Treasures New and Old

Calling on the Name of the Lord: Yahweh/Jehovah

God’s name is very important. His name is holy, pure, and represents His character and love towards us. Yet I often hear prayers end in “amen” without mentioning even the phrase “in His name I pray,” or “in name of Jesus I pray”, or something similar. The Scripture is full of examples of men calling on the name of God in their prayers. Here are a few examples:

• Abraham called on the name of the Lord (Genesis 12:8; 13:4).
• The Lord proclaimed His own name before Moses (Exodus 33:19; 34:5).
• Israel was warned against profaning the name of the Lord (Leviticus 18:21; 22:2, 32).
• The name of the Lord was not to be taken in vain (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11).
• The priests of Israel were to minister in the name of the Lord (Deuteronomy 18:5; 21:5).
• The name of God is called “wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6.
• To call on the name of the Lord was to worship Him as God (Genesis 21:33; 26:25).

So – what is His Name?

In this series of articles, I want to explore the various names of the Lord. When we pray and call upon His name, it is good to know on whom we are calling. Does that mean that there are many gods? NO! It does mean that He has many names, and that each has been given to us so that we can pray more specifically and use one of the many characteristics that is embodied in our God. Let’s get started.

YHWH (or) YHVH: Yahweh, Jehovah?

Judges 13:18: “And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret [wonderful, incomprehensible (Brown, Driver, & Briggs, H6383)]?”

Exodus 3:15: “And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”

The name YHWH is very old, and we may assume that the source texts called the Torah (first five books of the Bible also called the Books of Moses) we now have contained it. It is equally likely that the Book of the Covenant which Moses read aloud to the Israelites contained it too (Exodus 24:7). But as some point in time, people began to believe that the name YHWH was so holy that normal mortals better not pronounce it. Instead, wherever the text called for YHWH, a reader would pronounce the Hebrew word for lord: Adonai. And so, what started out as a wonderfully pious idea made the pronunciation of God’s personal name vanish from human consciousness. Even today Jews often substitute YHWH with Adonai, Lord, or HaShem (HaShem literally means “the Name”). Many Orthodox Jews will not even spell it out but prefer to spell it “G-d” because of their reverence for it.

YHWH H3068: “yehovah yeh-ho-vaw’ . . . (the) self-Existent or eternal; Jehovah, Jewish national name of God:- Jehovah, the Lord . . .” (Strong’s H3068). Composed of the Jewish letters yod, heh, vav, heh. Interestingly, the yod and the vav can be consonant or a vowel. Today YHWH is a tetragrammaton and is considered to contain no vowels. You may have seen Hebrew Bible Script with all kinds of dots, little symbols, etc. that were added by scribes to ensure that words would not become unpronounceable. YHWH does not use these, and so today, we really don’t know how to pronounce the “incomprehensible” name of God.

God’s name is almost always translated LORD (all caps) in the English Bible. But the Hebrew would be pronounced something like Yahweh and is built on the word for “I am.”

What can we learn from this very special name of God?

• He is the self-existent one – He did not and does not need any other being for Him to exist.

• He, therefore, has had no beginning – since no other being was needed for Him to exist, it is logical that He exists within Himself. It is strongly implied that He, therefore, had no beginning. He will have no end. Depending on nothing else for His existence, He, therefore, must be the only source to end Himself which, of course, He will not.

• Since He is self-existent, we can conclude that He is outside all universe dimensions including time. Indeed, we are taught by the Bible that He created all things. As the only self-existent one, He had to be the creator as He is the only source for beginning, anything else as all else is not self-existent. Since He is outside of time and space, He is not controlled by them, but instead controls them. This makes Him omnipotent and omnipresent. Additionally, we can conclude that since He is outside these things, created these things, controls these things, that He also is aware of all things thus is also omniscient.

• Since He is self-existent, He, therefore, is totally independent upon Himself. He needs no other. The fact that He created us for fellowship with Him in eternity does not change this truth. He desires fellowship with us but does not require it to exist.

• Since no other being is self-existent, all other beings (men, angels, animals) all owe their existence to Him. Therefore all of creation (universe) is solely dependent upon Him for existence.

• Since He is self-existent, He is the standard for all things. He alone is perfectly holy within Himself. We must derive our holiness from Him. That is why He had to provide a way of escape for us through Christ – taking upon Himself our sins and providing for us His holiness and righteousness.

Here is an interesting factoid: it was customary for the Romans to put a sign on each cross. This sign labeled the person being crucified with the crime for which they had been charged. The sign was called a titlon, and it was an official announcement from the presiding government official. Pilate wrote the inscription and had it nailed to the top of the cross of Jesus.

John 19:19-22: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The king of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.”

What made the chief priests so angry? Here’s where we find the hidden message. We assume that the chief priests did not want to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the King of the Jews, but there was a deeper message (whether or not intended by Pilate) that alarmed and stirred them to even greater concern. The message is found in understanding the inscription written in Hebrew. Remember that the Hebrew language is written from right to left, so it would have read:

The Jews | King of | The Nazarene | Jesus

(Jesus The Nazarene King of the Jews)

In Hebrew it would be:

HaYehudim | VMelech | HaNazarei | Yeshua

(Yeshua HaNazarei VMelech HaYehudim)

The message is found in the acrostic that is formed by these words. The acrostic formed by the first letters of each word in the inscription on the titlon (reading right to left) is YHVH. Basically, God allowed Pilate to declare that Jesus was YHVH – the LORD!

As we all learn to “call on the name of the Lord”, let us remember that one of His names is the “YHWH”, and even if we disagree on how to pronounce it, He is unable to be comprehended by us. When you seek to understand the complex, when you cannot cope with overwhelming circumstances, call on the name of the Lord – YHWH.

Until He returns:

May God bless you all!

Bro. Joe

References

Brown, F., Driver, S., & Briggs, C. Brown-Drivers-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions. Meyers, R. (2005). e-Sword. [computer software] . Franklin, TN: Equipping Ministries Foundation.

Strong, J. Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries. Meyers, R. (2005). e-Sword. [computer software] . Franklin, TN: Equipping Ministries Foundation. (Original work published 1539)

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