Jesus and the Name Jehovah
We are told by the Christian leaders of most churches that, “In view of the fact that Christ’s own name (allegedly the name of) Jesus, meant “Jehovah is Salvation…” This statement, this belief, that the name Jesus means “Jehovah is Salvation,” is absolutely false! On one occasion, the Savior stood up in a synagogue and read a portion of the scroll of Isaiah. The section he read from is from Isaiah 61:1-3, and He read to the people: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, 3 To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” In these verses translated in English, we find LORD present at least three times, and in Hebrew, this is “the LORD” representing the four letters of God’s name, namely YHWH. There is no J, in the consonants of God’s name, and there is a W, which has been changed to a V. These differences may seem subtle, but they are significant when it comes to the revealed name of God.
Why do all these Christian religious leaders ignore the facts? Historians, like Ernest Renan, inform us that Christ was never in His lifetime known as Jesus. Christ’s true name begins with a Y, not a J. The letter “J, the tenth letter of the English alphabet, is the youngest of the 26 letters. It is a descendant of the letter I and was not generally considered a separate letter until the 17th century. The early history of the letter J is the same as that of the letter I. I is a descendant of the Greek iota, but Y is related to the ancient Hebrew and Phoenician letter Yod…” (The New Book of Knowledge, Vol. 10, 1992 ed.). Therefore the J is not part of Christ’s actual name. Do we write His name as Yesus? No, but let’s continue, “Jesus… The word is a Latin rendering of Iesus. Iesus is from Iesous, the Greek form of the name, and is a transliteration of the name Yeshua. It was YAHOSHUA first, then by inner Hebrew phonetic change it became Yoshua, and by a still northern Aramaic dialectal shift, Yeshua. The first element is YAH (=YAHWEH), while the second ‘shua’ means ‘to help, save.’ The most probable meaning is O’ YAH save’” (see The Anchor Bible, Vol. 26, p. 2). The name Jesus has no intrinsic meaning regarding salvation in any language. It is an absolute error to say that Jesus is the same as Yeshua or even YAHSHUA.
The false name Jesus devoid of any meaning regarding salvation does not mean the same as Yeshua, YAHSHUA, or YAHOSHUA. In Matthew 1:21, the angel never said to call the Savior by the name of Jesus. “She will give birth to a Son, and you shall name Him YAHSHUA (YAH SAVES) because He will save His people” (Jewish New Testament, David Stern, Translator). The prefix “YAH” comes from Praise, as in Halleluyah, Praise YAH. The prophet Isaiah gives testimony to this name as the essential name of salvation, “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation’” (Isaiah 12:2 NKJV). YAH is the I AM, as the LORD answered Moses, “HaYAH Ashar HaYAH,” I AM Who I AM” (Exodus 3:14-15). The Savior Himself acknowledged that He is YAH, when He said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM {YAH}” (John 8:58). There is ample evidence acknowledging Rabbinic tradition was to hide and forbid the name YAH. When the Sanhedrin heard the name pronounced by the Apostles, YAHSHUA, they forbade them to preach or teach in this name.
13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with YAHSHUA. 14 And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. 15 But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, 16 saying, ‘What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 17 But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name.’ 18 So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of YAHSHUA. 19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ 21 So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done. 22 For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed” (Acts 4:13-22). The Apostles heard the name YAHSHUA and refused not to teach in that name despite the efforts of the Jewish religious leaders, who sought to hide the name, threatening them. The suppression of the name YAH has caused the religious leaders in Christianity to call the name YAHSHUA a philological impossibility.
The prefix of Yeh, as within the euphonious name Jehovah, was caused by adding vowels to the Tetragrammaton YHWH. The vowels of Adonai caused YaHoWaiH, or YAHWEH, however, the more favorable the vowels of the Hebrew word for God “Eloah,” which caused YeHoWaH, later with the added J, and the W changed to a V, we get Jehovah. This name has a sinister meaning of ruin, mischief, and calamity (see Strong’s Dictionary of Bible Words #1942 & #1943). The Jewish scribal practice also used vowels from Elohim, hence “Yehovih” (see Strong’s Dictionary of Bible Words #3069).
Origin of the name Jehovah, IEHOVAH, and Yehovah
After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the name of God went into obscurity except among the priesthood. Hundreds of years later, once again Jerusalem and the Second Temple were destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans. Many in Christianity wondered what God’s revealed name was. The medieval Roman Catholic would raid Jewish Synagogues. These Catholic priests would take the gold and the Hebrew Scriptures. The gold they used to build Cathedrals and the Scriptures were put into their libraries to be studied. In 1278 CE, a Dominican Monk and scholar by the name of Raymondus Martini while reading through the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible noted Hebrew vowel points around the Tetragrammaton, which was unusual because Hebrew words do not show vowels. Raymondus Martini concluded that these were the actual vowels for God’s name. YHWH was changed according to the Latin language to IHVH. The Hebrew vowels were E-O-A, which produced IeHoVaH. Iehovah was believed to be the actual revealed name given to Moses by God. So convinced was this priest Martini that he wrote the name, Iehovah in his book, Pugio Fidei (Dagger of Faith).
In the year 1303 CE, another book by Porchetus de Salvaticis wrote the name Iehovah in his book Victoria Portcheti Adversus Impios Hebraeos (Prochetus’ Victory Against the Ungodly Hebrews). He was an Italian Carthusian monk from Genoa, Italy, and He is known for his anti-Semitic work from c. 1303. But he wrote the name Iohouah with a variation in spelling. How he came to these variations is anyone’s guess. Porchetus' material was not original, copied mostly from the Pugio Fidei of Ramondus Martíni of Catalan. Porchetus' book, in turn, was copied by later writers, such as Peter Galatinus.
Petrus Galatinus (1460 – 1540), was an Italian Friar Minor, philosopher, theologian, and Orientalist. He was confessor to Pope Leo X. Galatinus was born at Galatina, in Apulia. He received the habit as early as 1480, studied Oriental languages in Rome, and was appointed lector at the convent of Ara Coeli; he also held the office of provincial in the province of Bari and that of penitentiary under Leo X. His chief work De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis was done at the request of the pope, the emperor, and other dignitaries, in 1516 CE. Galatinus is sometimes referred to as the "inventor" of the Latinized term and pronunciation “Jehovah,” which unbeknownst to him was by blending the Tetragrammaton "YHWH", Latinized to IHVH, with the vowels of "Eloah”, which means “God” in Hebrew. He had borrowed largely from the book Pugio Fidei of the Dominican Raymondus Martini, however, Galatinus did some remodeling with the material and supplemented it with copious quotations from the Zohar, along with other materials. Whether he learned of the hybrid nature of this name Jehovah at a later date is unknown at this time, but he did more than anyone else to propagate this euphonious name.
The false name Jehovah first appeared in the English Bible in the year 1530 CE, when William Tyndale published the first five books, the Torah, of the Bible. Tyndale wrote by way of introduction, “Moreover as oft as thou seist LORD in great letters it is the Hebrew Iehovah.” In the 1611 English King James Authorized Version, the false name Jehovah appeared four times (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; and Isaiah 26:4). The essential name YAH, that is I AM, appeared as “Jah,” in Psalm 68:4. The bogus name Jehovah became more exposed with the knowledge of the “practice” by and of the Jews of placing vowels from other words, such as Adonai, Eloah, and Elohim, onto the Tetragrammaton for the sole purpose of reminding the readers in the synagogues not to say the name of God, but to say, “Adonay” instead. The vowels from these words do not accurately depict the vowels in God’s name, and therefore, these names YaHoWaiH (from the vowels of Adonai eventually producing YAHWEH), YeHoWaH (from the vowels of Eloah eventually producing Jehovah), and YeHoWiH (produced from the vowels of Elohim). These variations of Yahweh, Yehovah, and Yehovih, prove the Jewish Practice of adding vowels for the sole purpose of reminding the readers in the synagogue not to say the name, but to say, “Adonai,” instead.
The translators of the Bible were becoming suspicious of this euphonious name, Jehovah, as a hybrid. And decided to rely on the Septuagint practice of using the form LORD (Gr. Kurios) in place of the Tetragrammaton. Martin Luther published his complete translation of the Bible in 1534 CE, and he wisely chose not to use any of the bogus names produced by adding vowels from another word (Yahweh, Yehovah, or Yehovih). But he may have received criticism from the proponents of the name Jehovah, for he preached in a sermon, “This name Jehovah, Lord, belongs exclusively to the true God.” Martin Luther was known to placate fellow supporters. In succeeding centuries, Bible translators went in one of two directions. Some rightly avoided any use of the name, while others used it extensively in either form YAHWEH or Jehovah. When opting to use LORD, they reasoned, “In this translation, we have followed the orthodox Jewish tradition and substituted ‘the LORD’ or ‘God’ for the phrase ‘the Lord Yahweh’ (J.M. Powis Smith and J. Goodspeed, Bible, 1935).
In the preface to the Revised Standard Version (RSV), we read, “For two reasons the committee has returned to the more familiar usage of the King James Version [that is, omitting the name of God].” For these reasons: 1) the name ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew; and 2) the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods”, [5 “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord YAHSHUA the Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6)], “from whom He had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.” And let us not forget, that the name Jesus does not accurately represent the original form of the name of the Son of God used by His followers. Yet, as pro-Jehovah name groups would say, “They use the false name of Jesus anyway.
There are indeed many gods and many lords in heaven and around the earth as the Apostle Paul clearly stated. The Apostle Paul also acknowledged the false gods of man’s own making. The justification of any name (Jehovah) never revealed by God, even to distinguish Him from other lesser gods, is simply not allowed. “The pronunciation Jehovah was unknown in ancient Jewish circles, and is based upon a later misunderstanding of the scribal practice of using vowels of the word(s) ‘Adonai’ [Eloah and Eloah] with the consonants of YHWH” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, see YAHWEH, p. 1065, 1967). “The form Jehovah is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it… but belonging to an entirely different word. The sound of Y is represented by J and the sound of W by V, as in Latin. The name ‘Jehovah’ does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew” (Preface to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, pp. 6-7).
Advocates for the name Jehovah need to understand, that this name is a counterfeit to the real name. The Divine name is represented in the Hebrew Bible more than any other name, however, Jehovah is not that name. We know that YAH is the essential prefix for the formal name of God, and YAH, HaYAH=the I AM, appears around 48 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Without YAH, it is in no wise a legitimate name. The following is important: “Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the LXX [Septuagint] translated the Tetragrammaton YHWH by Kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the Tetragrammaton written in Hebrew characters in the Greek text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the Old Testament in the first centuries (The New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology, Vol. 2, p. 512). Therefore, the disciples of YAHSHUA when they read the Scriptures or even heard others read them, would have heard the Divine Name, YAHAWAH. It is likely that, “When the Septuagint which the New Testament church used and quoted contained the Hebrew form of the Divine Name, the New Testament writers no doubt included the Tetragrammaton in their quotations. When the Hebrew form for the divine name was eliminated in favor of Greek substitutes in the Septuagint, it was also eliminated from the New Testament quotations of the Septuagint… Before long the Divine name was lost to the Gentile church except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates or remembered by scholars” (George Howard, Biblical Archaeology Review, March issue, 1978, p. 14).
Je-hovah has a sinister meaning. “Hovah” means “ruin, mischief, and calamity” (see Strong’s Dictionary of Bible Words #1942 & #1943). J. A. Motyer, principal of Trinity College, England, adds: “Much is lost in Bible reading if we forget to look beyond the substitute words [God or Lord] to the Personal name of God Himself. By telling His people His name, God intended to reveal to them His inmost character” (Eerdmans’ Handbook to the Bible, p. 157). The erroneous and euphonious name Jehovah does not reveal God’s inmost character of love, justice, and ever-presence, as the name YAHAWAH most certainly does. YAH is “I AM”, and Hawah is ever “to be”, or “ever-present”, that is “I AM Ever-present”, which is also the assurance He gives to His people. When God came to His own, the angel told them, Joseph and Mary, to name Him YAHSHUA, “I AM Salvation,” because He came to save His people from their sins.
Call on the name of true meaning, call on the revealed name YAHSHUA, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). “So they said, ‘Believe on the Lord YAHSHUA the Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:3). “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Joel 2:32). The LORD’s Name of salvation is YAHSHUA! The essential name here is YAH, as it is told by the prophet Isaiah, “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2 NKJV). The Scriptures clearly identify the Rock as Christ, therefore, the Savior is the same Person called YAHAWAH and YAHSHUA both these names belong to Christ, the Rock (Isaiah 44:6-8 & 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).
Would a translator have any right to restore the name, because existing manuscripts do not have it? If the restoration is of the true revealed name from Heaven, the very name given by God, then “Yes!” But, if it is restored with a substitute name, a hybrid such as Jehovah, a euphonious name, then the answer is an emphatic: NO! The name Jehovah is wrong no matter how one tries to justify its use. It is so disrespectful and blasphemous to use a counterfeit name. In Psalm 74:10, “O God, how long will the adversary reproach? Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever?” If anyone says to you, “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved,” know this, he is a liar! Knowing God’s true revealed name means more than merely having head knowledge of the fact that His name is not Jehovah. “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You” (Psalm 9:10). Knowing God’s true name is to know His character, as the Lord, who is our Savior YAHSHUA, would come to meet Moses, 5 “Now the Lord {YAH} descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord {YAH}. 6 And the Lord {YAH} passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord {YAH}, the Lord {YAH} God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:5-7). The Father of our Lord YAHSHUA has never been seen or heard, as it is written, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).
What is the Gospel, and what happens if you reject the name of YAHSHUA?
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 ‘He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God’ (John 3:16-18).
37 And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. 38 But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. 39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life (John 5:37-40). YAHSHUA Christ is the active agent in both the Old and New Testament.
YAHis the essential name identifying our God. Try as he will, mankind will never eliminate God’s true name from the earth despite using counterfeit names like Jehovah. “For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, ‘My name shall be great among the Gentiles; In every place incense shall be offered to My name, And a pure offering; For My name shall be great among the nations,’ Says the YAHAWAHof hosts” (Malachi 1:11).
