Basic HTML Version
40
object of fear and terror, but as a source of blessing and comfort. It is the name with which God
appeared unto Abraham, the father of the faithful, Ex. 6:2.
4. YAHWEH and YAHWEH TSEBHAOTH.
It is especially in the name Yahweh, which gradually
supplanted earlier names, that God reveals Himself as the God of grace. It has always been
regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God, the incommunicable name.
The Jews had a superstitious dread of using it, since they read Lev. 24:16 as follows: “He that
nameth the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death.” And therefore in reading the
Scriptures they substituted for it either ’Adonai or ’Elohim; and the Massoretes, while leaving
the consonants intact, attached to them the vowels of one of these names, usually those of
’Adonai. The real derivation of the name and its original pronunciation and meaning are more
or less lost in obscurity. The Pentateuch connects the name with the Hebrew verb hayah, to be,
Ex. 3:13,14. On the strength of that passage we may assume that the name is in all probability
derived from an archaic form of that verb, namely, hawah. As far as the form is concerned, it
may be regarded as a third person imperfect qal or hiphil. Most likely, however, it is the former.
The meaning is explained in Ex. 3:14, which is rendered “I am that I am,” or “I shall be what I
shall be.” Thus interpreted, the name points to the unchangeableness of God. Yet it is not so
much the unchangeableness of His essential Being that is in view, as the unchangeableness of
His relation to His people. The name contains the assurance that God will be for the people of
Moses’ day what He was for their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It stresses the covenant
faithfulness of God, is His proper name par excellence, Ex. 15:3; Ps. 83:19; Hos. 12:6; Isa. 42:8,
and is therefore used of no one but Israel’s God. The exclusive character of the name appears
from the fact that it never occurs in the plural or with a suffix. Abbreviated forms of it, found
especially in composite names, are Yah and Yahu.
The name Yahweh is often strengthened by the addition of tsebhaoth. Origen and Jerome
regard this as an apposition, because Yahweh does not admit of a construct state. But this
interpretation is not sufficiently warranted and hardly yields an intelligible sense. It is rather
hard to determine to what the word tsebhaoth refers. There are especially three opinions:
a. The armies of Israel.
But the correctness of this view may well be doubted. Most of the
passages quoted to support this idea do not prove the point; only three of them contain a
semblance of proof, namely, I Sam. 4:4; 17:45; II Sam. 6:2, while one of them, II Kings 19:31, is
rather unfavorable to this view. While the plural tsebhaoth is used for the hosts of the people
of Israel, the army is regularly indicated by the singular. This militates against the notion,
inherent in this view, that in the name under consideration the term refers to the army of
Israel. Moreover, it is clear that in the Prophets at least the name “Jehovah of hosts” does not