THE REVEALED NAME OF GOD YHWH (Part 2)
Pronounced as it is written
Some people think that the pronunciation of the Divine Name has been lost and that we are no longer able to use it with the exact vocalisation. In the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:23, it is written that Jehovah will make his Name known in the worldwide part of the earth, especially at the time of the great tribulation. Therefore, God has been taking care of his Name in order to keep it known, particularly in his Word, the Bible. Some historical and technical information, regarding the Divine Name, are based on a book entitled, “A History of the Divine Name” — (L’Harmattan (French edition)), written by Mister Gerard Gertoux, a Hebrew scholars. This information concerning the Divine Name is supported by several hundred references as historical sources. The introduction of this book, on pages 9 and 10 summarizes very well all of this historical research work concerning the Divine Name. There is no mystery:
“First of all, the writing of the name of God is not a problem: it is the name of four letters YHWH, called the Tetragrammaton. How to pronounce such a Name? The dictionaries or encyclopedias indicate that “Yahweh” is an uncertain vocalisation, and that “Jehovah” is a barbarism from misreading, unbelievable as it may seem, this last statement is deliberately false, but this gross error was denounced by Hebrew scolars of all religions, including the support of the Vatican (Congregation of Propaganda), but without result.
This name YHWH is read without difficulty because it is pronounced as it is written, or “according to its letters”, to quote the expression of the Talmud. In fact, until 70 AD, the high priests read the blessing of Numbers 6:24–27, in the Atonement Day, the Yom Kippur by pronouncing the Name, YHWH, according to his letters, that is to say as it is written. In fact, this name is even the easiest to read of the entire Bible since it has four vowels, as Flavius Josephus wrote it. The question of knowing which vowels were used to read YHWH is absurd, because the Masoretic vowels did not appear until at least the sixth century AD. Before that, the Hebrew names were vocalized through the three letters Y, W, H, as the writings of Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) have largely confirmed. The letter Y was read I (or Ê), letter W: Û (or O) and the letter H: A at the end of the words. For example, YH is read IA. YHWDH is read literally IHUDA (Judah). If the name did not have any vowels, then the vowel “a” was inserted; thus YSHQ is read: ISaHaQ (Isaac), YRWSLYM: IRÛSaLIM (Jerusalem); etc. The name YHWH was read IHUA (Ioua). To better hear the letter H (almost inaudible), we could add a “e” mute. So the name YHWDH that can be read literally IH-Û-DA, becomes I-eH-Û-DA, the exact equivalent of the Hebrew name Yehuda . This slight improvement gives for the Name YHWH the pronunciation I-Eh-Û-A (Ieoua), the equivalent of the Masoretic punctuation YeHoWaH. This coincidence is remarkable and providential if one believes that God has watched over his Name (Visibly unbeknownst to the copyists)” (“History of the Divine Name” pages 9 and 10). We will have the opportunity to come back to other convergent information on the vocalisation of the Divine Name, Jehovah, by an examination of the Hebrew and Aramaic “theophoric” biblical names (with the tetragrammaton, partially (YH) or in its entirety (YHWH)).
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