THE GHOST WORD, JEHOVAH
How It Came to Be
7/22/86Webmaster's note: A ghost word is a word which is taken to be a word, but is not.
For many centuries the Jewish people have considered the name of the Supreme Being too sacred to be uttered.. Professor Anson F. Rainey of Tel Aviv University says the name is YHWH, * often referred to as the Tetragrammaton, meaning "the four letter." Transliterated into English, the name should be spelled Yahweh. In the Middle ages the Jewish scribes placed vowel points above the four letters to remind the reader to pronounce "Adonai" (Lord) instead of the Sacred Name. As an added safeguard, the scribes placed a "e" as the first vowel (instead of and "a") which means the spelling of the word "Adonai" was altered to "Edonai," (the "e" having an "a" sound, evidently. The reason for this altered spelling was to prevent the reader from seeing together the letter "Y" (of YHWH) and the letter "a" (of Adoani), as "Ya" is the shortest form of the Sacred Name. YHWH = Yahweh. EOA = Edonai. In English, this vowel pointing can be illustrated in the following way:
e o a = vowels of Edonai
Y H W H = the four letters of the Sacred Name
When the Teutonic peoples began translating the Scriptures into the local languages, it was not known to them that the scribes had pointed the Sacred Name with the vowels of the word Edonai, so they transliterated these as one word, Y (e) H (o) W (a) H ("Jehovah" in the King James Bible). It seems that the letter "V' in "Jehovah" replaced the "W' because of German influence. ** However, "W' seems to be the correct vocalization, as indicated by the accent of the Yemenite Jews in Israel. Through the centuries they have retained the purest pronunciation of the Hebrew language, even to the present day. #
In transliterating Hebrew names into English, the letter "I' was used instead of "Y." This can be seen by consulting the original King James Bible of 1611. It has few J's in the text. Once the letter "J" came into use in English literature in the 17th century , it replaced the letter "I" in those names in the English Bibles which began with the letter "I." However, these names should really be spelled with the letter "Y." ## By the end of the 17th century, the ghost word "Jehovah" had made a place for itself in the English language.*
Biblical Archaeology Review, July August 1985, Pages 78, 79.
**
Sacred Name Broadcaster, Pub. by Assemblies of Yahweh, Betel, PA.; April 1974, page 28.
# Mary Montgomery, Beer Tuvia, Israel, in letters dated 4/30/83 and 6/12/83.
##
Analytical Concordance to the Bible, by Robert Young LL. D.,
W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, MI., in a supplement,
"A Complete List of Scripture Proper Names."
Articles By Voy WilksOther Sources On The Name "Jehovah"JEHOVAH, ji-ho'va (... properly yahweh): The form 'Jehovah' is impossible, according to the strict principle of Heb. vocalization. It is due to the arbitrary transference of the vowels of adonay, lord', to the sacred name _ _ _ _ after the Jews became over-scrupulous as to the pronunciation of the Name .... A New Standard Bible Dictionary Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York and London, 1936, pg. 418
Yahweh - “The Masoretes who from the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of Adonai or Elohim. Thus the artificial name Jehovah came into being.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 12, 1993 ed.
“It is clear that the word Jehovah is an artificial composite.” The New Jewish Encyclopedia, 1962 ed.Strong's Using a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Genesis 2:4 shows the name of the Father in Heaven is Hebrew word #3068. Page 47 of the Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary in the back of this same book shows that word 3068 is the tetragrammaton ( 
), read right to left, the letters are: Yod-Hay-Waw-Hay). Also word #3069 on this same page shows the same tetragrammaton with different vowel points: a var. of 3068 [used after 136, and pronounced by Jews as 430, in order to prevent the repetition of the same sound, since they eleswhere pronounce 3068 as 136]. The Jews would not say YAHWEH, instead they say [136] ADONAI; (my) Lord (see page 8 of the Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary in the back of the Strong's). -- Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible.
Gesenius' "The later Hebrews, for some centuries before the time of the [Messiah], either misled by a false interpretation of certain laws (Ex. 20:7, Lev. 24:11), or else following some old superstition, regarded this name as so very holy, that it might not even be pronounced. Whenever, therefore, this tetragrammaton ( ) occurred in the sacred text, they were accustomed to substitue for it ADONAI (LORD), and thus the vowels of the noun ADONAI are in the Masoretic text placed under the four letters , but with this difference, that the initial Yod receives a simple and not a compound Sh'va." (Page 337, Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament.
"The word "Jehovah is a hybrid, arising from a misunderstanding. The word "Yahweh," which more nearly corresponds to the original Hebrew name, is preferable; cp. Bade The Old Testament in the Light of Today (Boston, 1915), pp. 313 f.
The Jehovah's Witness' own Aid to Bible Understanding says, "The first recorded use of this form [Jehovah] dates from the 13th century C.E. [after Messiah]. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270. Hebrew scholars generally favor ‘Yahweh’ as the most likely pronunciation" (pp. 884-885).
Steven T. Byington, The Bible in Living English published by the Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in the preface states that the pronunciation Jehovah is "A BLUNDER".Consonants Or Vowels?
YHWHYHWH 600 B.C.E
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