The Significant Name of God (3)
Names that referred to the great Name
André H. Roosma
8 May 2020 (NL original: 14 Nov. 2014)
In ancient Isra’el it was customary to name people after God’s glorious
Name: YaHUaH - The Name above all names.1. We speak of theophoric
names – literally: names that carry the Name of God within them; that
honour or exalt God in that way, while also invoking and displaying His
protection.
In the Bible there are many such names of people that end in -yah or -yahu,
although a large part of them has been mutilated in most translations
(e.g., אֵלִיָּהוּ -
’Eli-yahu -> Elijah, יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ
- Yo’shi-yahu -> Josiah; see also the
extensive report on the glorious Name1 for many more examples).
Of course, these days we all know the name of the Prime Minister of Israel:
Netan-yahu (given by YaHU).
That people in Israel were given names that ended in -yahu, for example,
we know not only from the Bible, but also from texts of surrounding peoples
found during archaeological excavations. In scientific publications on this
subject I recently discovered something beautiful, which I would like to
share with you here in the next section. It also says something about the
pronunciation of the great Name of the God of Israel: YaHUaH.
The names of people beginning with a part of the Great Name
In the Bible we not only find names of which the last part refers to the
glorious Name of God, the Bible also gives many names that begin with such
a reference. In the Hebrew text that has been handed down to us, many of
those names start with Jeho- or Jo- (e.g. Jeho-jaqim, in translations:
Jehoiakim). So that seems to deviate a bit from the pronunciation of
the first syllables of the great Name of God as I call it here: YaHUaH.
However, what appears to be the case?2 During archaeological excavations in the
countries around Israel, many clay tablets and other inscriptions have been
found on which the names of important persons from northern Israel and
Jehudah are mentioned, for example in Akkadian
cuneiform writing. And what do the names of those people begin with in those
inscriptions? Not with Jeho-, or Yeho-, but with: Yahu-
(e.g. MT: Yehu’ -> Yahu-a,
MT: Yeho-achaz (Jehoahaz) -> Yahu-khazi, as far as the latter
is concerned, compare: MT:Chizqi-yahu (Hezekia or Hizkia) ->
Khazaqi-yahu)!
Also the people of Judah, or the Jews, were called Yehudi in the Hebrew Bible, after their patriarch Yehudah, but all the peoples around them said that
in the time of the kings, and even until the fourth century B.C., this sounded
like Yahuda-a (or Yahudu).
Thus, the name of their patriarch appears to be even more in keeping with
what his mother used to say when naming him: YaHUaH wadah (YaHUaH be thanked/praised), quickly pronounced:
Yahudah.
Also the translators of the Peshitta, an early Aramaic translation
of the First Testament, added vowels to the Aramaic text. In the fourth
century of our era, so: far before the vowels in the Masoretic Text, they
added to all Y.h.-names the vowels of Yahu-.
On the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile it appears that their
pronunciation of Hebrew (that most of them had largely
forgotten), had changed, apparently also in this respect.
This is fully in line with what researchers such as Max Reisel3
and myself1 found about the original pronunciation of the
glorious Name of God Himself: not Jehovah or Yahweh, but YaHUaH
[Ya-hoo-áh].
It also means that Joshua – who was allowed to lead Israel into
the promised land and was a foreshadowing of Jesus – in reality was
not called Jeho-shu‘a, but
Yahu-shu‘a.
Hallelu YaHU !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I represent here as accurately
as possible from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’.
For more background information see:
André H. Roosma,
‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’  , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009. |
| 2 |
The short Name of God Yahu as part of
Biblical names is confirmed by many manuscripts of other peoples.
There is, e.g., a hexagonal clay column
describing in Assyrian cuneiform script a.o. the campaign of
Sin-ache-ri-ba (Sancherib/ Sennacherib)
of Assyria, including his siege of Jerushalem in 701 BC. There,
Chizqi-jahu (Hezekia, Hizkia) is described as Ha-za-qi-ia-ú and Yehudāh as Ia-ú-da-ai, according to the New Bible Dictionary, IVP, Leicester GB,
rev.ed. 1982; p.626.
See further: M.D. Coogan, ‘Patterns in Jewish Personal Names in the Babylonian Diaspora’
Jl f. t. Study of Judaism, Volume 4, Issue 2, 1973; ISSN: 0047-2212;
E-ISSN: 1570-0631; p.183–191.
See also: Archibald Henry Sayce, The "higher criticism" and the verdict of the
monuments, London Society for promoting Christian knowledge, London,
1910; a.o. p.89, where he also notes: „In the time of Sargon there was
a king of Hamath who was called Yahu-bihdi, and since the name is also written
Ilu-bihdi in one of Sargon's inscriptions, where ilu or el, "God," takes the
place of Yahu, it is plain that Yahu must here be the Yahu or Yeho of
Israel.” - see also p.316 about it, and that Joel or Yo’el (my God
is Yeho) was known in the law texts of the
Hammurabi dynasty as Yaum-Ilu (my God is Yahu; the m is a grammatical
addition), and p.396 (Yehu or Jehu -> Yahua), p.405 (MT: ‘Azar-yahu
-> Azri-yahu), p.306 (MT: Yehudah, Yehudi (Judah, Jew) -> Yaudâ, Yaudu).
See also the extensive analysis in: Keion Sampson, The Name of יהושע: A Reexamination of the Form of the Sacred Name
Compounded in Personal Names in its Religious Contexts, Academia.edu;
Oct.2015. |
| 3 |
See: Max Reisel, The mysterious Name of Y.H.W.H.,
The Tetragrammaton in connection with the names of EHYEH ašer EHYEH – HUHA –
and Sem Hammephoras, Part 2 of the Studia Semitica Neerlandica, Van
Gorcum, Assen, 1957 (his original dissertation carried the title: Observations
on אהיה אשר
אהיה, הואהא and
שם
המפורש, University of
Amsterdam, Van Gorcum / G.A. Hak & H.J. Prakke, Assen, 28 May 1957).
This is by far one of the most thorough and elaborated studies to be found on
the glorious Name of God. |
|
