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 JEHOVAH

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JEHOVAH

is best characterized liy Being, if indceil it iiui.st be designated by a personal pn)|K'r name distinct from the term God (Revue bil)li.|ue, 189::!, p.;«S). The scholastic theories as to the depth of meaning latent in Jahveh (Yahweh) rest, therefore, on a solid founda- tion. F'inite beings are defined by their essence: God can be defined only l\\- being, pure and simple, nothing less and notliing more; not b'i- abstract being common to everything, and characteristic of nothing in partic- ular, but by concrete being, absolute being, the ocean of all substantial being, independent of any cause, in- capable of change, exceeding all duration, ijecause He is infinite: " Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, . . . who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almightv" (Apoc, i, 8). Cf. St. Thomas, I, qu. xiii, a. 14; Franzelin, "De Deo Uno" (3rd ed., 1883), thesis XXIII, pp. 279-86.

III. Origin of the N.tME J.\hveh (Yahweh). — The opinion that the name Jahveh was adopted by the Jews from the Chanaanites, has been defendeJi by von Bohlen (Genesis, 1835, p. civ), Von der Aim (theol. Briefe, I, 1862, pp. 524-27), Colenso (The Pen- tateuch, V, 1865, pp, 269-84). Goldziher (Der Mythus bei den Hebrilern, 1867, p. 327), but has been rejected by Kuenen (" De Godsdienst van Israel", I Haarlem, 1869, pp. 379-401) and Baudi.ssin (Studien, I, pp. 213-18). It is antecedently improbaljle that Jahveh, the irreconcilable enemy of the Chanaanites, should be originally a Chanaanite god.

It has been said by Vatke (Die Religion des Alten Test., 1835, p. 672) and J. G. Miiller (Die Semiten in ihrem Verhaltniss zu Chamiten und Japhetiten, 1872, p. 163) that the name Jahveh is of Indo-European origin. But the transition of the Sanscrit root div — the Latin Jupiter-Jons (Dions), the Greek Zeus-Aiis, the Indo-European Dynus — into the Hebrew form Jahveh has never been satisfactorily explained. Hit- zig's contention (Vorlesungen liber bibl. Theol., p. 38) that the Indo-Europeans furnished at least the idea contained in the name Jahveh, even if they did not originate the name itself, is without any value.

The theory that Jahveh is of Egyptian origin may have a certain amount of a priori probability, as Moses was educated in Egypt. Still, the proofs are not con- vincing: (a) Roth (Die Aegj-pt. und die Zoroa.str. Glaubenslehre, 1846, p. 175) derives the Hebrew name from the ancient moon-god IJj or lo^. But there is no connexion between the Hebrew Jahveh and the moon (ef. Pierret, " V'ocabul. hierogl.", 1875, p. 44). (b) Plutarch (De Iside, 9) tells us that a statue of Athene (Xeith) in Sais bore the inscription: " I am all that has been, is, and will be". But Tholuck (op. cit., 1867, pp. 189-205) shows that the meaning of this inscription is whollv different from that of the name Jahveh. (c) The patrons of the Egyptian origin of the sacred name appeal to the common Egyptian formula, Xuk pit n uk but though its literal signification is " I am I ", its real meaning is " It is I who " (cf, Le Page Renouf, " Hibbert Lectures for 1879", p. 244).

.\s to the tlieory that Jahveh has a Chaldean or an .\ccadian origin, its foundation is not very solid: (a) Jahveh is .said to be a merely artificial form introduced to put meaning into the name of the national god (Delitzsch, " Wo lag das Paradies". 1881, pp. 158-64); the common and popular name of God is said to have been Yahu or Yah, the letter / being the e.ssential Di- vine element in the name. This contention, if true, does not prove the Chaldean or Accadian origin of the Hebrew Divine name; besides the form Yah is rare and exclusively poetic; Yahu never appears in the Bible, while the ordinary full form of the Divine name is found even in the inscription of Me.sa (hne 18) dating from the ninth century b. r. (b) Yahu and Yah were known outside Israel; the forms enter into the com- position of foreign proper names; besides, the varia- tion of the name of a certain King of Hamath shows that Ilu is equivalent to Yau, and that Yau is the name

of a god (Schradcr, "Bibl. Bl.", II, pp. 42, 56; Sargon, "Cylinder ", xxv; Keil, " Fastes ", 1. '■','■',}. But foreign proper names containing Yah or Yahu are extremely rare and doubtful, and may lie explained without ad- mitting gods in foreign nations, bearing the sacred name. Again, the Babylonian pantheon is fairly well known at present, but the gotl Yau does not a])- pearinit. (e) .\mong the pre-Semitic Babylonians, /is a synonym of Itu, the supreme god; now / with the Assyrian nominative ending ailded becomes Yau (cf. Delitzsch, "Lesestiicke", 3rd ed., 1SS5, p. 42, Syllab. A, col. I, 13-16). Hommel (Altisrael. Ueberlieferung, 1897, pp. 144,225) feels sure that he has discovered this Chaldean god Yau. It is the god who is represented ideographically (ilu) A-a, but ordinarily pronounced Malik, though the expression should l:>e read Ai or la ( Ya). The patriarchal family employed this name, and Moses borrowed and transformed it. But La- grange points out that the Jews did not believe that they offered theirchildren to Jahveh, when they sacri- ficed them to Malik (Religion semitique, 1905, pp. 100 sqq.). Jer., xxxii, 35, and Soph., i, 5, distinguish between Malik and the Heljrew God.

Cheyne (Tratlitions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 1907, pp. 63 sqq.) connects the origin of Jahveh with his Yerahme'el theory; but even the most advanced crit- ics regard Cheyne's theory as a discredit to modern criticism. Other singular opinions as to the origin of the sacred name may be safely omitted. The view that Jahveh is of Hebrew origin is the most satisfac- tory. Arguing from Ex., vi, 2-8, such commentators as Nicholas of Lyra, Tostatus, Cajetan, Bonfrere, etc., maintain that the name was revealed for the first time to Moses on Mount Horeb. God declares in this vision that he "appeared to Abraham . . . by the name of God Almighty; and my name Adonai [Jahveh] I did not shew them". But the phrase " to appear by a name" does not necessarily imply the first revela- tion of that name; it rather signifies the explanation of the name, or a manner of acting conformable to the meaning of the name (cf. Robiou in "La Science cathol.", 1888, pp. 618-24; Delattre, ibid., 1892, pp. 673-87; van Kasteren, ibid., 1894, pp. 296-315; Rob- ert in " Revue biljlique", 1894. pp. 161-81). On Mt. Horeb God told Moses that He had not acted withthe Patriarchs as the God of the Covenant, Jahveh, but as God Almighty.

Perhaps it is preferable to saj- that the sacred name, though perhaps in a somewhat modified form, had been in use in the patriarchal family before the time of Moses. On Mt. Horeb God revealed and explained the accurate form of His name, Jahveh. (a) The sacred name occurs in Genesis about 156 times; this fre- quent occurrence can hardly be a mere prolepsis. (b) Gen., iv, 26, states that Enos " began to call upon the name of the Lord [Jahveh]", orastheHebrewtext sug- gests, "began to call himself after the name of Jah- veh". (c) Jochabed, the mother of Moses, has in her name an abbreviated form Jo (Yo) of Jahveh. The pre-Mosaic existence of the Divine name among the Hebrews accounts for this fact more easily than the supposition that the Divine element was introduced after the revelation of the name, (d) Among the 163 proper names which bear an element of the sacred name in their composition, 48 have t/chij or yo at the be- ginning, and 115 have yahu or yah at the end, while the form Jahveh never occurs in any such composition. Perhaps it might be assumed that these shortened forms yeho, yo, yahu, yah, represent the Divine name as it existed among the Israelites before the full name Jahveh was revealed on Mt. Horeb. On the other hand. Driver (Studia biblica, I, 5) has .shown that these short forms are the regular abbreviations of the full name. .-Vt any rate, while it is not certain that God revealed His sacred name to Moses for the first time. He surely revealed on Mt. Horeb that Jahveh is His incommunicable name, and explained its meaning.