Names for God
Written by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Magonet Sunday, 01 June 2003
A Prayer Book in the Making
| Article Index |
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| Names for God |
| How Do You Translate YHWH |
| A Radical Proposal |
| So Where Does That Leave Us? |
| All Pages |
One of the most difficult and hence controversial issues for any new prayerbook is the decision about how to translate the name of God, the ‘tetragrammaton’ or four-lettered name God, ‘yod’, ‘hey’, ‘vav’, ‘hey’, YHWH. Just to recap the problem. The name itself seems to be a mixed verbal form based on the Hebrew verb hayah, to be. (The first two letters suggest an imperfect grammatical form, but the second to fourth letters suggest a participle!) The Bible introduces the name through a famous phrase. When Moses asked God for God’s name at the burning bush he receives the reply: ehyeh asher ehyeh, which is actually untranslatable.
Ehyeh is the imperfect form of the verb, but the imperfect usually refers to ‘incomplete actions’, whether they have happened in the past or are yet to happen in the future. But it also stands for all the modalities, hence by itself ehyeh could mean: I am, I will be, I should be, I could be, I might be etc. Put two of them together linked by the conjunction asher, then ‘I am that I am’ is only one of the myriad combinations of meaning that are possible. Moreover in its context, it seems that it is meant to be deliberately unrevealing. Moses asks for God’s name, but ‘knowing’ or ‘owning’ the name of a god in the Ancient Near East meant one could have some degree of control of the god. Israel’s God is not prepared to be so limited, so the answer is effectively saying ‘I am a law unto Myself.’! However as a concession to Moses’ practical needs the name YHWH is introduced two verses later.
The rabbinic tradition from the earliest period has insisted that the name not be said aloud at all, but instead another word should be substituted for it when spoken. They chose the word ‘adonai’, made up of the four consonants ‘alef’, ‘dalet’, ‘nun’ and ‘yod’, which derives from the noun ‘adon’, meaning master, or ‘lord’. In this form the word appears a number of times as yet another name for God, alongside words like ‘Elohim’, Shaddai (Almighty), El Elyon (Most High God) etc. The actual form ‘adonai’ sounds like the plural ‘my lords’, but the unusual vocalisation of the final vowel letter with a ‘kamats’ instead of a ‘patach’ creates this unique term.| < Prev | Next > |
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