Jehovah

Now let us examine Jehovah. Jehovah is an interesting name. One of the first interesting points I will make is that it actually comes from a translational error. The error comes in two stages. 

The first stage comes from what I believe is a misunderstanding on the second of the Ten Commandments which reads:

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

Exodus 20:7

Many have interpreted this to mean that men are not permitted to say the name of God because it is too sacred to be uttered by mortal lips, and that by men speaking His name, they would take his name in vain. While this is an interesting interpretation, I believe it to be a serious distraction from what the Lord really intended. 

I believe that what God really meant is that He desires men to treat sacred things as sacred, and not to treat them lightly. This would include all the things that are considered to be of God such as: marriage, ordinances, scripture, etc. I also believe it includes authority. These matters I have previously discussed in my articles on the Ten Commandments. 

Because men believed that speaking the name of God was a transgression of law,  they would usually substitute a different word when reading the scriptures aloud. The most common word used is Adonai. So to remind readers to say Adonai, the scribes would inscribe the vowel symbols for Adonai on the name of God YHVH יְהֹוָה.   

This is where the second error in translation occurs. German translators tried to convert the Hebrew texts into German, but their lack of knowledge on the history of the word caused them to translate it and pronounce it with the incorrect vowel sounds. Thus YHVH becomes Yehovah. In the German they use the letter J to make the phonetic sounds for "ye", so their translation gets pronounced Jehovah in English. 

Now it is not fully known how YHVH is actually supposed to be pronounced. But just going with the four basic consonants, it tells a great deal about the name and what it means.