Chapter 3

According to the Old Testament, the Jews frequently used God's name YAHWEH in everyday conversation, but later generations (on the basis of Exodus 20.7) abstained from pronouncing the word at all. What happened, then, when the Hebrew Scriptures were to be read aloud in temple or synagogue services? They adopted the simple expedient of substituting a title of God, usually ADONAI, in place of YAHWEH, whenever the latter appeared in the sacred text, whether it stood alone or in combination (as in YAHWEH ELOHIM). However, the combination ADONAI YAHWEH also occurs quite frequently, so to avoid a repetition of ADONAI here the title ELOHIM was substituted for YAHWEH; thus both combinations were read out as ADONAI ELOHIM. The Authorised Version distinguishes between these two original combinations by printing the translations as "LORD God" and Lord GOD" respectively (i.e. full capitals represent YAHWEH in the Hebrew text) ¹⁹

In a 'pointed' Hebrew text, i.e. one which supplies the vowels as small dots and dashes under the Hebrew letters (which are all consonants), the reader was always reminded of these substitutions by the following expedient:

the vowel points of the substitute title replaced the vowels which would have belonged to the name YAHWEH.

Unfortunately, early translators did not appreciate that this replacement signalled to the reader that he should pronounce the substitute title (either ADONAI or ELOHIM) when reading the text out loud. Instead they proceeded to incorporate the substitute vowels into the original consonants. From this misunderstanding arose the form 'JEHOVAH' (more strictly 'Y'HOVAH), which has the consonants YHWH (strictly YHVH) with the vowels of ADONAI!

The true vowels of YHWH are a matter of debate amongst scholars, but the general consensus is that they were A and E, producing the form 'YAHWEH'.  ²⁰

TITLES OF THE DEITY

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The Trinity - true or false?