Y.H.W.H.

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Is the word Jehovah a proper name for God? Christians call him Jesus. This Hebrew word Jehovah is an English rendering of the Tetragrammaton, “YHWH.” Its original pronunciation is unknown. Jehovah is derived from the verb "to be," and implies that God is eternal, that He is Absolute, the uncaused One, describing God's real essence.

How did the title Jehovah come about? The Ancient Israelites took seriously the third commandment written in Exodus 17:15, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain." It is written that God will hold those who do take his name in vain, guilty.

After the Jewish captivity from Babylon (modern-day Iraq) in 536 B.C., the true pronunciation (Y.H.W.H) was lost. The modern name, Jehovah in our Bibles has been greatly refined, and translated into the English word LORD or God.

How did God's name Y.H.W.H. become Yahweh, then Jehovah? The two vowels, A and E were added for easier reading and pronunciation, rendering it, YaHWeH, or Yahweh.

In the English alphabet until the 1600's there was no letter "J". The name Jehovah was written in English as, "Yahweh." Later, the letter J was introduced into the alphabet for easier pronunciation of words.

The W is the union of two Vs. V is the form of the Roman capital letter which we call, U. The W is properly a vowel but does not retain that distinction today.

To conclude, the Y was changed to J. The W was changed to a V, and then the vowels were added for pronunciation purposes, so now we have the English rendering, Jehovah. Then upon publication of the English Bible, Jehovah became LORD and God.

When the Jews read the Scriptures, they would not attempt to pronounce Y.H.W.H. because of its sacredness. Also lost was the true pronunciation. Because the name "Yahweh," was also considered to be sacred. So, the Jews replaced it with the LORD and God. Yet there are seven places in the English Bibles where we still find the name Jehovah.

The way I look at it, if an organization insists on not using God or LORD as the proper rendering of God's name it should not be Jehovah, but either Y.H.W.H or 'Yahweh."