Tanak Foundations-Concepts on the Name of God-Conclusion

The Yom Kippur war broke out on Oct 6, 1973. The Syrians invaded Israel in a surprise attack, although Israel was warned by Jordan it was coming but that warning fell on deaf ears. At 2 pm, everyone was in the synagogues or participating in Yom Kippur services somewhere when the attack began. It was difficult, and Syria invaded with fourteen hundred tanks against Israel’s one hundred and forty-four tanks.

As the war went on, this got worse because Iraq, Morocco, the Jordanians (reluctantly) and the Saudis got involved. It was an Arab alliance to take Israel out. A tank brigade called the Barak Brigade of Israel got wiped in the first few days. The Syrians attacked with a three-pronged attack, attacking the north, south and the central part of the Golan Heights. The attacks in the south and central parts of the Golan were successful. They broke through and the Syrian tanks had reached a pointy that overlooked the Galilee.

From there they could move right into Israel, cutting the nation in half and move into Tel Aviv. There was nothing to stop them. But they did a curious thing. They stopped. Why did Syria stop? They were 12 miles from where Israel stored their tactical nukes. The answer is, nobody knows why. It seems the Syrian command structure dictated that they had to wait for the northern prong to break through and catch up.

The decisive battle was in this northern area of the Golan. What does fourteen hundred tanks look like? The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union with two thousand tanks across a 900 mile front. Syria invaded Israel with fourteen hundred tanks across a 50 mile front. It was one of the greatest tank battles in history. The major battle took place in what is called the “Valley of Tears.” It was named by Israel because of the tears of the Syrians. Israel was outnumbered 15 to 1. They held off the Syrians for four days. How did they do it? Why did the Syrians stop in the south and central parts of the Golan?

After four days, there were three tanks still fighting in the northern section of this valley. To the south there was a hill called Booster Hill, and there were four tanks there, for total of seven. They held off hundreds of Syrian tanks. Reinforcements finally arrived after four days, and now they had thirteen tanks. These tanks were pieced together from existing tanks that were damaged. The crews had already been fighting.

The Syrians turned around and retreated. The few Israeli tanks chased them back to Syria. This is a fulfillment of Lev 26.8, “Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.” Seven tanks survived, they fought the 7th Syian Division, in the seventh Hebrew month of Tishri, on the seventh day of the week, from the 77th Tank Battalion, of the 7th Israeli Armored Brigade, after 77 hours of battle.

There is a war memorial to the 7th Armored Brigade and the memorial says, “Behold Yehovah, he comes with fire and like a tempest his chariots.” The word for “tank” in Hebrew is “Merkavah” or “chariots” (Isa 66.15). The emblem for this brigade has the letters “ayin, zayin” in Hebrew at the bottom for “77” and it is pronounced “Oz” meaning “strength” as in “Migdal Oz” (Strong Tower) in Prov 18.10. Remember David and the stones that killed Goliath? They came from Migdal Oz. But this still does not explain what happened.

Why did the southern and central units of the Syrian army proceed and push through? There is an Israeli documentary that was made about this called “Zero Hour.” It was made by Orthodox Jews. In the documentary it said that the victory came because “people began to recognize the holy name of God.” During an investigation and debriefing of a captured Syrian commander, he said in response to a question as to why they stopped in the Golan Heights, “I would like to see you cross the Syrian line if you saw an entire row of white angels standing on the mountain line, and a white hand from heaven motioning you to stop. I stopped.”

Israel has fought Syria before anciently. 2 Kings 6.8-17 describes an incident. Israel knew what Syria was going to do. They thought they had a spy among them. But they realized that Israel had a prophet among them named Elisha and he was telling the king of Israel what the Syrian king was saying and planning. So, they try to kidnap Elisha in Dothan, and they surrounded the city with horses and chariots (tanks). Elisha had a servant who said “What are we going to do?”

So Elisha said there are more with us than with them. He then prayed for the eyes of the servant to be “opened” using the name of Yehovah. Yehovah opened his eyes and he saw the mountain and it was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Is this what happened in 1973?

Now, we need to be intellectually honest about this. Many have used other names of God, like Yahweh, Yahveh, Yahuah and the like and will have a hard time changing to another. But, here is the thing we need to keep in mind. In the Karaite community there is a tradition and they have a concept called, “Search the Scriptures well and do not rely on any man’s opinion.” In other words, don’t just blindly follow what we say, or anybody. Even if we are right, then you are basing your relationship with God on what we say, rather than on what God says for yourself.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t use other resources like books, tapes, videos, the Internet and other things, but we need to check them out as we use them. True biblical discernment will play a major role here. Check out the evidence for yourself on the name of God being Yehovah. If we are wrong, and you go out and just repeat what we say without doing your homework, its your fault.

That Karaite concept is also a fundamental concept found in the Scriptures. We are to check the oracles of God about what anyone says (Acts 17.11). Check out the Hebrew Bible to see how the name is written for yourself. You can see the Aleppo Codex, Leningrad Codex and other sources for yourself on the Internet. So far, there has been 1000 Hebrew sources for the name of God being Yehovah. You can see the name with full vowels written in the oracles of God, the best ones available. Once you are convinced and convicted about Yehovah, then call upon him using his name. Start learning all you can about that name from people who know what they are talking about. The Scriptures say, “Our help is in the name of Yehovah, the maker of heaven and earth” (Psa 124.8); “I am Yehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isa 42.8); “The name of Yehovah is a strong tower (migdal oz); the righteous run to it and are safe” (Prov 18.10).

So, where did Yahweh come from? It is because scholars believe it is Yahweh. Exo 3.14-15 says, “ehyeh asher ehyeh” meaning “I’ll be what I’ll be.” In other words, “Ehyeh has sent me.” Then v 15 says “the Lord” has sent Moses. Scholars say there is no name in v 15 in English. If you base it on English (KJV) there is no name, however, in Hebrew, it says, “Yehovah has sent me.” It says Yehovah is his actual name to be remembered. Ehyeh is the explanation of the name Yehovah. You would not know that in English, but it is there in Hebrew. Yehovah is a combination of the verb “to be.” In other words, Hiyah (he was), Hovah (he is), and Hiyeh (will be).

Samaritans say the name is “Shima” in Aramaic, but Moses did not know Aramaic in Exo 3.14-15. In the time of Moses and Aaron, the people who became “Samaritans” called God “Ashim” (according to a leading Samaritan scholar named Binyamin Tzedakah). 2 Kings 17 tells us how the “Samaritans” came into the land. Assyria deported the ten tribes of Israel and replaced them with people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sephar-vaim (2 Kings 17.24). Then 2 Kings 17.25-30 says these people did not fear Yehovah, so he sent lions among them and killed some of them. So, in true pagan fashion, they thought it was because they did not know the “local” gods.

A priest (not from Aaron) from 1 Kings 12.31 who misled Israel in the first place came came from Babylon and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear Yehovah. They needed to worship the “god of the land” to keep the lions away. This was the sin of Jereboam, taking false priests to teach those non-Jews how to worship and follow the Torah. As aresult, there are Samaritans there to this day. In 2 Kings 17.30 it says the men of Hamath made “Ashima” and today they say Yehovah is “Shima” from this name. These people worshiped the god of the land and the gods they had in their homeland. This scholar (Tzedekah) said in the time of Moses they called God “Ashem” and today they say “Shima.” They believe this is the name for YHVH, and that is not a coincidence. He says they never called God by Yehovah, they called him Ashem.

Josephus confirms this and he says the Samaritans didn’t want to be persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes of Chanukah fame. They wrote him and said that they did not believe their temple was called by the name of Yehovah. That name was placed on the temple in Jerusalem, but not theirs, so they wanted to be left alone (Josephus, Antiquities, Book 12, Section 258). They were aliens and only kept Torah because they were attacked by lions. They did not want to be persecuted like the Jews were (forced to become Greeks by assimilation). The Greeks did not want the Jews to worship Yehovah, but “theos” (gods). After awhile everyone will be worshiping “god.” The Samaritans are saying we don’t even use the name of Yehovah. This is a key concept to remember.

So, where does Yahweh come from? As we have mentioned before, there are over 1000 Hebrew manuscripts that say “Yehovah” but why do people insist on saying Yahweh? It is because people do not want to listen because they invested a lot of time into Yahweh. Teachers have old tapes and videos that say it is Yahweh and have staked their claim on that name. They do not want to change. But we can do better now with the manuscript evidence. For hundreds of years people have been deceived. Where it comes from is William Gesenius, the Hebrew grammarian who has a well known lexicon. He collected information and put it together for Hebrew students. It is a good source but didn’t get everything right.

Yahweh doesn’t appear till 1599. Gesenius “settled” the issue between what the name was by presenting two pieces of evidence. In the 1833 edition of his dictionary he says the main source for Yahweh is from Theodoret of Cyprus, a church father who lived in the fourth-fifth century A.D. He also says the Samaritans call the name Yahweh and the Jews called it “Iyah.” But the Samaritans did not use the name of God, and even called their temple after Jupiter. Now, we are told 700 years later that the Samaritans used “Yahveh.” Where did he get that?

Some say he used third or fourth hand sources, and he never knew a Samaritan. It may be a corruption of Exo 3.14. Another possibility is the Samaritans rededicated their temple to Jupiter to escape persecution by Antiochus. In Latin, it is “Yupiter.” Today they say “Jove” or “Yove” for Jupiter. There are different forms of Jupiter. In early Latin it wasn’t “Yove” but “Yohweh” coming from an Egyptian deity. Jupiter is “Yohweh” the god of the Latins. That is very close to Yahweh. We know the Samaritans dedicated their temple to “Jupiter” or “Yohweh.” So, if someone asked what the name of their temple was they would say “Yohweh.”

Did Gesenius fall for that? He knew Jupiter was Yohweh, but does he say that this word “Yahweh” comes from the Samaritans because they called their temple after Jupiter? The actual name Yahweh does not have a meaning. This name came from pagan sources and languages and eventually found its way into Hebrew. If people have been praying using Yahweh they were using the best information they had, but now we have better information. Psa 44.20-21 says, “If we have forgotten the name of our God, or extended our hands to a strange god, would God find this out? For he knows the secretes of the heart.”

As a final note, in the source called “Nehemiah’s Wall, Hebrew Voices #106”, Nehemiah Gordon asks why is God’s name Yehovah, but then we have “Halleluyah” which means “praise Yah?” Why does the vowel in Yehovah change in “Yah?” This misunderstanding leads to people to mispronounce Yeshua’s name also. Here is the issue. We have “Yehovah” with the “e” at the beginning, so why isn’t it “halleluyeh?” We have many names ending in “yah” like “Nehemiyah
and “Eliyahu.” Why don’t they end with the “e” sound?

This question was answered many years ago (1834) by the Hebrew scholar Samuel David Luzzatto. What he explains is what any elementary Hebrew student learns. He explains this to our old friend, the German scholar William Gesenius, and the rule is vowels change depending on what syllable is accented. He wrote, The kamatz (“ah” sound) changes to the sh’va (“e” sound) when the word is elongated.” For example, the word “gadol” (meaning “great or big”) changes when you add a suffix to it, like “im.” So, “gadol” changes to “gedolim” not “gadolim.” This is just like “yah” becomes “yeh” because it has the same vowel shift.

Every name where “YHV” appears at the beginning of the name is always spelled “Yeho.” Nobody disputes this in all of Jewish history because there was no ban on speaking such names as “Yehoahaz, Yehoachin, Yehoakim or Yehoyada, etc. Jonathan is Yehonatan. There are approximately 20 names that begin with “Yeho.” There are also many names that end in “yahu” like Natanyahu, Eliyahu, etc. So, in YHVH, is the YHV at the beginning or at the end of the name? It is at the beginning, so it is “Yeho.” Where is the emphasis of the name? It would be in the final syllable, or “YehoVAH.” All Hebrew manuscripts make it that way.

Because of that, the kamatz (“ah” sound) of “Yah” shifts to a sh’va (“e” sound), and vice versa. So you have a relationship between the “ah” and the “e” based on the emphasis of the syllable. Now, “Yah” appears in the Tanak 49 times as a poetic form of God’s name, and four times in the Book of Revelation, with the emphasis on “yah” as in “hallelu YAH.” Let’s look at the relationship between Yah and Yahweh.

People say “certainly it should be Yahweh because it is spelled “halleluyah.” What they don’t tell you is they are pulling off a “bait and switch.” What you see in Yah is it has the kamatz vowel marking (like a little “T”) and that is different than the “yah” in Yahweh. The one in Yahweh is a single line (-) called “patach” and not the same as the little “T” kamatz. every Hebrew manuscript has the kamatz (T) in halleluyah. So, how do we know that Yahweh has the patach single line (-) and not the kamatz?

Yahweh doesn’t exist in Hebrew manuscripts, but Gesenius has it in his Hebrew grammar in his lexicon in the 1830’s. The Brown, Driver, Briggs lexicon also has it from the twentieth century, and the Hebrew-Aramaic lexicon of the twentieth century also has it. You will not find Yahweh in any Hebrew Jewish sources, only English and German sources. The patach vowel (-) and the kamatz (T) sound familiar in English, but they are different in Hebrew. The “yah” of halleluyah is different that the “Yah” in Yahweh because there are two different vowels in Hebrew.

It is the same thing with “Yahshua” and that is a common pronunciation in the Hebrew Roots Movement. Which vowel is in “Yah”, a kamatz or a patach? You can’t have a kamatz there because it is a long vowel, and you can’t have it so far from the emphasized syllable, which is the final or second to last syllable. You can’t have “Yahoshuah” or “Yahshua.” It has to be “Yehoshua.” There is clearly a difference when you say it or read it in Hebrew between the “yah” in halleluyah and the “Yah” in Yahweh. The kamatz (T) naturally turns into a sh’va (e sound) as in Yehovah, Yehoyada, Yehoahaz, etc.

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Prophecy/Eschatology, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

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