I’m sharing just a short note on the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH), the four consonant Hebrew name of God found throughout the Old Testament, which was translated Jehovah in the early English translations of the Bible, which continued the traditional pronunciation.
Yahweh is the pronunciation which contemporary “scholars” prefer. This has become more prominent in the last two decades and is now finding its way into the newer English translations of the Bible. This pronunciation is actually a German scholar’s phonetic reconstruction from the 19th Century that has no explicit documented usage in history, and nearly identically mirrors the recorded 5th century Samaritan pronunciation, rather than how the Jews were said to pronounce it.
More specifically, Yahweh was derived in part from this historical note from Theodoret of Cyrus, in the 5th Century, which reads as follows, “καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτὸ Σαμαρεῖται μὲν Ἰαβέ, Ἰουδαῖοι δὲ Ἀϊά.” Or in English, the Samaritans call [pronounce] this Yahweh (or ee-ah-VAY), the Jews call it Aia. Note that “Aia” is a substitute, since reportedly the Jews didn’t pronounce God’s name and substituted the vowel sounds from Adonai.
Given that the Samaritans were known for cult centers (high places, other temples), idol worship (golden calves, the brazen serpent), paganism (Ba’al, Molech, Astarte, Asherah), building their own alternate temple at Gerizim, and various forms of institutional corruption, do we really want to prefer their pronunciation of God’s name over that of the Masoretes, from which we get the Hebrew Old Testament which is the basis for our translations?
What has me pondering that thought this week is the realization that many Jewish names today include a portion of YHVH, but hardly any – if any at all – use a “weh” pronunciation. In fact, Google AI said no Jewish names use the “weh” sound, but always take AI for a grain of salt. What might be some examples of this? Well for starters, one you hear often on the news, is Benjamin Netanyahu. That “yahu” suffix comes from YHVH. Other examples of this as a suffix are Eliyahu (Elijah), Yeshayahu (Isaiah), and Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah).
As a prefix, we also never find the a “Yahweh” indicative pronunciation. When moved to the front of a name, you have examples like Yehonatan (Jonathan) or Yehoshua (Joshua), which still reflect Yaho/Yahu, as in Jehovah.
To be clear – no, men in ancient times didn’t say “Jehovah” as a southern, English speaking American would pronounce it. There wasn’t a J sound. There were different accents and inflections. We’re dealing in translations. But this is very credible evidence that the attempt at reproducing the pronunciation which resulted in Yahweh is likely very incorrect.
Suffice it to say, I’ll keep using Jehovah/Yehovah.