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What, then, were the original vowels in God’s name? Ultimately, we do not know. During the period of the divided kingdom, the name may have been pronounced something like “Yau,” with the “au” forming a diphthong rather than two separate syllables. Evidence from classical Hebrew (found in both Biblical and non-Biblical texts) and certain Greek renderings of the name, however, have led scholars generally to believe that “Yahweh” was the way in which the name eventually came to be pronounced. More significant is the meaning of the name Yahweh. For this there has been a wide range of suggestions: “Truly He!”; “My One”; “He Who Is”; “He Who Brings into Being”; “He Who Storms.” One of the best suggestions is that the name is a shortened form of a longer name, Yahweh Sabaoth (often rendered in English as “the LORD of Hosts” or “the LORD Almighty”; see, e.g., 2Sa 6:2). The word “Yahweh” itself is most likely a verb. Many other shortened names from the ancient Near East are verb forms, which is exactly what Yahweh appears to be. It comes from the Hebrew verb meaning “to be.” But if the first vowel really is an a-vowel, then the verb likely has a causative sense: “to cause to be.” Thus, a fairly literal translation of Yahweh Sabaoth would be “He Who Causes the Hosts (of Heaven) to Be.” In general, then, the name refers to the One who creates or brings into being. ◆ The Tetragrammaton in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls and in a modern scroll, with the vowel sounds of Adonay added. Wikimedia Commons Go to Index of Articles in Canonical Order 4:3 it became a snake.
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Anonymous (NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture)