about 5.5 km southeast of Tel Lachish and ten miles west-northwest of Hebron, on a hill 400 m above sea level. ...

Yahweh is mentioned also in the

Lachish letters The Lachish Letters or ''Lachish Ostraca'', sometimes called ''Hoshaiah Letters'', are a series of letters written in carbon ink containing Canaanite inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew on clay ostraca. The letters were discovered at the excavations at ...

(587 BCE) and the slightly earlier Tel Arad ostraca, and on a stone from Mount Gerizim (3rd or the beginning of the 2nd century BCE).

Texts with similar theonyms

The theonyms YHW and YHH are found in the Elephantine papyri of about 500 BCE. One ostracon with YH is thought to have lost the final letter of an original YHW. These texts are in

, not the language of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (YHWH) and, unlike the Tetragrammaton, are of three letters, not four. However, because they were written by Jews, they are assumed to refer to the same deity and to be either an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton or the original name from which the name YHWH developed.

Kristin De Troyer Kristin Mimi Lieve Leen De Troyer (born 26 May 1963 in Ninove) is an Old Testament scholar, theologian, writer and an (honorary) professor who has taught at different universities such as the University of Salzburg, the University of St Andrews, a ...

says that YHW or YHH, and also YH, are attested in the fifth and fourth-century BCE papyri from Elephantine and

Wadi Daliyeh The Wadi Daliyeh (وادي دالية) is a wadi in the West Bank, located fourteen kilometres north of Jericho, flowing east from the Samarian hills down to the Jordan Valley. The valley has caves containing archaeological material. Archaeologic ...

: "In both collections one can read the name of God as Yaho (or Yahu) and Ya". The name YH (Yah/Jah), the first syllable of "Yahweh", appears 50 times in the Old Testament, 26 times alone (Exodus 15:2; 17:16; and 24 times in the Psalms), 24 times in the expression " Hallelujah". An

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

ian hieroglyphic inscription of the

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...

Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE) mentions a group of Shasu whom it calls "the Shasu of Yhw³" (read as: ''ja-h-wi'' or ''ja-h-wa'').

James D. G. Dunn James Douglas Grant Dunn (21 October 1939 – 26 June 2020), also known as Jimmy Dunn, was a British New Testament scholar, who was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durh ...

and John W. Rogerson tentatively suggest that the Amenhotep III inscription may indicate that worship of Yahweh originated in an area to the southeast of Palestine. A later inscription from the time of

Ramesses II Ramesses II ( egy, rꜥ-ms-sw ''Rīʿa-məsī-sū'', , meaning "Ra is the one who bore him"; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Along with Thutmose III he is often regarded a ...

(1279–1213 BCE) in West Amara associates the Shasu nomads with ''S-rr'', interpreted as Mount Seir, spoken of in some texts as where Yahweh comes from. Frank Moore Cross says: "It must be emphasized that the Amorite verbal form is of interest only in attempting to reconstruct the proto-Hebrew or South Canaanite verbal form used in the name Yahweh. We should argue vigorously against attempts to take Amorite yuhwi and yahu as divine epithets." Thomas Schneider argued for the existence of a theophoric name in a

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ( ...

papyrus dating to the late 18th or early 19th dynasty which he translated as ''‘adōnī-rō‘ē-yāh'', meaning “My lord is the shepherd of Yah”. According to De Troyer, the short names, instead of being ineffable like "Yahweh", seem to have been in spoken use not only as elements of personal names but also in reference to God: "The Samaritans thus seem to have pronounced the Name of God as Jaho or Ja." She cites Theodoret (c. 393 – c. 460) as that the shorter names of God were pronounced by the Samaritans as "Iabe" and by the Jews as "Ia". She adds that the Bible also indicates that the short form "Yah" was spoken, as in the phrase " Halleluyah". The '' Patrologia Graeca'' texts of Theodoret differ slightly from what De Troyer says. In ''Quaestiones in Exodum'' 15 he says that Samaritans pronounced the name Ἰαβέ and Jews the name Άϊά. (The Greek term Άϊά is a transcription of the Exodus 3:14 phrase אֶהְיֶה (''ehyeh''), "I am".) In ''Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium'' 5.3, he uses the spelling Ἰαβαί.

Magical papyri

Among the Jews in the Second Temple Period magical amulets became very popular. Representations of the Tetragrammaton name or combinations inspired by it in languages such as Greek and Coptic, giving some indication of its pronunciation, occur as names of powerful agents in

Jewish magical papyri Jewish magical papyri are a subclass of papyri with specific Jewish magical uses, and which shed light on popular belief during the late Second Temple Period and after in Late Antiquity. A related category of contemporary evidence are Jewish magica ...

found in Egypt. ''Iave'' and ''Yaba'' occurs frequently, "apparently the Samaritan enunciation of the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh)". The most commonly invoked god is Ιαω (''Iaō''), another vocalization of the tetragrammaton YHWH. There is a single instance of the heptagram (''iaōouēe''). ''Yāwē'' is found in an Ethiopian Christian list of magical names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples.

Vernacular evidence

Also relevant is the use of the name in theophoric names; there is a common Hebrew prefix form, Yeho or "Y^ehō-", and a common suffix form, "Yahū" or "-Y^ehū". These provide some corroborating evidence of how YHWH was pronounced.

Hebrew Bible

Masoretic Text

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia it occurs 5,410 times in the Hebrew scriptures. In the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' as can be seen in Kittel's ''Biblia Hebraica'' and the '' Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia''. In addition, the marginal notes or ''masorah''''masora parva'' (small) or ''masora marginalis'': notes to the Masoretic Text, written in the margins of the left, right and between the columns and the comments on the top and bottom margins to ''masora magna'' (large). indicate that in another 134 places, where the received text has the word ''Adonai'', an earlier text had the Tetragrammaton.C. D. Ginsburg in ''The Massorah. Compiled from manuscripts'', London 1880
vol I, p. 25, 26, § 115
lists the 134 places where this practice is observed, and likewise in 8 places where the received text has ''Elohim'' (C. D. Ginsburg, ''Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible'', London 1897
s. 368, 369
. These places are listed in: C.D. Ginsburg, ''The Massorah. Compiled from manuscripts'', vol I, p. 26
§ 116
which would add up to 142 additional occurrences. Even in the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

practice varied with regard to use of the Tetragrammaton. According to '' Brown–Driver–Briggs'', ( ''qere'' ) occurs 6,518 times, and (qere ) 305 times in the Masoretic Text. The first appearance of the Tetragrammaton is in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

2:4. The only books it does not appear in are Ecclesiastes, the Book of Esther, and Song of Songs. In the Book of Esther the Tetragrammaton does not appear, but it has been distinguished

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the F ...

-wise in the initial or last letters of four consecutive words,These are Est 1:20; 5:4, 13 and 7:7. The same acrostic has been seen in Exodus 3:14 and in the first four words of Psalm 96:11 (). as indicated in Est 7:5 by writing the four letters in red in at least three ancient Hebrew manuscripts. The short form /

Yah Yah may refer to: * Jah, shortened form of Yahweh, the Hebrew name for God * YAH, The IATA code for La Grande-4 Airport in northern Quebec, Canada * Yazgulyam language, by ISO 639 code * "Yah" (song), by Kendrick Lamar from his album ''Damn'' * a ...

(a digrammaton) "occurs 50 times if the phrase hallellu-Yah is included": 43 times in the Psalms, once in Exodus 15:2; 17:16; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4, and twice in Isaiah 38:11. It also appears in the Greek phrase (Alleluia, Hallelujah) in . Other short forms are found as a component of theophoric Hebrew names in the Bible: jô- or jehô- (29 names) and -jāhû or -jāh (127 jnames). A form of jāhû/jehô appears in the name Elioenai (Elj(eh)oenai) in 1Ch 3:23–24; 4:36; 7:8; Ezr 22:22, 27; Neh 12:41. The following graph shows the absolute number of occurrences of the Tetragrammaton (6828 in all) in the books in the Masoretic Text, without relation to the length of the books. ImageSize = width:1000 height:330 PlotArea = left:50 right:20 top:25 bottom:30 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = late Colors = id:linegrey2 value:gray(0.9) id:linegrey value:gray(0.7) id:cobar value:rgb(0.2,0.7,0.8) id:cobar2 value:rgb(0.6,0.9,0.6) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:800 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5000 start:0 gridcolor:linegrey ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1000 start:0 gridcolor:linegrey2 PlotData = color:cobar width:17 align:left bar:Ge from:0 till: 165 bar:Ex from:0 till: 398 bar:Le from:0 till:311 bar:Nu from:0 till:396 bar:De from:0 till:550 bar:Jos from:0 till:224 bar:Jg from:0 till: 175 bar:Ru from:0 till: 18 bar:1Sa from:0 till: 320 bar:2Sa from:0 till: 153 bar:1Ki from:0 till: 257 bar:2Ki from:0 till:277 bar:1Ch from:0 till:175 bar:2Ch from:0 till:384 bar:Ezr from:0 till:37 bar:Ne from:0 till:7 bar:Es from:0 till:0 bar:Job from:0 till:32 bar:Ps from:0 till:695 bar:Pr from:0 till:87 bar:Ec from:0 till:0 bar:Ca from:0 till:0 bar:Isa from:0 till:450 bar:Jer from:0 till:726 bar:La from:0 till:32 bar:Eze from:0 till:434 bar:Da from:0 till:8 bar:Ho from:0 till:46 bar:Joe from:0 till:33 bar:Am from:0 till:82 bar:Ob from:0 till:7 bar:Jon from:0 till:26 bar:Mic from:0 till:40 bar:Na from:0 till:13 bar:Hab from:0 till:13 bar:Zep from:0 till:34 bar:Hag from:0 till:35 bar:Zec from:0 till:133 bar:Mal from:0 till:46 PlotData= textcolor:black fontsize:S bar:Ge at: 165 text: 165 shift:(-9,5) bar:Ex at: 398 text: 398 shift:(-8,5) bar:Le at: 311 text: 311 shift:(-8,5) bar:Nu at: 396 text: 396 shift:(-8,5) bar:De at: 550 text: 550 shift:(-8,5) bar:Jos at: 224 text: 224 shift:(-8,5) bar:Jg at: 175 text: 175 shift:(-9,5) bar:Ru at: 18 text: 18 shift:(-6,5) bar:1Sa at: 320 text: 320 shift:(-8,5) bar:2Sa at: 153 text: 153 shift:(-9,5) bar:1Ki at: 257 text: 257 shift:(-8,5) bar:2Ki at: 277 text: 277 shift:(-8,5) bar:1Ch at: 175 text: 175 shift:(-9,5) bar:2Ch at: 384 text: 384 shift:(-8,5) bar:Ezr at: 37 text: 37 shift:(-5,5) bar:Ne at: 17 text: 17 shift:(-6,5) bar:Es at: 0 text: 0 shift:(-2,5) bar:Job at: 32 text: 32 shift:(-5,5) bar:Ps at: 695 text: 695 shift:(-8,5) bar:Pr at: 87 text: 87 shift:(-5,5) bar:Ec at: 0 text: 0 shift:(-2,5) bar:Ca at: 0 text: 0 shift:(-2,5) bar:Isa at: 450 text: 450 shift:(-8,5) bar:Jer at: 726 text: 726 shift:(-8,5) bar:La at: 32 text: 32 shift:(-5,5) bar:Eze at: 434 text: 434 shift:(-8,5) bar:Da at: 8 text: 8 shift:(-2,5) bar:Ho at: 46 text: 46 shift:(-5,5) bar:Joe at: 33 text: 33 shift:(-5,5) bar:Am at: 81 text: 81 shift:(-5,5) bar:Ob at: 7 text: 7 shift:(-2,5) bar:Jon at: 26 text: 26 shift:(-5,5) bar:Mic at: 40 text: 40 shift:(-5,5) bar:Na at: 13 text: 13 shift:(-6,5) bar:Hab at: 13 text: 13 shift:(-6,5) bar:Zep at: 34 text: 34 shift:(-5,5) bar:Hag at: 35 text: 35 shift:(-5,5) bar:Zec at: 133 text: 133 shift:(-9,5) bar:Mal at: 46 text: 46 shift:(-5,5) TextData= fontsize:S pos:(190,300) text: The occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible

Leningrad Codex

Six presentations of the Tetragrammaton with some or all of the vowel points of (Adonai) or (Elohim) are found in the Leningrad Codex of 1008–1010, as shown below. The close transcriptions do not indicate that the Masoretes intended the name to be pronounced in that way (see '' qere perpetuum''). ĕ is ''hataf segol''; ǝ is the pronounced form of plain

shva Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa ( he, שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots () beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/ Ø/) (shva n ...

Dead Sea Scrolls

In the

and other Hebrew and Aramaic texts the Tetragrammaton and some other

names of God in Judaism Judaism considers some names of God so Q-D-Š, holy that, once written, they should not be erased: Tetragrammaton, YHWH, Adonai, El (deity), El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), El Shaddai, Shaddai ("Almighty"), and #Tzevaot, Tzevaot (" f...

(such as El or Elohim) were sometimes written in

paleo-Hebrew script The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...

, showing that they were treated specially. Most of God's names were pronounced until about the 2nd century BCE. Then, as a tradition of non-pronunciation of the names developed, alternatives for the Tetragrammaton appeared, such as Adonai, Kurios and Theos. The 4Q120, a Greek fragment of Leviticus (26:2–16) discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls (Qumran) has ιαω ("Iao"), the Greek form of the Hebrew trigrammaton YHW. The historian John the Lydian (6th century) wrote: "The Roman Varo 16–27 BCEdefining him hat is the Jewish Godsays that he is called Iao in the Chaldean mysteries" (De Mensibus IV 53). Van Cooten mentions that Iao is one of the "specifically Jewish designations for God" and "the Aramaic papyri from the Jews at Elephantine show that 'Iao' is an original Jewish term". The preserved manuscripts from Qumran show the inconsistent practice of writing the Tetragrammaton, mainly in biblical quotations: in some manuscripts is written in paleo-Hebrew script, square scripts or replaced with four dots or dashes (''tetrapuncta''). The members of the Qumran community were aware of the existence of the Tetragrammaton, but this was not tantamount to granting consent for its existing use and speaking. This is evidenced not only by special treatment of the Tetragrammaton in the text, but by the recommendation recorded in the 'Rule of Association' (VI, 27): "Who will remember the most glorious name, which is above all ... The table below presents all the manuscripts in which the Tetragrammaton is written in paleo-Hebrew script,In some manuscripts the Tetragrammaton was replaced by the word ''’El'' or ''’Elohim'' written in Paleo-Hebrew script, they are: 1QpMic (1Q14) 12 3; 1QMyst (1Q27) II 11; 1QHa I (Suk. = Puech IX) 26; II (X) 34; VII (XV) 5; XV (VII) 25; 1QH^b (1Q35) 1 5; 3QUnclassified fragments (3Q14) 18 2; 4QpPs^b (4Q173) 5 4; 4QAges of Creation A (4Q180) 1 1; 4QMidrEschate?(4Q183) 2 1; 3 1; fr. 1 kol. II 3; 4QS^d (4Q258) IX 8; 4QD^b (4Q267) fr. 9 kol. i 2; kol. iv 4; kol. v 4; 4QD^c (4Q268) 1 9; 4QComposition Concerning Divine Providence (4Q413) fr. 1–2 2, 4; 6QD (6Q15) 3 5; 6QpapHymn (6Q18) 6 5; 8 5; 10 3. W 4QShirShabbg (4Q406) 1 2; 3 2 występuje ''’Elohim''. in square scripts, and all the manuscripts in which the copyists have used tetrapuncta. Copyists used the 'tetrapuncta' apparently to warn against pronouncing the name of God. In the manuscript number 4Q248 is in the form of bars.

Septuagint

Editions of the Septuagint Old Testament are based on the complete or almost complete fourth-century manuscripts

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus ( Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscript ...

and

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...

and consistently use Κύριος, "

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...

", where the

has the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew. This corresponds with the Jewish practice of replacing the Tetragrammaton with "

" when reading the Hebrew word. However, five of the oldest manuscripts now extant (in fragmentary form) render the Tetragrammaton into Greek in a different way.H. Bietenhard, “Lord,” in ''the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology'', C. Brown (gen. ed.), Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986, Vol. 2, p. 512, Two of these are of the first century BCE:

Papyrus Fouad 266 The Papyrus Fouad 266 (three fragments listed as Rahlfs 847, 848 and 942) are fragments, part of a papyrus manuscript in scroll form containing the Greek translation, known as the Septuagint, of the Pentateuch. They have been assigned palaeograp ...

uses in the normal

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

in the midst of its Greek text, and 4Q120 uses the Greek transcription of the name, ΙΑΩ. Three later manuscripts use , the name in

Paleo-Hebrew script The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...

: the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3522 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5101. Other extant ancient fragments of Septuagint or Old Greek manuscripts provide no evidence on the use of the Tetragrammaton, Κύριος, or ΙΑΩ in correspondence with the Hebrew-text Tetragrammaton. They include the oldest known example, Papyrus Rylands 458. Scholars differ on whether in the original Septuagint translations the Tetragrammaton was represented by Κύριος, by ΙΑΩ, by the Tetragrammaton in either normal or Paleo-Hebrew form, or whether different translators used different forms in different books. Frank Shaw argues that the Tetragrammaton continued to be articulated until the second or third century CE and that the use of Ιαω was by no means limited to magical or mystical formulas, but was still normal in more elevated contexts such as that exemplified by Papyrus 4Q120. Shaw considers all theories that posit in the Septuagint a single original form of the divine name as merely based on ''a priori'' assumptions. Accordingly, he declares: "The matter of any (especially single) 'original' form of the divine name in the LXX is too complex, the evidence is too scattered and indefinite, and the various approaches offered for the issue are too simplistic" to account for the actual scribal practices (p. 158). He holds that the earliest stages of the LXX's translation were marked by diversity (p. 262), with the choice of certain divine names depending on the context in which they appear (cf. Gen 4:26; Exod 3:15; 8:22; 28:32; 32:5; and 33:19). He treats of the related blank spaces in some Septuagint manuscripts and the setting of spaces around the divine name in 4Q120 and

b (p. 265), and repeats that "there was no one 'original' form but different translators had different feelings, theological beliefs, motivations, and practices when it came to their handling of the name" (p. 271). His view has won the support of Anthony R. Meyer, Bob Becking, and (commenting on Shaw's 2011 dissertation on the subject) D.T. Runia. Mogens Müller says that, while no clearly Jewish manuscript of the Septuagint has been found with Κύριος representing the Tetragrammaton, other Jewish writings of the time show that Jews did use the term Κύριος for God, and it was because Christians found it in the Septuagint that they were able to apply it to Christ. In fact, the deuterocanonical books of the Septuagint, written originally in Greek (e.g., Wisdom, 2 and 3 Maccabees), do speak of God as Κύριος and thus show that "the use of κύριος as a representation of must be pre-Christian in origin". Similarly, while consistent use of ''Κύριος'' to represent the Tetragrammaton has been called "a distinguishing mark for any Christian LXX manuscript", Eugen J. Pentiuc says: "No definitive conclusion has been reached thus far." And Sean McDonough denounces as implausible the idea that Κύριος did not appear in the Septuagint before the Christian era. Speaking of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever, which is a kaige recension of the Septuagint, "a revision of the Old Greek text to bring it closer to the Hebrew text of the Bible as it existed in ca. 2nd-1st century BCE" (and thus not necessarily the original text), Kristin De Troyer remarks: "The problem with a recension is that one does not know what is the original form and what the recension. Hence, is the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton secondary – a part of the recension – or proof of the Old Greek text? This debate has not yet been solved." While some interpret the presence of the Tetragrammaton in

, the oldest Septuagint manuscript in which it appears, as an indication of what was in the original text, others see this manuscript as "an archaizing and hebraizing revision of the earlier translation κύριος". Of this papyrus, De Troyer asks: "Is it a recension or not?" In this regard she says that Emanuel Tov notes that in this manuscript a second scribe inserted the four-letter Tetragrammaton where the first scribe left spaces large enough for the six-letter word Κύριος, and that Pietersma and Hanhart say the papyrus "already contains some pre- hexaplaric corrections towards a Hebrew text (which would have had the Tetragrammaton). She also mentions Septuagint manuscripts that have Θεός and one that has παντοκράτωρ where the Hebrew text has the Tetragrammaton. She concludes: "It suffices to say that in old Hebrew and Greek witnesses, God has many names. Most if not all were pronounced till about the second century BCE. As slowly onwards there developed a tradition of non-pronunciation, alternatives for the Tetragrammaton appeared. The reading ''Adonai'' was one of them. Finally, before ''Kurios'' became a standard rendering ''Adonai'', the Name of God was rendered with ''Theos''." In the Book of Exodus alone, Θεός represents the Tetragrammaton 41 times. Robert J. Wilkinson says that the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever is also a kaige recension and thus not strictly a Septuagint text.

Origen Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and the ...

(''Commentary on Psalms'' 2.2) said that in the most accurate manuscripts the name was written in an older form of the Hebrew characters, the paleo-Hebrew letters, not the square: "In the more accurate exemplars the (divine) name is written in Hebrew characters; not, however, in the current script, but in the most ancient." While Pietersma interprets this statement as referring to the Septuagint, Wilkinson says one might assume that Origen refers specifically to the version of Aquila of Sinope, which follows the Hebrew text very closely, but he may perhaps refer to Greek versions in general.

Manuscripts of the Septuagint and later Greek renderings

The great majority of extant manuscripts of the Old Testament in Greek, complete or fragmentary, dated to the ninth century CE or earlier, employ Κύριος to represent the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew text. The following do not. They include the oldest now extant. # Manuscripts of the Septuagint or recensions thereof #* 1st century BCE #** 4QpapLXXLev^b – fragments of the Book of Leviticus, chapters 1 to 5. In two verses: 3:12; 4:27 the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew Bible is represented by Greek ΙΑΩ. #**

b (848) – fragments of Deuteronomy, chapters 10 to 33. The Tetragrammaton appears in square Hebrew/Aramaic script. According to a disputed view, the first copyist left a blank space marked with a dot, and another inscribed the letters. #* 1st century CE #** Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3522 – contains parts of two verses of chapter 42 of the Book of Job and has the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew letters. #** Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever – in three fragments whose contents were published separately. #*** Se2grXII (LXX^{IEJ 12}) has the Tetragrammaton in 1 place. #*** 8HevXII a (LXX^{VTS 10a}) in 24 places, in whole or part. #*** 8HevXII b (LXX^{VTS 10b}) in 4 places. #* 1st to 2nd century #** Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5101 – contains fragments of the Book of Psalms. It has YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew script. #* 3rd century CE #**

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1007 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1007 (also known as LXXP.Oxy.VII.1007; P.Oxy. VII 1007; P.Lond.Lit. 199; TM 61956; LDAB 3113) is a fragment of a Septuagint manuscript (LXX) written in two columns on a parchment codex. The manuscript was discovered in Oxyrhyn ...

– contains Genesis 2 and 3. The divine name is written with a double

yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...

. #** Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 656 – fragments of the Book of Genesis, chapters 14 to 27. Has Κύριος where the first copyist left blank spaces #** Papyrus Berlin 17213 – fragments of the Book of Genesis, chapter 19. One space is left blank. Emanuel Tov thinks it indicated the end of a paragraph. It has been dated to 3rd century CE. # Manuscripts of Greek translations made by Symmachus and Aquila of Sinope (2nd century CE) #* 3rd century CE #** Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek 39777. Has the Tetragrammaton in archaic Hebrew script. #* 5th century CE #** AqTaylor, this manuscript of the Aquila version is dated after the middle of the 5th century, but not later than the beginning of the 6th century. #** AqBurkitt – a palimpsest manuscript of the Aquila version dated late 5th century or early 6th century. # Manuscripts with Hexaplaric elements #* 6th century CE #**

Codex Marchalianus Codex Marchalianus designated by siglum Q is a 6th-century Greek manuscript copy of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament) known as the Septuagint. The text was written on vellum in uncial letters. Palaeographicall ...

– In addition to the Septuagint text of the prophets (with ), the manuscript contains marginal notes from a hand "not much later than the original scribe" indicating Hexaplaric variations, each identified as from Aquila, Symmachus or Theodotion. Marginal notes on some of the prophets contain πιπι to indicate that in the text corresponds to the Tetragrammaton. Two marginal notes at Ezekiel 1:2 and 11:1 use the form with reference to the Tetragrammaton. #* 7th century CE #** Taylor-Schechter 12.182 – a Hexapla manuscript with Tetragrammaton in Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ. It has Hebrew text transliterated into Greek, Aquila, Symmachus and the Septuagint. #* 9th century CE #** Ambrosiano O 39 sup. – the latest Greek manuscript containing the name of God is Origen's'' Hexapla'', transmitting among other translations the text of the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, and in three other unidentified Greek translations (Quinta, Sextus and Septima). This codex, copied from a much earlier original, comes from the late 9th century, and is stored in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

Patristic writings

Tetragrammaton at 5th Chapel of the Palace of Versailles France

According to the

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

(1910) and B.D. Eerdmans: * Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) writes (Iao); *

Irenaeus Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the de ...

(d. c. 202) reports that the Gnostics formed a compound (Iaoth) with the last syllable of

Sabaoth Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is ...

. He also reports that the Valentinian heretics use (Iao); *

Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria ( grc , Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; – ), was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen ...

(d. c. 215) reports: "the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the

adytum The adyton ( , 'innermost sanctuary, shrine', ) or ( Latin) was a restricted area within the cella of a Greek or Roman temple. The ''adyton'' was frequently a small area at the farthest end of the cella from the entrance: at Delphi it measur ...

was accessible, is called " (Iaoú); manuscript variants also have the forms (Iaoúe) and . *

(d. c. 254), (Iao); * Porphyry (d. c. 305) according to

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

(died 339), (Ieuo); * Epiphanius (died 404), who was born in Palestine and spent a considerable part of his life there, gives (Ia) and (pronounced at that time /ja'vε/) and explains Ἰάβε as meaning He who was and is and always exists. *

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...

(died 420) speaks of certain Greek writers who misunderstood the Hebrew letters (read right-to-left) as the Greek letters (read left-to-right), thus changing YHWH to ''pipi''. * Theodoret (d. c. 457) writes (Iao); he also reports that the Samaritans say or (both pronounced at that time /ja'vε/), while the Jews say (Aia). (The latter is probably not but ''Ehyeh'' = "I am " or "I will be", which the Jews counted among the names of God.) * (Pseudo-)Jerome (4th/5th or 9th century),: ''IAHO''. This work was traditionally attributed to

and, in spite of the view of one modern writer who in 1936 said it is "now believed to be genuine and to be dated before CE 392" is still generally attributed to the 9th century and to be non-authentic.

Peshitta

The

Peshitta The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, ...

( Syriac translation), probably in the second century, uses the word "Lord" (, pronounced ''māryā'' or ''moryo'' (Western pronunciation) for the Tetragrammaton.Joshua Bloch
The Authorship of the Peshitta
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1919

Vulgate

The Vulgate (Latin translation) made from the Hebrew in the 4th century CE, uses the word ("Lord"), a translation of the Hebrew word ''Adonai'', for the Tetragrammaton. The Vulgate translation, though made not from the Septuagint but from the Hebrew text, did not depart from the practice used in the Septuagint. Thus, for most of its history, Christianity's translations of the Scriptures have used equivalents of ''Adonai'' to represent the Tetragrammaton. Only at about the beginning of the 16th century did Christian translations of the Bible appear combining the vowels of ''Adonai'' with the four (consonantal) letters of the Tetragrammaton.In the 7th paragraph of ''Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible''
Sir Godfry Driver wrote
, "The early translators generally substituted 'Lord' for

HWH HWH may refer to: *HWH, the Indian Railways code for Howrah railway station Howrah railway station, also known as Howrah Junction, is a railway station located in the city of Howrah, West Bengal, India. It is also the oldest and largest exist ...

..The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as ''Iehouah'' in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."

Usage in religious traditions

Judaism

Especially due to the existence of the Mesha Stele, the Jahwist tradition found in , and ancient Hebrew and Greek texts, biblical scholars widely hold that the Tetragrammaton and other names of God were spoken by the ancient

Israelites The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

and their neighbours. By at least the 3rd century BCE, the name was not pronounced in normal speech, but only in certain ritual contexts. The Talmud relays this change occurred after the death of Simeon the Just (either

Simon I Simon I may refer to: * Simon I (High Priest) (310–291 or 300–270 BCE) * Simon I de Montfort (1025–1087) * Simon I de Senlis, Earl of Huntingdon-Northampton (died c. 1111) * Simon I, Duke of Lorraine (1076–1138) * Simon I, Count of Saarbr� ...

or his great-great-grandson Simon II).

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo's de ...

calls the name ineffable, and says that it is lawful for those only whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a holy place (that is, for priests in the Temple). In another passage, commenting on : "If any one, I do not say should blaspheme against the Lord of men and gods, but should even dare to utter his name unseasonably, let him expect the penalty of death." Some time after the destruction of the Second Temple, the spoken use of God's name as it was written ceased altogether, though knowledge of the pronunciation was perpetuated in rabbinic schools. Rabbinic sources suggest that the name of God was pronounced only once a year, by the high priest, on the Day of Atonement. Others, including

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...

, claim that the name was pronounced daily in the liturgy of the

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

in the priestly blessing of worshippers, after the daily sacrifice; in synagogues, though, a substitute (probably "Adonai") was used. According to the

, in the last generations before the fall of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, the name was pronounced in a low tone so that the sounds were lost in the chant of the priests. Since the destruction of

Second Temple of Jerusalem The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherite ...

in 70 CE, the Tetragrammaton has no longer been pronounced in the liturgy. However the pronunciation was still known in

Babylonia Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c ...

in the latter part of the 4th century.

Spoken prohibitions

The vehemence with which the utterance of the name is denounced in the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

suggests that use of the name Yahweh was unacceptable in rabbinical Judaism. "He who pronounces the Name with its own letters has no part in the world to come!" Such is the prohibition of pronouncing the Name as written that it is sometimes called the "Ineffable", "Unutterable", or "Distinctive Name", or "Explicit Name" (" Shem HaMephorash" in Hebrew).

Halakha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...

prescribes that although the Name is written "yodh he waw he", if not preceded by "my Lord" (, ) then it is only to be pronounced "Adonai" and if preceded by "Adonai" then it is only to be pronounced as "Our God" (, ), or, in rare cases, as a repetition of Adonai, e.g., the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy (, ) in Exodus 34:6–7; the latter names too are regarded as holy names, and are only to be pronounced in prayer."They

he Priests, when reciting the Priestly Blessing, when the Temple stood He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

recite od'sname – i.e., the name ''yod-hei-vav-hei'', as it is written. This is what is referred to as the 'explicit name' in all sources. In the country

hat is, outside the Temple A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

it is read sing another one of God's names א-ד-נ-י ('Adonai'), for only in the Temple is this name f Godrecited as it is written." – ''

Mishneh Torah The ''Mishneh Torah'' ( he, מִשְׁנֵה תּוֹרָה, , repetition of the Torah), also known as ''Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka'' ( he, ספר יד החזקה, , book of the strong hand, label=none), is a code of Rabbinic Jewish religious law ('' ...

, Laws of Prayer and Priestly Blessings, 14:10 Thus when someone wants to refer in third person to either the written or spoken Name, the term ''HaShem'' "the Name" is used;Stanley S. Seidner, "HaShem: Uses through the Ages", Unpublished paper, Rabbinical Society Seminar, Los Angeles, California, 1987. and this handle itself can also be used in prayer.For example, in the common utterance and praise, "Barukh Hashem" (Blessed .e. the source of allis Hashem), or "Hashem yishmor" (God protect s The

added vowel points (

niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in ...

) and cantillation marks to the manuscripts to indicate vowel usage and for use in ritual chanting of readings from the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

in Jewish prayer in synagogues. To they added the vowels for "" ("My Lord"), the word to use when the text was read. While "HaShem" is the most common way to reference "the Name", the terms "HaMaqom" (lit. "The Place", i.e. "The Omnipresent") and "Raḥmana" (Aramaic, "Merciful") are used in the mishna and gemara, still used in the phrases "HaMaqom y'naḥem ethḥem" ("may The Omnipresent console you"), the traditional phrase used in sitting

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one o ...

and "Raḥmana l'tzlan" ("may the Merciful save us" i.e. "God forbid").

Written prohibitions

The written Tetragrammaton, as well as six other names of God, must be treated with special sanctity. They cannot be disposed of regularly, lest they be desecrated, but are usually put in long-term storage or buried in Jewish cemeteries in order to retire them from use. Similarly, writing the Tetragrammaton (or these other names) unnecessarily is prohibited, so as to avoid having them treated disrespectfully, an action that is forbidden. To guard the sanctity of the Name, sometimes a letter is substituted by a different letter in writing (e.g. יקוק), or the letters are separated by one or more hyphens, a practice applied also to the English name "God", which some Jews write as "G-d". Most Jewish authorities say that this practice is not obligatory for the English name.

Kabbalah

Kabbalistic tradition holds that the correct pronunciation is known to a select few people in each generation, it is not generally known what this pronunciation is. There are two main schools of Kabbalah arising in 13th century Spain. These are called Theosophic Kabbalah represented by Rabbi Moshe De Leon and the Zohar, and the Kabbalah of Names or Prophetic Kabbalah whose main representative is Rabbi Abraham Abulafia of Saragossa. Rabbi Abulafia wrote many wisdom books and prophetic books where the name is used for meditation purposes from 1271 onwards. Abulafia put a lot of attention on Exodus 15 and the Songs of Moses. In this song it says "Yehovah is a Man of War, Yehovah is his name". For Abulafia the goal of prophecy was for a man to come to the level of prophecy and be called "Yehovah a man of war". Abulafia also used the tetragrammaton in a spiritual war against his spiritual enemies. For example, he prophesied in his book "The Sign", "Therefore, thus said YHWH, the God of Israel: Have no fear of the enemy" (See Hylton, A The Prophetic Jew Abraham Abulafia, 2015).

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto Moshe Chaim Luzzatto ( he, משה חיים לוצאטו, also ''Moses Chaim'', ''Moses Hayyim'', also ''Luzzato'') (1707 – 16 May 1746 (26 ''Iyar'' 5506)), also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL (or RaMHaL, ), was a prominent Itali ...

,In קל"ח פתחי חכמה by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, Opening #31; English translation in book "138 Openings of Wisdom" by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, 2008, also viewable at http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/spirituality_and_faith/kabbalah_and_mysticism/the_name_of_havayah.aspx?id=10847&language=english , accessed 12 March 2012 says that the tree of the Tetragrammaton "unfolds" in accordance with the intrinsic nature of its letters, "in the same order in which they appear in the Name, in the mystery of ten and the mystery of four." Namely, the upper cusp of the ''Yod'' is Arich Anpin and the main body of ''Yod'' is and

Abba ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The grou ...

; the first ''Hei'' is Imma; the ''Vav'' is Ze`ir Anpin and the second ''Hei'' is Nukvah. It unfolds in this aforementioned order and "in the mystery of the four expansions" that are constituted by the following various spellings of the letters: ע"ב/''`AV'' : יו"ד ה"י וי"ו ה"י, so called "`AV" according to its gematria value ע"ב=70+2=72. ס"ג/''SaG'': יו"ד ה"י וא"ו ה"י, gematria 63. מ"ה/''MaH'': יו"ד ה"א וא"ו ה"א, gematria 45. ב"ן/''BaN'': יו"ד ה"ה ו"ו ה"ה, gematria 52. Luzzatto summarises, "In sum, all that exists is founded on the mystery of this Name and upon the mystery of these letters of which it consists. This means that all the different orders and laws are all drawn after and come under the order of these four letters. This is not one particular pathway but rather the general path, which includes everything that exists in the

Sefirot Sefirot (; he, סְפִירוֹת, translit=Səfīrōt, Tiberian: '), meaning '' emanations'', are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof ( The Infinite) reveals itself and continuously creates both the physical realm a ...

in all their details and which brings everything under its order." Another parallel is drawn between the four letters of the Tetragrammaton and the Four Worlds: the י is associated with Atziluth, the first ה with Beri'ah, the ו with

Yetzirah Yetzirah (also known as ''Olam Yetsirah'', עוֹלָם יְצִירָה in Hebrew) is the third of four worlds in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, following Atziluth and Beri'ah and preceding Assiah. It is known as the "World of Formation". "Ye ...

, and final ה with Assiah. Tetragrammaton-Tetractys

There are some who believe that the tetractys and its mysteries influenced the early

kabbalists Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defin ...

. A Hebrew tetractys in a similar way has the letters of the Tetragrammaton (the four lettered name of God in Hebrew scripture) inscribed on the ten positions of the tetractys, from right to left. It has been argued that the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with its ten spheres of emanation, is in some way connected to the tetractys, but its form is not that of a triangle. The occult writer Dion Fortune says: (The first three-dimensional solid is the

tetrahedron In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all ...

.) The relationship between geometrical shapes and the first four Sephirot is analogous to the geometrical correlations in tetractys, shown above under Pythagorean Symbol, and unveils the relevance of the Tree of Life with the tetractys.

Samaritans

The Samaritans shared the taboo of the Jews about the utterance of the name, and there is no evidence that its pronunciation was common Samaritan practice. However Sanhedrin 10:1 includes the comment of Rabbi Mana II, "for example those Kutim who take an oath" would also have no share in the world to come, which suggests that Mana thought some Samaritans used the name in making oaths. (Their priests have preserved a liturgical pronunciation "Yahwe" or "Yahwa" to the present day.) As with Jews, the use of ''Shema'' (שמא "the Name") remains the everyday usage of the name among Samaritans, akin to Hebrew "the Name" (Hebrew השם "HaShem").

Christianity

It is assumed that early Jewish Christians inherited from Jews the practice of reading "Lord" where the Tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew text (and where a few Greek manuscripts use it in the midst of their Greek translation). Gentile Christians, primarily non-Hebrew speaking and using Greek Scripture texts, may have read Κύριος ("Lord"), as in the Greek text of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

and in their copies of the

Greek Old Testament The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

. This practice continued into the Latin Vulgate where ''Dominus'' ("Lord") represented the Tetragrammaton in the Latin text. At the Reformation, the Luther Bible used capitalized ''Herr'' ("Lord") in the German text of the Old Testament to represent the Tetragrammaton. In Christianity, when the Tetragrammaton is vocalized, the forms ''

'' or '' Jehovah'' are used.

Jah Jah or Yah ( he, , ''Yāh'') is a short form of (YHWH), the four letters that form the tetragrammaton, the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of ''Jah'' is , even th ...

or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Christians in the interjection " Hallelujah", meaning "Praise Jah", which is used to give God glory.

Christian translations

The

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

(Greek translation), the Vulgate (Latin translation), and the

( Syriac translation) use the word "Lord" (, ''kyrios'', , and , ''moryo'' respectively). Use of the Septuagint by Christians in polemics with Jews led to its abandonment by the latter, making it a specifically Christian text. From it Christians made translations into Coptic,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Slavonic and other languages used in Oriental Orthodoxy and the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...

, whose liturgies and doctrinal declarations are largely a cento of texts from the Septuagint, which they consider to be inspired at least as much as the Masoretic Text. Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Greek text remains the norm for texts in all languages, with particular reference to the wording used in prayers. The Septuagint, with its use of Κύριος to represent the Tetragrammaton, was the basis also for Christian translations associated with the West, in particular the Vetus Itala, which survives in some parts of the liturgy of the

Latin Church , native_name_lang = la , image = San Giovanni in Laterano - Rome.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , alt = Façade of the Archbasilica of St. John in Lateran , caption = Archbasilica of Saint Jo ...

, and the Gothic Bible. Christian translations of the Bible into English commonly use "" in place of the Tetragrammaton in most passages, often in small capitals (or in all caps), so as to distinguish it from other words translated as "Lord".

Eastern Orthodoxy

The

considers the Septuagint text, which uses Κύριος (Lord), to be the authoritative text of the Old Testament, and in its liturgical books and prayers it uses Κύριος in place of the Tetragrammaton in texts derived from the Bible.

Catholicism

BASILICA OF ST LOUIS KING OF FRANCE MISSOURI USA Near the Gateway Arch TETRAGRAMMATON

In the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, the first edition of the official Vatican '' Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, editio typica'', published in 1979, used the traditional ''Dominus'' when rendering the Tetragrammaton in the overwhelming majority of places where it appears; however, it also used the form ''Iahveh'' for rendering the Tetragrammaton in three known places: * Exodus 3:15 * Exodus 15:3 * Exodus 17:15 In the second edition of the '' Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, editio typica altera'', published in 1986, these few occurrences of the form ''Iahveh'' were replaced with ''Dominus'', in keeping with the long-standing Catholic tradition of avoiding direct usage of the Ineffable Name. On 29 June 2008, the

Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...

reacted to the then still recent practice of pronouncing, within Catholic liturgy, the name of God represented by the Tetragrammaton. As examples of such vocalisation it mentioned "Yahweh" and "Yehovah". The early Christians, it said, followed the example of the Septuagint in replacing the name of God with "the Lord", a practice with important theological implications for their use of "the Lord" in reference to Jesus, as in and other New Testament texts. It therefore directed that, "in liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the ''Tetragrammaton'' YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced"; and that translations of Biblical texts for liturgical use are to follow the practice of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, replacing the divine name with "the Lord" or, in some contexts, "God". The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed this instruction, adding that it "provides also an opportunity to offer catechesis for the faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the Name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship".

Lutheranism and Anglicanism

In the

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

and

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

psalters, the word in "small capital letters s usedto represent the tetragrammaton YHWH, the personal name of the deity". However, the Psalter of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer used by the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America uses ''

'' in two places, Psalms 68:4 and Psalms 83:18. Also the Hymnal 1982 as used by the Episcopal Church utilizes the hymn, "Guide me, O thou great '' Jehovah''", Hymn 690 The Christian Life. Aside from those instances, is typically used in the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church.

Usage in art

Since the 16th century, artists have been using the tetragrammaton as a symbol for God, or for divine illumination. Protestant artists avoided to allegorize God in human form, but rather wrote the Hebrew name of God. This was done in book illustrations since 1530, then on coins and medals as well. Since the 17th century, both Protestant and Catholic artists have used the tetragrammaton in church decoration, on top of altars, or in center of frescos, often in rays of light or in a triangle.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * *, reprinted in * * *

External links

* {{Authority control Kabbalistic words and phrases Magic words Yahweh Sacred Name Movement es:Yahveh#Escritura

Four letters

Origins

Etymology

Vocalisation

YHWH and Hebrew script

Yahweh

Non-biblical texts

Texts with Tetragrammaton

Texts with similar theonyms

Magical papyri

Vernacular evidence

Hebrew Bible

Masoretic Text

Leningrad Codex

Dead Sea Scrolls

Septuagint

Manuscripts of the Septuagint and later Greek renderings

Patristic writings

Peshitta

Vulgate

Usage in religious traditions

Judaism

Spoken prohibitions

Written prohibitions

Kabbalah

Samaritans

Christianity

Christian translations

Eastern Orthodoxy

Catholicism

Lutheranism and Anglicanism

Usage in art

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links