THE GREATEST NAME
Rev. Steve Marlowe
There is a name greater than any other name, and this name is indeed the greatest name, an essential name needed for our salvation. The simplest definition of salvation is to be delivered, or rescued, from peril. The most common meaning of salvation is to be saved by God from the consequences of our sins, yes, even our evil ways. This is why the name revealed by God is so very important to every human being living on the planet. To this name are attached all the wonders of the past, present, and future in the entire universe. Every individual’s hope for a happy life in the resurrection to life in His Kingdom is dependent upon knowing Him according to His one revealed name, as our salvation depends upon knowing His name. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Any supposed name not revealed from God is a substitute name, and therefore it is a name of deception. We must know the revealed name from God, and accept no substitute names.
Many have believed to know the Name of God. Many have also searched for the name of God and asked about it, but did not find it. And so far as Y-H-W-H (pronounced in Hebrew: “Yod-Hey-Waw-Hey”) is concerned, they lamented, “Who can know it?” To them, it has remained a mystery. In fact, no man can discover this name unless the owner of this name reveals it. Happily, God has done just that. As a result, those who believe in the God of the Bible, that is believe in His Word, and in His prophets and messengers can know about Him and more importantly know His name. In Psalm 83:18, this verse says: “So that they must acknowledge you. Your name is YAHWEH You alone are Elyon [Most High] of the whole earth” (NOG Bible). The essential name of YAHWEH is YAH, as in Halleluyah, which means, Praise YAH! Where did we get the name YAH, “the I AM” (Heb. HaYAH)? The answer is found in His word, the Bible. The essential name YAH is so very important as this is the name revealed from Heaven for our salvation. And our Savior said, 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” 10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” 11 He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 And in them, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of these people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’
16 But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear” (Matthew 13:9-16).
If we would but pay attention and hear as the prophet Isaiah tells us this: “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).
The Hebrew name revealed from God is “YAH” which means the “I AM”, and Moses asks for God’s name. 13 “Then Moses replies to God, ‘Suppose I go to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?”
14 God answered Moses, “HaYAH Who HaYAH [the I AM Who the I AM]. This is what you must say to the people of Israel: ‘I AM {YAH} has sent me to you.’”
15 Again God said to Moses, “This is what you must say to the people of Israel: The LORD YAH the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever. This is my title throughout every generation” (Exodus 3:13-15). The Name YAH can be found in the Holy Scriptures, and in God’s word, it is found 48 times.
In ancient times the Israelites knew this great name of God {YAH}. It was even used as a component of their personal names designed to give glory to God.
God’s essential name, YAH, is found in the names of prophets.
1) Elijah in Hebrew is Eliyah, which means: “YAH is my God.”
2) Isaiah in Hebrew is Yeshayahu, which means: “YAH is my salvation.”
3) Matthew in Hebrew is Matityahu, which means: “Gift of YAH.”
4) Nehemiah in Hebrew is Nechemyah, which means: “YAH comforts.”
5) Jeremiah in Hebrew is Yirmiyah, which means: “YAH will exalt.”
6) Obadiah in Hebrew is Obadyah, which means: “Servant of YAH.”
7) Zechariah in Hebrew is Zkaryah, which means: “YAH remembers.”
8) Zephaniah in Hebrew is Tsephanyah, which means: “YAH has treasured.”
Hallelujah is a misnomer for the correct expression is Halleluyah, which means: “Praise YAH!” The letter J has only existed since the 17th century, and there is no equivalent letter for J in Hebrew. The Hebrew letter Yod corresponds to the English letter Y.
Did you know that the Savior has the name YAH, which is the name that is above every name? He told them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). “I AM” means YAH, and He, the Savior, has the name YAH, the very name that is the name which is above every name in His name! This verse may be hard to understand in its true context, but according to the Hebrew/Aramaic language, the Jews understood Him perfectly. He just told them that He is YAH their God, which is why they picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy! YAH, this name is the name which is above every name. The Apostle Peter told the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Court, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). No other name by which we must be saved! What name did the apostle Peter testify to?
What is the one name by which we must be saved?
The apostle Paul heard the name which is above every name, when the Savior revealed to Paul, who was called Saul at the time, His revealed name, which can only be given in Hebrew, for it must be according to the Hebrew name that is to be expressed in every language as a name unchanged. The apostle Paul expressed this in letters and in his testimony to king Agrippa, he said, “While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am YAHSHUA, whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 26:12-15). Later, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of YAHSHUA, every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that YAHSHUA the Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). The name YAH is the name which is above every name, and our Savior has the name which is above every name: YAH {IAM} plus shua, which means, “My help,” as in “salvation,” therefore in Matthew 1:21, the angel told Joseph, that “you shall” call His name “YAHSHUA.”
The prophets knew this great name {YAH}, and they used it with profound respect. Remember, this essential name can be found 48 times in the Bible. Whether as YAHWEH or in the names of the people of God His name YAH appears in YHWH, a name that is found in the Bible more than 7,000 times as part of the Tetragrammaton, that is in God’s actual consonantal name YHWH (Yod-Hey-Waw-Hey), as there are no vowels in ancient Hebrew Holy Scriptures. The Son of God, the Savior of the whole world, prayed to His God, “After saying this, YAHSHUA looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the time is here. Give your Son glory so that your Son can give you glory. After all, you’ve given him authority over all humanity so that he can give eternal life to all those you gave to him. This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and YAHSHUA the Christ, whom you sent. On earth, I have given you glory by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, give me glory in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:1-5).
YAHSHUA was given this name {YAH} given to the Savior by His Father and God, and YAHSHUA calls this name, a name which He bears, the Father’s name. YAHSHUA said, “I made your name known to the people you gave me. They are from this world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me. They did what you told them. Now they know that everything you gave me comes from you because I gave them the message that you gave me. They have accepted this message, and they know for sure that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. ‘I pray for them. I’m not praying for the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours. Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine. I have been given glory by the people you have given me. I won’t be in the world much longer, but they are in the world, and I’m coming back to you. Holy Father, keep them safe by the power of your name, the name that you gave me, so that their unity may be like ours. While I was with them, I kept them safe by the power of your name, the name that you gave me. I watched over them, and none of them, except one person, became lost. So Scripture came true” (John 17:6-12).
What happened to make the name of our Savior, in that He has the name which is above every name {YAH}, a mystery or hidden to the extent that people do not know the very name of salvation? What does that name have to do with the future of us? We are warned by our Savior, who said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). One real concern is that few have found the one name {YAHSHUA} given under heaven by which we must be saved!
How Did the Name {YAH} Become a Mystery?
Before the Babylonian invasion of the Kingdom of Judah, around the year 597 BCE, the Jews knew and used the name of the Lord {YaHaWaH}. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, conquered Judea. Then Nebuchadnezzar began the Babylonian exile of the Jews to Babylon, the result of an imperial technique of pacification, used also by the Assyrians, in which ethnic groups in conquered areas were deported en masse away from their own Country, as the Assyrians believed by taking the people away en mass from the god of their land increased their pacification. According to the Hebrew Bible, Nebuchadnezzar authorized the destruction of Solomon's Temple and exiled the upper-class Jews to Babylon, dissimilar to the Assyrians who took every one of the Israelites en masse away from their land. The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles (J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts rel, 3rd ed., Princeton University Press, 1969). Psalm 137:1-4 records the Jewish anguish of being deported, as the Jews lamented: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, Saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?’” The long march of the Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon was arduous. The Babylonian soldiers in charge of delivering the Jews, as the number was recorded, in tack to Nebuchadnezzar was ensured by the execution of any soldier that caused harm to them. The Babylonian soldiers knowing their lives could be on the line did everything they could to keep up the morale of the Jews even to the demand that they sing to their God as a means to cheer them up. The Jews asked themselves “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” However, what they really were asking themselves was, “How do we sing the name of our God in a foreign land?” The decision was made to sing, but not to pronounce God’s name, but to say, “Adonai,” instead. This was done to prevent the Babylonians who would possibly profane the name of God from knowing the name of God. This was not an act of superstition. Upon reaching Babylon, the Jews hung up their harps in protest, and they maintained the tradition of not saying the name of Adonai among the Gentiles to this day.
Centuries later, the Jewish wars with Rome culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and other towns and villages in Judea, resulting in significant loss of life and a considerable segment of the population being uprooted or displaced. The Romans ruthlessly destroyed all things Jewish. In Judea, their writings in Hebrew were mostly destroyed. The Nazarean Community, of which the apostle Paul was once a leader (Acts 24:5), had their Hebrew writings destroyed. To preserve the Gospel, which was written in Hebrew, mainly the Gospel of Matthew, they began to write in Greek, as the apostle Paul and Luke had already been doing. Subsequently, the brutal suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in even more severe consequences, for example, the one and only name of salvation was transliterated to an entirely different name: “Iesous,” by anti-semitic Hellenist Christian sympathizers with Rome. Judea witnessed a significant depopulation, as many Jews were killed, expelled, or sold into slavery. The Romans rebuilt Jerusalem and renamed it “Aelia Capitolina,” and the province of Judea was renamed “Syria Palaestina.” To this day, the Roman name “Palestine” is the name associated with the former Jewish lands. Collectively, these events enhanced the role of the Jewish diaspora. The Roman destruction also had a major impact on Judaism, after the central worship site of the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman General Titus and his Army in 70 CE. The destruction of the Temple led to a transformation in Jewish religious practices, which led to the emphasis on communal gatherings in synagogues (Mor, Menahem, The Second Jewish Revolt, 2016, pp. 483–484).
The suppression of the name of God by the Jews has not been absolute, as far as Hebrew and English are concerned. The name of God is preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures by the consonants Yod-Hey-Waw-Hey, as also pronounced in English. YHWH, called the Tetragrammaton, mostly appears in all caps in our English Bibles as “LORD.” Many lay Christians do not know that LORD, as found in our English Bibles, stands for the four consonant letters of God’s actual name. The Tetragrammaton is a Greek name for the four letters in God’s name. The name of God with its four essential letters was clearly seen by the Jewish readers in the synagogues. The practice in all the synagogues was to keep the readers from inadvertently attempting to say God’s name. The Rabbi's instructions to the readers in the synagogue were to not attempt to pronounce HaShem, “the name,” but to say, “Adonay,” instead. As far back as 1100 CE, the Jews enhanced the practice by reminding the reader in the synagogues not to say the name (HaShem), but to say, “Adonay,” instead, by adding the Masoretic vowel points from other Hebrew words, such as Adonay, Eloah, and Elohim. Adding vowels from other Hebrew words began as far back as the 1100s through the Medieval era, and even unto modern times. The result of adding vowels to the Tetragrammaton caused variations within English and other languages. The Hebrew Scriptures were often stolen from the synagogues by the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic Scholars like Raymondus Martini, a 13th-century Dominican friar, and theologian, who wrote in his book Pugio Fidei (c. 1270), used this name for God as Iehova (Iehovah), and Petrus Galatinus, was an Italian Friar Minor, philosopher, theologian, and orientalist, who served as an Apostolic Penitentiary (Confessor) under Pope Leo X. Galatinus wrote his chief work De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis, at the request of the pope, the emperor, and other dignitaries, in 1516. In his book, he also wrote the euphonious name “Iehovah.”
The Hebrew Scriptures are written with Hebrew words that have no vowels. How did the name Iehovah, and later after the 17th century, Jehovah, come to be? In many of the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, the Masoretes' Hebrew vowel points were found by Medieval Catholic scholars to be placed around the Tetragrammaton of God’s name. It seems that the vowels that the Jews preferred to use mostly were from the Hebrew word “Eloah”, which means “God.” This combination of YHWH with the vowels of Eloah caused the hybrid name of YeHoWaH, transliterated into Latin as IeHoVaH. Of course, the Medieval Catholic scholars were totally ignorant of the Jewish practice of placing Hebrew vowels onto the four letters of God’s name for the purpose of reminding the reader in the synagogue to say, “Adonai,” rather than attempt to pronounce the name of God. Based on all the Hebrew Scriptures absconded by the Roman Catholic Church, there were at least three variations of God’s name, namely YaHoWaiH, which later produced YAHWEH, and is based on the vowels of Adonai. And there is YeHoWiH based on the vowels of Elohim (see Strong’s Dictionary of Bible Words # 3069). Again, among the variations the most commonly used vowels placed onto the Tetragrammaton were from the word Eloah causing the hybrid YeHoWaH, or in Latin IeHoVaH, and finally this name Jehovah, which is found in many English versions of the Bible, which is clearly an error. As a result of these vowel points placed onto the Tetragrammaton and the Christian ignorance of Jews doing so, and forming a hybrid, the very name Jehovah. The name Jehovah exists only due to ignorance. And now, as in modern times, there are Jews who surprisingly support the name Yehovah, which exists due to the many Hebrew Scriptures (the Bible) that have the vowel points of the Hebrew word Eloah, which, again, was only done to remind the reader in the synagogues to say, “Adonai,” instead of attempting to pronounce the actual name of God. Of course, these Jews are only adding to the confusion.
Iehovah was first introduced in English by William Tyndale in his translation of Exodus 6:3 and appears in some other early English translations including the Geneva Bible and the King James Version. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops states that in order to pronounce the Tetragrammaton "it is necessary to introduce vowels that alter the written and spoken forms of the name (i.e. "Yahweh" or "Jehovah")." Jehovah appears in the Old Testament of some widely used translations including the American Standard Version (1901) and Young's Literal Translation (1862, 1899); the New World Translation (1961, 2013) uses Jehovah in both the Old and New Testaments. Jehovah does not appear in most mainstream English translations, some of which use Yahweh but most continue to use "Lord" or "LORD" to represent the Tetragrammaton. Christian scholars agree the name Jehovah is a hybrid, and this name has only existed since the 17th century in its present form.
11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:11-13). The Apostle Paul quotes Joel 2:32, which contains the Tetragrammaton YHWH, and says those who call on this name shall be saved. This name contains YAH, as does the name of our Savior YAHSHUA, which means, “I AM Salvation.” This is the essential name of salvation, that is YAH, as the prophet Isaiah made very clear (Isaiah 12:2 NKJV). Christians think that any name will do to call upon for our salvation. There are many names such as Jesus, Iesus, Iesous, or Yeshua, to name a few. The world has many names for Christ, and none of them were revealed by God. Israel also thought that any name used for God was suitable for the worship of the LORD. The name Baal was so popular among the peoples, that the Israelites began to call their God by that name. “For all people walk each in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever” (Micah 4:5). And finally to those who ask, “Wouldn’t all worship go to Him anyway, no matter what name we use?” And to the Pastors, Priests, and Bible Teachers, the prophet of God has this to say, “And now, O priests, this commandment is for you.
If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name,”
Says the Lord of Hosts, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart” (Malachi 2:1-2 NKJV). Moses knew to ask God for His name, and we cannot name God. Now, Christians have a different name than the name revealed, a name (Jesus) that comes from man not from God. That comes by way of linguistic evolution that transformed the revealed name of salvation into an entirely different name. The name YAHSHUA is not the name Jesus, and there can only be one name by which we must be saved. The name of the Savior must be revealed by God. YAHSHUA, the name revealed, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
