Pronunciation of names of God

[BarbaraJean]

I'm teaching a lesson on the names of God Sunday morning. I would really like to be able to pronounce them correctly. Can anybody help me out?

Jehovah-tsidkenu
Jehovah-elyon
Jehovah-j'kaddesh
Jehovah-rohi

I've tried to find a place on the Internet which would pronounce them or at least give me the phonetic spelling but have been unsuccessful. I did find the phonetic spelling for Jehovah-shammah but no others.

 

[StAnselm]

I wouldn't worry too much about it, if I were you. It is very hard to work out what the original pronunciation is anyway - and in quite a few Hebrew words there are sounds that Western speakers find it almost impossible to duplicate.

Also, "Jehovah" isn't actually a Hebrew word. It comes from the name of God - YHWH - which the Hebrews didn't want to pronounce, so they said "Adonai". (Which means "Lord" by the way - that is how the word "LORD" worked its way into English translations.)

So you have two options: just pronounce them any way you like - that is, pronounce them as if they were English words. OR translate them - The LORD our Righteousness, etc.

 

[johnd]

I agree.

"Jehovah" itself was a hybrid of YHVH (W and V are interchangeable in Hebrew) and the vowels for adonai (inserted under YHVH in some Hebrew texts to remind the reader to say "Adonai"). So YaHoVaH was never a word in Hebrew. And the rabbis had a big laugh at the Christians who tried to translate the Hebrew into another language (I think it was German).

Spelling variances and the above make absolute precise pronunciation questionable at best with most names in the Bible.

Example, the name Israel (yisra-el) is an abreviation of Yish Sarar Elohiym... like old blues singers would run words together (Elvis' "thanka thankaveruhmuch..." for example) Yish Sarar Elohiym became Yisra-el.

The most memorable teachers I recall in my past were those who didn't seem like they were trying to make a point of pronouncing the names according to a particular school of thought. A good rule of thumb is that things over done seldom produce the desired outcome.

 

[StAnselm]

Example, the name Israel (yisra-el) is an abreviation of Yish Sarar Elohiym... like old blues singers would run words together (Elvis' "thanka thankaveruhmuch..." for example) Yish Sarar Elohiym became Yisra-el.

I'm very dubious about this assertion. Can you actually provide any evidence for it? The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon derives it from the word srh, making it "God persists" ..

Spelling variances and the above make absolute precise pronunciation questionable at best with most names in the Bible.

Yes, sometimes I think that in reading Biblical names, confidence covers a multitude. When people are reading Scripture in church, and the passage contains a lot of difficult names - I'm not interested in how they pronounce them, so long as they sound like they know how to pronunce them. But it can be a bit embarrassing when the reader is stumbling over the names.

 

[BarbaraJean]

Thanks for the information.

 

[Andyman_1970]

Keep in mind there is no "J" in the Hebrew language. Techinally His Name YHWH is unpronouncable - the vowels were purposefully left out, so our best guess is Yahwaeh.

You might try over on the Messianic board, they can help you with pronunciantion on those Hebrew word.

 

[StAnselm]

Keep in mind there is no "J" in the Hebrew language.

It's interesting that you say that: there is no sound that corresponds to the English letter "J", but in lots of languages they have the letter "j" and pronounce it as we would pronounce the (consonantal) "y".

So a Dutch person, for example, would look at the name "Joel", and pronounce it correctly - that is, "yo-el".

 

[Andyman_1970]

It's interesting that you say that: there is no sound that corresponds to the English letter "J", but in lots of languages they have the letter "j" and pronounce it as we would pronounce the (consonantal) "y".

So a Dutch person, for example, would look at the name "Joel", and pronounce it correctly - that is, "yo-el".

See the Hebrew alphabet, no "J" or "jay" sounding letter.......

Hebrew Alphabet

Jesus' Name / Joshua in Hebrew is spelled in the english as Yeshua, it's not Jeshua, and Joel in Hebrew is spelled in the english yael.

An interesting sidenote about the name Joel, in the Hebrew Yael, Ya is short for Yawheah, and El is short for Elohim. Now in the Hebrew YHWH, this Name was unpronounable, the rabbi's said it was like the sound of breathing. So YHWH was thought of as being as close as the breathing of a new born baby. Now the Name Elohim in the Hebrew denotes "huge, mighty, expansive as the whole universe" - so the name Joel (Yael) for the rabbi's was like a huge theological mystery - Ya and El put together, the same God that is as close as the breathing of a new born baby is the same God that is as expansive and mighty as the universe.

Anyway...................

 

[StAnselm]

"jay" sounding letter...

Yes, that's what I thought you meant. I am reasonably familiar with the Hebrew alphabet.

Hmm, the Rabbis certainly had lots of fascinating derivations like that. I suspect there's not a shred of evidence for it from the original langauge, but it sounds good.

 

[StAnselm]

And it's definitely yo-el, not ya-el...

 

[johnd]

I'm very dubious about this assertion. Can you actually provide any evidence for it? The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon derives it from the word srh, making it "God persists" ..

Better yet, look up Hosea 12:3 in the Hebrew and receive the biblical explanation of both Jacob and Israel.

The Bible is its own best commentary.

 

[StAnselm]

Better yet, look up Hosea 12:3 in the Hebrew and receive the biblical explanation of both Jacob and Israel.

The Bible is its own best commentary.

It certainly is. And Hosea 12 gives us important insights into the story of Jacob - thanks for pointing this out.

But I don't see how it proves your case. There's certainly a play on words there, regarding both the names, but that's no evidence that it's an abbreviation. There's the word srh that I mentioned before, but I don't think it tells us the subject of the verb in the original name. For example, the name could mean "God persists" but in Hosea we have "he persists with God". Indeed, if that were the case, while there is still a pun, the difference would be quite instructive.

And in the following verse it says that he struggled with the angel (yasar el mal'ak) which makes another pun, but on a different word.

But anyway, there still isn't a lot of evidence for your original statement. And I think you meant Hosea 12:4.