The First Syllable of The NAME of God

The Divine NAME is pronounced "Yehovah."  It comes from three Hebrew words, "hayah," "hoveh," and "ye-hee-yeh," meaning "was," "is," and "will be."  This is even made clear in the New Testament, written in Greek, when God, speaking to John in Revelation 1:8 says “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

People who insist that it's "Yahuwah" or "Yahovah" all make the same mistake...they know the word "HalleluYAH," and they assume that the Hebrews shortened names like the English speakers do.

When English speakers

shorten a name, we take "Michael" and we make it "Mike." We take "Donald" and we make it "Don." We take "William" and we make it "Will." That is, almost always, we take the initial syllable of the name and drop the rest.

The Hebrews didn't do that. They would drop letters from the middle of the word. Jesus' name is an example of this. In the pre-2nd temple period, the name was "Yehoshua" (Joshua). That's the name of the sixth book of the Bible. But by the 2nd temple period, the second syllable had dropped out of the word and it simply became "Yeshua," losing that "ho" sound. Similarly, "Yehovah" becomes "Y----ah."

The "Yeho" is actually preserved in several places, however. Hebrew names are often short sentences... Daniel, for example, comes from "Dan" meaning "Judge," and "El," meaning "God." Daniel means "God is my Judge." Where do we find the "Yeho" preserved? In the name "Yehoshua..." Joshua. Jesus' name, "Yehoshua," is a contraction of The NAME of God, "Yehovah," and the word for Salvation, "Yeshuat." Thus, Jesus, or "Yehoshua," means "The Salvation of the LORD," or "Yehovah's Salvation," or possibly "Yehovah saves."


For more information on this topic, see the amazing work of my friend Nehemia Gordon at

www.nehemiaswall.com