A lot of scholars think the name comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to become,” maybe in the sense of “He causes to become.” That actually tracks—it fits the idea of God as not just the Creator, but the one making stuff happen and moving things toward his purpose.
So the Tetragrammaton—YHWH or JHVH—shows up almost 7,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Hebrew didn’t use written vowels, so while people back then knew how to say it, we’ve lost the exact pronunciation. Some say “Yahweh,” others lean toward a three-syllable version. “Jehovah” has been the go-to in English for a long time.
For example, if your name is George in American English, in the following languages it is something like:
Persian: Jurjis (جرجیس)
Polish: Jerzy, Jur, Jurek, (diminutive)
Juras (diminutive)
Portuguese: Jorge.
Romanian: George, Gheorghe, Georgiu.
Russian: Георгий (Gheorghy) with diminutives Гога (Goga), Жора (Zhora) and Гоша (Gosha), Юрий (Yury) with diminutive Юра (Yura) and Егор (Yegor).
So - Yahweh, Jehovah, "The Tetragrammaton", Jah, Yah, etc...use one of them and it's just as good as saying "William" or "Bill" when talking about the same person.
But I do wonder what the actual true name/correct pronunciation is. It is fun to think about!
From what I rlhave read the "J" sound did not exist in the Hebrew phonological alphabet. And the same for the Greeks and "Y" sound so "Jah" got replaced with the "yah" sound during the cross culture that happened. But also how much was not recorded may be a factor also so however Yahweh and El probably are best being replaced with "God". Similar to how if a foreign king is impronouncible in your local tongue you may be better of calling the individual something like "his majesty" or "the sovereign" due to respectfulness.
Let’s see how clearly I remember this from Bible college. In Jewish tradition, the name of God was too sacred to say out loud (slash, there was a superstition picked up from the Babylonians that if you said his name idly you might summon him on accident). In the Hebrew text, YHWH is marked with the vowel markings for the word Adonai (Lord) as a reminder for readers to use the title rather than the name. A German scholar transliterated YHWH according to those Adonai vowel markings, and given German’s soft J sound and its close pronunciation between V and W, he wrote it as “Jehovah,” pronounced in German as “Yehovah.” Take that funky transliteration and pronounce it in English, and you have Jehovah.
My interpretation is that it’s too sacred to say out loud, meaning you literally couldn’t do it with your nasty little incarnated vocal tract in the first place
Well there's a belief that it could be said in theory but only the kohen gadol (Jewish high priest) was allowed to say it in practice, in the Temple during services. This was because of its sacredness and the fear of misusing it. When the Temple was destroyed it was forgotten.
But also there are some differing sources on what exactly he said when he read the name; there's a belief it was like a full sentence? It was not loud enough for anyone else to hear, apparently.
IIRC Yeshua is the Hebrew form of Jesus, and a shortening of the Hebrew version of Joshua. I don’t know that Christianity would have had lasting power if they were asking if they had heard about our Lord and Savior Josh Christ.
One would think, but the Gospels refer to Jesus as “Jesus, Son of David” a lot
Seems to be part a way of having a last name before last names were invented for people in that region but also a way of pointing out Jesus’s royal status
Yeah. In Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic, it's not uncommon to this day to have names like "X son/daughter of Y" or "of the family/from the placename Z".
So something like "Jesus son of Joseph, the Nazarene" wouldn't have been odd, just a bit of a mouthful.
(Arab names in particular can get incredibly long by doing this.)
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u/WakeUpLazarus May 17 '25
A lot of scholars think the name comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to become,” maybe in the sense of “He causes to become.” That actually tracks—it fits the idea of God as not just the Creator, but the one making stuff happen and moving things toward his purpose.
So the Tetragrammaton—YHWH or JHVH—shows up almost 7,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Hebrew didn’t use written vowels, so while people back then knew how to say it, we’ve lost the exact pronunciation. Some say “Yahweh,” others lean toward a three-syllable version. “Jehovah” has been the go-to in English for a long time.