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. 

Adonai

Next we will examine Adonai. Adonai אֲדֹנָי is a plural form of the word Adon אָדוֹן which means lord or master. 'Ad' אד means to gather, and in this word denotes a sense of ownership.  So a literal translation of Adon is 'my lord' or 'my master'. So this means Adonai translates as 'my lords'.

Closely related is the Hebrew 'eden' אדן which basically means foundation. This connection would strongly support that the Lord is "the Lord that can be relied upon".  It represents a strength. 

Again, biblical scholars insist that even though this word is plural in form, that it refers to a singular God. Now why the contradiction between what the scriptures clearly say and what the scholars say?  The answer to this question is really all too simple. It is because modern theologians are trying to make the scriptures conform to modern theology, rather than trying to make modern theology conform to the ancient teachings. Man has gotten into a nasty habit of trying to justify his own beliefs rather than trying to understand the truth. So even though the truth is plainly written in the ancient Hebrew texts, often man has to overlay his own traditions and interpretations.

Elohim

Let us start with one of the ancient Hebrew words for God. The first word we will examine is Elohim (אֱלֹהִים). To understand Elohim, we must break it down and look at its components. 

An interesting thing about Ancient Hebrew is that it is a very complex language with specific religious meaning built into the syllables and letters.  As few things to also remember when examining Hebrew is that you read from right to left and that ancient Hebrew did not have vowels, so when examining Hebrew we have to remind ourselves that often the original text may have used different vowels than what has been currently attributed. 

The first component of Elohim is the Hebrew 'El'  אל, which means God or diety and is synonymous to might and strength as well as leadership. The next component is 'hay' or 'oh' ה, which denotes goodness, grace, mercy, and also a feminine quality. The final part is 'im' ים which denotes  a masculine plural quality. So embedded in this Hebrew word for God are some interesting and descriptive qualities. It describes a being that is powerful, possesses authority, goodness, righteousness, virtue, mercy, justice, strength, femininity, and masculinity. 

Many biblical scholars will insist that the plural form doesn't mean anything because the word is used in a singular sense, or they will call it a plural of majesty, a way of referring to a singular as a plural to signify importance. But I believe the ancient scholars and scribes said what they meant and meant what they said. If the Hebrew God was a singular bring as the modern scholars insist, they could have called Him 'El' or 'Eloah'. That would denote Him as a singular being. In fact this is how the Muslim "Allah" came to be. 

On an additional note, I believe this representation of God as both masculine and feminine is important in its own right, and I will get to that in an upcoming article.