The Tetragrammaton, from the Greek for “four letters”, is the scholarly name for the four Hebrew consonants YHWH, the personal name of God in the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish tradition this name is treated with the deepest reverence. Since at least the late Second Temple period, Jewish readers have not pronounced it aloud: in reading Scripture and in prayer they say Adonai, “my Lord”, and in everyday speech many say HaShem, “the Name”. According to the Mishnah, the name was once spoken in the Temple, above all by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and the priests used it when they blessed the people. After the Temple was destroyed in AD 70, that use ceased. The custom shaped Christian Bibles as well: the Greek Septuagint rendered the name Kyrios, “Lord”, and most English Bibles print LORD. Even the English form “Jehovah” owes its vowels to this tradition of reverent substitution.
Four letters and a name that is holy
The four letters are yod, he, vav and he. They appear thousands of times in the Hebrew Scriptures, far more often than any other word for God, and Scripture presents them not as one title among many but as the name God gave to be remembered:
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
— Exodus 3:15 (ASV)
Reverence for the name shows itself in writing as well as speech. In rabbinic law, as set out in the Talmud and later codified by Maimonides, a written name of God may not be erased, and scribes copying a Torah scroll approach the writing of the name with particular care and intention. Documents containing the name are not thrown away but set aside and buried. In English, some Jewish writers carry the same instinct into print by writing “G-d”. These customs grow from a single conviction: that the name belongs to God, and that everything touching it should be handled as holy.
The commandment and the fence around it
The Jewish caution about speaking the name has two texts in the background. The first is the third commandment:
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
— Exodus 20:7 (ASV)
The second is the law against blasphemy in Leviticus:
And he that blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the sojourner, as the home-born, when he blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, shall be put to death.
— Leviticus 24:16 (ASV)
The Mishnah’s tractate Avot opens with the counsel to “make a fence around the Torah”, meaning that a person who wishes never to break a commandment does well to keep some distance from the line. Not pronouncing the name at all is such a fence. If misusing the name was grave, the surest way never to misuse it was never to say it except where God had appointed. The Mishnah itself, in tractate Sanhedrin (10:1), records the view of one sage that a person who pronounces the name according to its letters loses his share in the world to come. Scholars differ on exactly how and when the custom became universal, but its motive is plain, and it deserves respect rather than suspicion.
The name in the Temple
The Mishnah preserves memories of the Temple in which the name was still spoken. Tractate Yoma describes the Day of Atonement, when the high priest entered the most holy place and made confession for himself, for the priests and for the people. In those confessions he pronounced the name, and the Mishnah records that the people in the courts, hearing it, bowed down and fell on their faces and blessed the name of God’s glorious kingdom. The day itself was appointed in the Law:
for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before Jehovah.
— Leviticus 16:30 (ASV)
Tractate Sotah adds that the priestly blessing was given in the Temple with the name spoken as it is written, and outside the Temple with a substitute. That blessing is itself about the name:
Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. So shall they put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.
— Numbers 6:24-27 (ASV)
When the Temple fell, the one place where the name had been spoken was gone, and with it the living tradition of its pronunciation. Jewish worship has continued, faithfully and without interruption, to use Adonai in its place.
The Septuagint, the Masoretes and what the church inherited
Long before Christ, Jews in Alexandria translated the Scriptures into Greek. In the manuscripts of this Septuagint that have come down through the church, the name is rendered Kyrios, “Lord”, though some early fragments made by Jewish scribes kept the four letters in Hebrew script within the Greek text, and scholars continue to discuss what the earliest practice was. The apostles, writing in Greek, followed the familiar usage, as the entry on the name in the New Testament explains.
Centuries later the Masoretes, the Jewish scholars who preserved the Hebrew text and added its vowel signs, marked the four letters with the vowels of Adonai so that readers would say Adonai. Christian scholars who read those vowels together with the consonants produced the form “Jehovah”, as described in How the word Jehovah entered English. The LORD in capital and small capital letters in most English Bibles is a direct descendant of the same custom, as Why most English Bibles print “LORD” sets out.
How Christians can honour this tradition
Christians are not bound by the Jewish custom, and the church has always felt free to speak and sing the name in its worship. But Christians owe a debt to the tradition, since the Scriptures themselves came to the church through the careful hands of Jewish scribes, and the reverence behind the custom is one Christians share. Jesus taught his disciples to begin their prayers with the same concern:
So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
— Matthew 6:9 (BSB)
A Christian speaking with Jewish friends will do well to follow their usage in conversation, saying “God” or “the Lord” rather than pressing a pronunciation on them. Respect for a neighbour’s reverence is itself a way of honouring the name.
For reflection
Read Exodus 3 and Numbers 6 and ask what it means that God chose to be known by name and to set that name upon his people. Pray the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer slowly, as a request that God’s name be treated as holy in your own speech and life. And in the company of your church, give thanks for the long line of faithful Jewish scribes and readers through whom the Scriptures have come to you.
References
- The Mishnah, tractate Yoma.
- The Mishnah, tractate Sanhedrin.
- The Mishnah, tractates Sotah and Avot.
- Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah.
- The Septuagint (Greek Old Testament).
- Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906).
Lexicon answers from the Bible and public-domain reference works. It is a study aid and is not affiliated with any organisation.