Dr Ian Elmer returns today to a discussion that resurfaces from time to time on Catholica — the truly puzzling matter of the names we give to God. His treatment is in part triggered by the recent decision of Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments urging that we drop the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in liturgical celebrations in song or prayer.

What is God's Name?

On June 29, 2008, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a two-page letter signed by Francis Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the congregation prefect and the secretary, respectively. In that letter it was announced that, "By directive of the Holy Father, in accord with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith", the designation for God in the form of the "Tetragrammaton" (literally the "four letter word") was neither to be used nor pronounced in liturgical celebrations, songs and prayers (O'Brien, 2008). This directive has subsequently been reflected in the revised missal and in the new lectionary.

The above image from the Wikipedia discussion on the Tetragrammaton

The letter referred to the proper use of the "Sacred Name" as it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, written as four Hebrew letters (consonants) Yud, hey, vav, hey, which is represented in English by the letters YHVH or YHWH. This format is what we mean by the Tetragrammaton. Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Ranjith explained that the Tetragrammaton, "As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God...was held to be unpronounceable" (O'Brien, 2008).

This claim may come as a surprise to Catholics who have for many years enjoyed singling popular standards from the St Louis Jesuits' songbook, like "[Yahweh] You are Near", "Yahweh, the Faithful One", and "Yahweh's People Dance for Joy". We have come to simply assume that the Tetragrammaton is pronounced "Yahweh".

Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Ranjith are, however, correct. The original Hebrew text was not vocalized. There is no firm consensus on the actual pronouncement or even the spelling of the Tetragrammaton. And there are several representations or transliterations in use by theologians and biblical scholars. Some of the more popular forms are JAHVEH, YAHVEH, YAHWEH and JEHOVAH.

The most popular pronunciation, Yahweh, is derived from the way we designate the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, 'ehyeh 'ašer 'ehyeh, which the Church fathers transliterated into Greek variously as iaoue (Clement of Alexandria) or iabe (Theodoret); in the latter variant, the Greek b has the pronunciation of v (Matthew, et. al., 2000).

In Ancient Israel, the Tetragrammaton YHWH came to be considered too sacred to pronounce; so 'adōnāy ('my Lord') was substituted in reading. In some Christian circles, the vowels of 'adōnāy were combined with the consonants YHWH to give "Jehovah", a form first attested at the start of the 12th century CE (Woods, 1996).

The pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is not the only mystery. There is a very real question of YHWH even being a proper name at all. Let us begin exploring this puzzling issue by looking at the Biblical story that is most closely associated with the revelation of God's name, the tale of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 2:23-4:17).

The Revelation of God's Name

After his initial flight from Egypt as a young runaway, Moses joins Midianite tribes people in the Sinai Peninsula, where he meets and marries his wife. One day, while tending the flocks of sheep belonging to his father-in-law Jethro, Moses encounters a burning bush, from which issues the voice of "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (Ex 2:24; 3:15). God commissions Moses to return to Egypt as his ambassador to the Israelites and as spokesperson before Pharaoh. An interesting conversation between Moses and God ensues:

Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What (mah) is his name?' what shall I say to them?"

 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM" ['ehyeh 'ašer 'ehyeh]. He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you'."

God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations. (Ex 3:13-15)

This seems straight forward, doesn't it? Well, there are a number of significant word-plays going on here in this passage, which our English translations obscure. To begin with, let us consider how Moses asks his question. The normal way to ask a name is to use the pronoun mî – or, in other words "who"; to use mah ("what") invites a reply that goes further, requiring the meaning or substance of the one so named (Woods, 1996). What sort of god are you?

To pursue this issue further, within the world of the Torah or Pentateuch as it presently stands, this is not the first time that the divine designation of YHWH appears. At several points in patriarchal stories in Genesis we are told of instances where Abraham or Isaac build altars and "call on the name of Yahweh" (Gn. 12:8; 13:4; 26:25). One of the earlier editors of the Torah even suggested that the people began to call on God by name soon after the death of Abel at the hands of his brother Cain (Gen 4:26).

So it would seem that when Moses asked what name he should use for God, he was not asking for a new name; but rather he was asking for a deeper understanding of the nature of God. After the opening words God introduces himself thus, 'I am the God of your father' (Ex. 3:6). This at once assumes that Moses would know the name of his father's God.

It is only when God announces his purpose of delivering Israel by the hand of Moses that the latter shows reluctance and asks for reassurance in the form of an "ideological" or a "theological" clarification (Matthews, et. al., 2000).

In ancient Israelite thought, a name was no mere label. It designated the real personality of one to whom it belonged. One's name may derive from the circumstances of one's birth (Gen 5:29), or reflect one's character (Gen 27:36). Moreover, when a powerful individual puts his or her "name" upon a thing or another person the latter comes under the influence and protection of the former.

With this in mind, we can see why Moses would seek further clarification. Are you the sort of God who can pull this off? Can I trust you? What are you?

This further helps to explain the reply, namely 'ehyeh 'ašer 'ehyeh, which is derived from the Hebrew verb "to be" (hāyâ) in the present tense (hōyeh). YHWH, therefore, means: "YAH hōyeh", which means "YAH is..." - YAH being the abbreviated form of the divine name as reflected in some parts of the Hebrew text – e.g., Psalm 68:4. The term is not a name, so much as statement about eternal existence — the divine being "is".

The phrase does not translate easily into English. We usually designate as I AM WHO I AM; but this is far from adequate. Still it does preserve something of the enigmatic nature of the reply. Some scholars have suggested it might better be translated as "HE WHO IS" or "HE WHO CAUSES WHAT IS" (Boadt, 1984: 166-167). This is at once a declaration that this God is the one, true God, maker of all that is and, moreover, the God who will be with Moses in his trials.

In modern Hebrew grammar this matter of God's name is so serious and important, that the verb "to be" is not used in the present tense at all! An Israeli will therefore state in Hebrew: "I teacher ... I clever", omitting the verb "to be" (I am) in the present tense. Why? Well, usage of the Hebrew verb 'hōyeh' (I am) would imply referring to oneself as being the divine being.

Origins of the Name

We noted that, according to the Bible, Moses was probably not the first to whom God revealed the divine name. Genesis suggests the origins of the name predate the recorded memory of Israel. But scholars have arrived at a few guesses that seem plausible enough and may help explain why the editors of the Torah believed the name to be incredibly ancient.

There are a number of possible occurrences of Yahweh or Yah as a deity's name outside of Israel, though all are debatable (Boadt, 1998). One of the most intriguing is the reference to "Yhw in the land of the Shasu", mentioned in some Egyptian inscriptions in Nubia (modern Sudan) from the mid-second millennium, during the reign of the Pharoah Amenophis (1408-1372 BCE).

The Shasu are Bedouins related in the same inscriptions to the area of Seir (cf. Deut 33:2; Jgs 5:4). This might find confirmation in the biblical indication that Moses' father-in-law, Jethro the Midianite, was a worshiper of YHWH (Ex 18). We must remember, however, that the Bible counts Midian as a descendant of Abraham (Gen 25:2–4), so this may not be unrelated to the Israelite God — which might suggest some projection of the later cult of YHWH back onto Jethro.

Amenophis' son was Amenophis VI or Akhenaton (1370-1353 BCE). He is famous for his aborted attempt to displace the polytheistic cults of Egypt's traditional pantheon of deities with a proto-monotheistic worship of Aton, the sun disc. Some scholars have thought the monotheistic Mosaic faith to be heavily influenced by Akhenaton's earlier dalliance with a single god. Psalm 104, for example, bears much in common with Akhenaton's "Hymn to Aton" (Charpentier, 2005).

The problem, however, with all of this evidence is that is much too early. The Exodus is usually dated 1250-1200 BCE, more than a thousand years later. Moreover, the YHWH cult bears little or no resemblance to either of the earlier cults of the Nomadic tribes people or Akhenaton. The similarities in name and number of deities are but "skin deep" — something which the later editors of the Torah are well aware.

Genesis recognizes that other peoples may worship God in various inadequate forms. Indeed, even the Patriarchs may not have fully comprehended the nature of God. In the Genesis stories of the Patriarchs, different aspects of God's nature are highlighted by the names used to designate divine; names that were shared by many of the surrounding peoples whom the Patriarchs encountered. Thus we have God named variously as 'ēl 'elyôn (God Most High) [Gen. 14:18–20], 'ēl roi (God who sees me) [Gen. 16:13], 'ēl šadday (God Almighty) [Gen. 17:1], 'ēl 'ôlām (the Eternal God) [Gen. 21:33].

In Genesis (14:19-20), the pagan priest-king of Salem (later under King David, Jerusalem), Melchizedek, blesses Abraham in the name of 'ēl 'elyôn, "maker of heaven and earth", so identifying 'ēl 'elyôn as the supreme God. Similarly, the King of Sodom offers Abraham a gift, which he refuses, lifting up his hand to Yahweh, 'ēl 'elyôn, "maker of heaven and earth" (14:22). In both cases it would seem that the Salemites and Sodomites worship the same "supreme God" (for there is only one), who called Abraham to be his servant, and whom Abraham addressed as Yahweh, 'ēl 'elyôn (Yahweh, the Maker of Heaven and Earth).

With the advent of Moses and his encounter with the God of Abraham, YHWH, becomes more than a personal name for the "most high god"; but a designation for a very new understanding of God. Unlike previous names, or even the previous use of YHWH, Moses' inspired rendering of God's name does not limit God's nature to any particular characteristic: I AM WHO I AM.

Furthermore, this rendering suggests that the divine nature does not change; nor is YHWH fickle or capricious, demanding sacrifices to appease the divine anger. YHWH is the God worshipped by earlier generations (the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob) and generations yet to come (this is my name for ever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation). But even this does not fully appreciate the innovative nature of the designation YHWH.

Probably the best attempt to capture the genius of the name YHWH in Exodus is that of the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, who renders 'ehyeh 'ašer 'ehyeh as "I will be as I will be", which he interprets, not so much as a proper name, but as a promise of God's power and enduring presence with Moses and the Israelites in the process of their deliverance (Buber, 1946: 39–55). Contained in that reply is the constancy of God "who has been, is now, and ever shall be" present, which is offered as the essential nature or substance of the one so named — YHWH is, therefore, at-one-and-the-same-time a name, a description and a guarantee.

Naming God...

Returning to the issue of the new missal and the earlier directive to cease using "Yahweh" in Catholic hymns and prayers, we are now probably in a better position to assess the reasons for this change.

There has been much talk recently about a supposed "reform of the reform" in Catholic liturgy. Whatever the value of those observations, the recent prohibition against naming God as "Yahweh" is not a case of ideological revisionism. It is pure and simply a return to appropriate language. And there may be a number of very practical reasons for doing so.

Contrary to anything you have heard the vocalisation of the Tetragrammaton as "Yahweh" is neither supported by the biblical text, nor by biblical scholarship. It is one possible vocalisation, but we have no guarantee that it is correct.

Francis Cardinal Arinze

It is unlikely the Hebrew people ever "pronounced it, and read it aloud". As Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Ranjith rightly claim, the Tetragramaton is unpronounceable. It appears only as consonants; the vowels that appear in the Hebrew text have always been the vowels of Adonai or Elohim, to remind the lector to say Adonai or Elohim.

Even today, in both Judaism and up until recent times in Christianity, the Tetragrammaton is/was written as "Adonai" in Hebrew and "Lord" in English. Accordingly, translations of the original Hebrew scrolls have, throughout the ages, replaced the Tetragrammaton with "the LORD" (in capital letters) and the "Sacred Name", in so doing, became "lost" for many centuries. If you look in most Christian Bibles published before the 1960s you will not find the Tetragrammaton.

It was only during the sixties, that there has been a movement in modern theology and especially amongst biblical scholars throughout the world, to restore the newly "rediscovered" Sacred Name. Sacred Name publications which chose to restore the Sacred Name in the almost 7000 instances in the Bible appeared one after the other. The "Sacred Name Movement", towards the nineties and the turn of the millennium, became a flood. Hence most bibles, Hebrew and Christian now bear the "Yahweh", rather than LORD or YHWH — but this does not represent the original text.

The overriding problem here is that we are attempting to transliterate the Sacred Name by the process of representing the original Hebrew sound, or combination of sounds, which form a spoken word by which God is known and identified, in the closest corresponding letters of a different alphabet.

It is obvious, that this process of using "the closest corresponding letters", would present various options in the "new" alphabet, more so, because some Hebrew letters or sounds are not always represented in other languages.

An absurdity presented by this transliterating process, is that often the "new" representations introduce sounds that are non-existent in the Hebrew language, as for instance:

(a) the "J" in "Jehovah" ("J" as in "George");
(b) the "J" in "Jesus";
(c) the "w" in "Yahweh" or "Yahowah".

None of these sounds exist in Hebrew — so YahWeh is completely foreign, as is the popular German rendering of Jahveh.

Given the nature of the Hebrew alphabet, the vocalisation of YHWH could, and probably should be pronounced Iahveh. But there are many other equally probably variations: YHVH; YHWH; Yahweh; Yahveh; Yaveh; Yaweh; Jehova; Jehovah; Jahova; Jahovah; Yahova; Yahovah; Yahowah; Jahowa; Jahowah; Yahavah; Jahavah; Yahowe; Yahoweh; Jahaveh; Jahaweh; Yahaveh; Yahaweh; Jahuweh; Yahuweh; Jahuwah; Yahuwah; Yahuah; Yah; Jah; Yahu; Yahoo; Yaohu; Jahu; Yahvah; Jahvah; Jahve; Jahveh; Yahve; Yahwe; Yauhu; Yawhu; Iahu; Iahou; Iahoo; and Iahueh.

Ultimately, however, there is the much more serious matter of impoverishing the great insight of Moses that the God whom he encountered in the burning bush cannot simply be reduced to a name. To do that would be to try naming the unnameable presence who is at hand to the past, present and future as the ground of all being.

Bibliography and Further Reading:
O'Brien, N. Frazier (2008), "No 'Yahweh' in songs, prayers at Catholic masses, Vatican rules" CNS 18 August. URL: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804119.htm
Boadt, L. (1984). Reading the old testament: an introduction. New York: Paulist Press.
Buber, M. (1946), Moses. Oxford: East and West Library.
Charpentier, E. (2005). How to read the Old Testament. Translated by J. Bowden. New York: Crossroad.
Matthews, V. H., Chavalas, M. W., and Walton, J. H. (2000), The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Wood, D. R. W. (1996), New Bible Dictionary. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Photo Credits:
Clicking on the images used in the story will take you to the original source.

©2009 Dr Ian Elmer

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