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Solomon, reportedly the wisest man who ever lived, tells us in
Ecclesiastes 12:12, that "of making many books there is no end;..."
Solomon was and is indeed correct. In like manner there are
numerous web sites with excellent articles on the Name YHWH.
For this reason we have decided not to go into a great deal of
the semantics of the name YHWH. Preferring to provide links at
the bottom of the page, to those excellent articles that some
folk have gone to so much effort to provide for us.
There are however some aspects that we wish to discuss here.
One is the importance of Ha Shem (The Name) and another is
the subject of transliteration. Let us take transliteration first.
Recently we read an article written by someone who was quite
obviously looking for an excuse not to use the Sacred Name. In
an attempt to discredit those who do use the Name, the author
stated that, even the Sacred Name followers, did not really know
what the Name was. It was stated that this was obvious as some
said it was Yahweh, others said Yahuweh, Yahveh, Yahwah,
Ieauoe, Iaue etc., etc.
Folks, we will admit that, if you take a quick look at that list, it does
appear that this anonymous writer was correct.
Still this argument very quickly turns to custard (British idiom)
when you consider the following:
A transliteration is not a translation, for those that are unsure, a
translation is when words have equivalent meaning,
eg.the Hebrew 'Ha Shem' and the English 'The Name' mean the
same, they sound entirely different, but mean the same.
A transliteration on the other hand, is spelling something with our
alphabet, as it 'sounds' in the other language.
All these various spellings, are just that, various peoples attempts
to spell The Name as it is spoken. Why do we have such a variety
of different spellings?
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Even amongst native born English speaking nations there are a
variety of accents, from one county to another in Britain, or
from one state to another in America. The typist here cringes
every time she hears someone say the word 'controversy' in the
American style, wishing they would say the British 'controversy'.
To look at that in writing, it seems like a stupid statement doesn't
it. The word 'controversy' is spelt the same in both cases, but
when you hear it spoken it is quite different.
The Americans say "con-trov-ersy" with a hard 'o' as in 'of',
while the British say "con-tro-versy" with a soft 'o' as in ‘show.’
So much for pronunciation, how do we get on with spelling ? No
better at all. The computer is programmed with an American
spell check, after 50 odd years of spelling British style, can you
imagine how annoying it is to have a computer tell you that you
cannot spell ‘colour’ with a 'u' it has to be 'color' or 'centre' with
an 're' it has to be 'center'. The point here is, that whichever way
you spell them, colour still sounds like color, and centre still sounds
like center.The same applies to 'YHWH', it matters not how you
spell it, we don't send letters or e-mails to Yahuweh, we do not
have that ability. We talk to Yahuweh. It’s what we speak out that
counts, not how we spell it
Another thing that adds to the variety of spellings is that, not
everyone is a native English speaker. So the letters of the alphabet
do not necessarily represent the same sounds to everyone.
e.g. If I were to say, "a bucket of Moet & Chandon would be.....",
the 'et' in 'bucket' being an English word, would sound as in 'get',
but the 'et' in 'Moet' being French would sound as 'ay' in 'hay'.
So it is with a number of languages, the same letters represent
different sounds to different people. Added to this is the fact that
some Germanic peoples have difficulty pronouncing the 'w' sound,
which ends up sounding as a 'v'. In just the same manner as the
Ephraimites (Judges 12:5-6) could not pronounce Shibbo-leth,
saying, Sibbo-leth instead.
So folks you see all these various aspects contribute to the
variety of spellings, but said fast they all sound the same.
The historian Josephus, said that the Tetragramatton, consisted
of four vowel sounds. Eeee--aaaaahh----ooouuuu-----aaaayyy.
That’s how I describe the sounds, someone else may represent the
sounds another way. Try saying those four sounds quickly and you
will find that they sound like Yahweh or Yahuweh or the other
spellings.
Some folk will find any excuse not to use the Tetragram or the
Hebrew name of Yahushua Ha Mashiach. Others simply have not
understood or considered the reasons for spelling differences.
The Name is important, we cannot afford to ignore it.
The Importance of using The Name.
The use of The Name is so important that we have dedicated two
separate pages to the topic. At the bottom of the page you will
find an arrow leading right to ‘By No Other Name’, another leading
left to ‘The Third Commandment’. Centre you will find a link to
‘Confusion of Words’, a page discussing why we avoid certain words.
Below are some Links to pages dealing with the Semantics of the
Tetragrammaton.
LINKS
http://www.houseofsteed.com/shofar/downloads/Tetragram.PDF
This is a PDF file that you need Adobe Acrobat to read, if for any
reason you cannot install Adobe Acrobat, contact us we will send
you a printed copy of the article.
http://yaim.org/Pages/missingJ.htm
An article in two parts covering many aspects of the Tetragram
http://www.yahsaves.org/home.htm
At this site, click on Booklets, then under Doctrines you will find the
article entitled "The Names of The FATHER and THE SON."
return to top.
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