JAH (other)

Jah or Yah (, ''Yāh'') is a short form of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of ''Jah'' is , even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant (Hebrew י ''yodh''). The spelling ''Yah'' is designed to make the pronunciation explicit in an English-language context (see also romanization of Hebrew), especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study.

This short form of the name occurs 50 times in the text of the Hebrew Bible", a phrase that continues to be employed by Jews and Christians to give praise to Yahweh. In the 1611 King James Version of the Christian Bible there is a single instance of ''JAH'' (capitalized), in Psalm 68:4. ''An American Translation'' (1939) and the New King James Version (NKJV), published in 1982, follows the KJV in using ''Yah'' in this verse.

While pronouncing the Tetragrammaton is forbidden for Jews, articulating ''Yah'' (which is used more frequently in the Jewish context than ''Jah'' is) is allowed but is usually confined to prayer and study.

The name ''Jah'' is frequently employed by adherents of Rastafari to refer to God.

Etymology

The name of the national god of the kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah is written in the Hebrew Bible as יהוה (YHWH), which modern scholars often render as ''Yahweh''. The short form ''Jah/Yah'', appears in Exodus 15:2 and 17:16, Psalm 89:9, (arguably, by emendation) Song of Songs 8:6,Clifford Hubert Durousseau,
Yah: A Name of God
in ''Jewish Bible Quarterly'', vol. 42:1 (January − March 2014) as well as in the phrase ''Hallelujah''. The name of Yahweh is also incorporated into several theophoric names, however, in almost all cases the Hebrew name itself uses ''-yāhū'', not ''-yāh''. This does not preclude the translation of several ''-yāhū'' names without the added ''ū'', such as Elijah (''ʾĒlīyyāhū'') or Hezekiah (''H̱īzəqīyyahū''), or the existence of several Hebrew names which ''do'' use the ''-yāh'' form, such as Jedidjah, Malchijah, and Adonijah.

In the Tanakh

Yah occurs 50 times: 43 times in the Psalms, in Exodus 15:2; 17:16; and Isaiah 12:2; 26:4, as well as twice in Isaiah 38:11.

In the Christian New Testament

At Revelation 19:1-6, ''Jah'' is embedded in the phrase "hallelujah" ( Tiberian ''halləlûyāh''), a Hebrew expression that literally means "Praise Jah". The short form "IA" (Yah or Jah (יה)) in the phrase hallelouia (Ἁλληλουιά) is transcribed by the Greek ''ia''.

Jewish and Christian Bibles

In the King James Version of the Christian Bible, the Hebrew יהּAbbreviated Tetragrammaton
in the ''Jewish Encyclopedia''. is transliterated as "JAH" (capitalised) in only one instance: "Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him". ''An American Translation'' renders the Hebrew word as "Yah" in this verse. In the 1885 Revised Version and its annotated study edition, The Modern Reader's Bible, which uses the Revised Version as its base text, also transliterates "JAH" in Psalms 89:8 which reads, "O LORD God of hosts, who is a mighty one, like unto thee, O JAH? and thy faithfulness is round about thee".

With the rise of the Reformation, reconstructions of the Tetragrammaton became popular. The Tyndale Bible was the first English translation to use the anglicized reconstruction. The modern letter " J" settled on its current English pronunciation only around 500 years ago; in Ancient Hebrew, the first consonant of the Tetragrammaton always represents a " Y" sound.

Rotherham's ''Emphasised Bible'' includes 49 uses of ''Jah''. In the ''Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition'' Bible, the Jerusalem Bible, and the New Jerusalem Bible (prior to 1998) the name "YHWH" and its abbreviated form "Yah" is found. The ''New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures'', used primarily by Jehovah's Witnesses, employs "Jah" in the Hebrew Scriptures