Tuesday, 27 October 2009

• Before You Use God's Name in Vain

  This May Make You Think Twice About Using God's Name in Vain

  Deutoronomy 5:11 - "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

  We all know that God is the Most Sacred Being there is. He deserves the Utmost respect from everyone. I'm sure you all have heard that people are not to use God's name in vain in one of the 10 Commandments. "In vain" means using His name for no reason. Like when people say "OMG!", that is using His name in vain because you're not really calling His name to get in contact with Him as you might if you were saying, "Oh, Stacey!" So when you whisper or yell or say things like that, you are using His name in vain. Sure some people do actually call out to God and Jesus for help when something terrible happens and they are sad, but most of the time it is used, it is just because it is such a common expression nowadays. I've heard people say the most horrible things when using Jesus' name in vain. Please respect the name! I'm not sure if I'm using these two bible verses out of context, but I believe that they are pretty self-explainatory. I got a lot of the following facts from different websites. So some of the statements may contradict each other because on one of the websites, different people were giving input. I'm not sure how many of these statements are credible, so if you are Jewish and know your Hebrew and the scriptures, please correct me.

  Matthew 12:36 - "Jesus said, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

  Here are some fascinating facts about God's real name - YHVH

  The name YHWH (יהוה) is Hebrew, and it is ineffable/unspeakable/unreadable because the name is not supposed to be pronounced aloud because of how sacred it is. God is sacred! If you're Jewish, whenever you see this name in the Bible you should say "Adonay/Adonai", or "Hashem"). Adonai means "my Lord" and Hashem means "The Name."

  "Yahweh" is the Roman pronunciation of these four letters. The Hebrew pronunciation is "Yehowah".

  Yahweh is a Hebrew word meaning I AM. It means I am the one, or I am what I am.

  In Hebrew all the letters are consonants and the vowels are sometimes added around them when it's translated. If you've ever seen the writing you know what I mean. The vowels aren't usually added in common writing, but may be only if it's meant for children or people learning the Hebrew language.

  Because one of the 10 Commandments said not to use God's Name in vain, to disguise His Name, ancient scribes filled it with vowels. Then in translation over time, the vowels got mixed up, and they filled in the blanks and added to make Jehova. Yahweh in modern translation integrated with another word has made the hybrid Jehovah. So there really is no god like Jehova, because it comes from the misspelling of two words over time.

  In the Bible it's said that the true name of God cannot be spoken by anybody. However, it was spoken in ancient temple times by the high priest (called Kohen Gadol) only ten times a year on Yom Kippur (a Jewish holiday). So the way to write it is in these 4 letters; it's called the "sacred tetragrammaton" and represents His name.

  This word was so important to the ancient Hebrews that they would not pronounce it. Whenever a scribe had to write it down when making copies of the scriptures, they first had to bath and put on a new robe.

  In the Old Testament, God was called YHWH, pronounced Yahweh by most scholars; the exact pronunciation of the name was lost because it was rarely enunciated. In its place was read Adonai ("Lord"). The written combination of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, with the vowels in Adonai was traditionally rendered as Jehovah in English Bibles. Although the meaning of YHWH is disputed, it is frequently translated as "He who is".

  YHVH is the personal name of God and the most frequently used (over 6,800 in just the Tanakh - the original Old Testament in Hebrew). The Ineffable or Unutterable Name of God. It’s made of the 4 Hebrew letters Yod, Hey, Vav, and Hey. Also known as the tetragrammaton which means "the four letters". God told Moses, "ehyeh-asher-ehyeh," in Exodus 3:14

  "I AM THAT I AM" in the KJV comes from the Qal imperfect first person form of the verb "hayah" (I will be). This indicates a connection between the Name YHVH and being itself. Beyond all predications or attributes of language. The source of foundation of all possibility of utterance and thus is beyond all definite descriptions.

  Elohim is the Name given for God as the Creator of the universe. But YHVH expresses the idea of God’s closeness to humans. It's His covenant name.

  Masoretes insured that God’s name would not be taken in vain by substituting the vowel marks of Adonai and putting them in the running text Qere (which means what is to be read) as opposed to Ketiv (what is to be written). Hebrew text contains the ketiv but uses two vowels of the qere so it led to the obvious incorrect pronounciation of the name as Jehovah. (In older English, the j had a y sound.)

  Later speculated that perhaps the Masoretes reversed the vowels for Adonai when applied to the letters in the running text so some attempted to correct the pronunciation by pronouncing the Name as Yahoveh or Yahveh. There is no w sound in Hebrew so Yahweh is an incorrect transliteration. There is no "W" in the Hebrew alphabet, so the letter should be "V". That is why you see it written as both YHWH and YHVH.

  Ancient Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament did not use vowel markings so the actual pronounciation of the sacred Name is simply not known.

  Jewish tradition does allow to say the Name at all but to use the word Adonai its place when speaking or reading. Jewish people say Adonai ((my) Lord) when reading aloud the scriptures and Hashem (the Name) when speaking.

  Shem HaMeforash means the Ineffable (or Unspeakable) Name.

  YHVH hayah hoveh yi-yeh "He was, He is, He will be."

  Each time the people heard the Name spoken by the high priest, they lay prostrate (flat on their face) in deep reverence.

  This was really cute what I saw on one of the websites I got some of this info from. It had the Name YHVH written out in English. Then under that they had it written in Hebrew. And then under that was the little icon that symbolizes a sound clip. I pressed it and it said Adonai! It's like if you were on one of those other language translation websites and you saw, "cat" "el gato" and then you press the sound clip and it says "The Furry Feline". Even the writers of the website would not pronounce the name!

  How do you feel about speaking the name of God?

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