Thanks Nigel for an interesting subject I have never paid attention to before.
Quote:
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God’s personal name revealed to Moses requires deciphering the correct vowels. God, in dialogue with Moses (Exo. 3:14-16), links the divine name, YHWH, to His explanatory declarations “I AM WHO I AM” and “I AM,” both forms of the verb, ‘to be,’ (Heb. hayah).
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ok
Quote:
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Based on this link, scholars deduce that the required vowels are ‘a’ & ‘e,’ producing Yahweh. Professor John J. Davis explains the logic, saying, “The verb translated ‘I AM’ is...‘ehyeh, which is the...first person singular of hayah [to be].
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ok,
ehyeh is the 1st person masculine singular imperfect of
hayah
Quote:
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If 'ehyeh [‘I AM’]...is His name, it is also reasonable to regard Yahweh as...the third person singular of that stem and is translated ‘He is.’ The only difference between the two names—‘I AM’ and ‘Yahweh’-- is that the one is a verb in the first person, and the other is the same verb in the third person.
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Not quite true. The 3rd person singular imperfect of
hayah is
yihyeh, not
yahweh. The consonants are YHYH, not YHWH.
YHWH is not a conjugation of the root
hayah. YHWH is the 3rd person masculine singular imperfect of the verb
havah, consonants HWH. The software I use gives the pronunciation of 3rd person singular imperfect of HWH as
Yeheveh יֶהֱוֶה. (The software is by an Israeli Jew, not a Christian.)
The current pronunciation may not have been the way it was pronounced in the ancient time.
The verb HWH is used only 6 times in the Bible, where it seems to mean "become", which is how LXX translated it. (Gen 27:29; Neh 6:6; Job 37:6; Eccl 2:22; 11:3; Isa 16:4). Of these, Eccl 11:3 is 3rd person singular masculine imperfect, and its Masoretic pronunciation is
Yehoo. In Eccl 11:3 the consonants are YHWA instead of YHWH, maybe to avoid God's name. There is no DSS witness to the text.
I do not see how these scholars can say that the Name was almost definitely pronounced Yahweh. I think Jehovah is a better guess than Yahweh.
Jesus is not a very good transliteration of the Hebrew Yehoshua or Yeshua or Yahshua, but He answers to it.