Why is 'Jehovah' in KJV?

[rita727]

I was flipping through some pages in the KJV and I saw 'Jehovah,' when it referenced to God. God has many titles in the Bible, but...Jehovah?



In washed-down words for the average Joe,....what's this?


Rita

 

[Codger]

Dear Rita,

(Pasted from Internet) This is what I heard before.

"There were no vowel in Hebrew characters. I think that the marks for vowels were invented in the age of ancient greek around Alexander the Great(my memory might not be correct). Anyway, there were only consonants in the Bible before that time, and everyone put his own vowel when he read. Because of that the pronunciaion was different from each region, and no one knows the exact pronunciation of the words in the times of Moses when the Torah was written.
As such, there were no vowels in the word of 'Jehovah.' The consonants of that word are like Yahweh(not correct for Yahweh contains vowels in it), and the people could not dare speak out that word for Its supreme holiness. Whenever they saw that word, they pronounce it adonai which means 'the Lord.'
When the scolars invented the marks for vowels and added them in the Bible, they had faced great difficulty for the word of 'Yahweh.' They really did not know how to pronounce it. After deep thought and many discussions, they decided to add the vowels of adonai.
So the result of combining the consonants of Yahweh with the vowels of adonai is 'Jehovah.'
There are so many things we do not know. For example, we do not know where Elijah came from, we do not know where Moses' body is. And as such we do not know the original pronunciation of Jehovah. God hides several most important things."

 

[BereanTodd]

Codger covered it well ... it is a created word that came about from a combination of the Jews treating the name of God with extreme care, and "clumsy white men" who didn't understand Hebrew trying to translate it.

 

[torahgrandma]

Codger covered it well ... it is a created word that came about from a combination of the Jews treating the name of God with extreme care, and "clumsy white men" who didn't understand Hebrew trying to translate it.

I beg to differ. Jehovah is no more wrong than the scholarly guess "Yahweh". The only difference is that there are actual vowel pointings for Yehowah in the Hebrew, while Yahweh appears in no Hebrew text.

 

[BereanTodd]

I beg to differ. Jehovah is no more wrong than the scholarly guess "Yahweh". The only difference is that there are actual vowel pointings for Yehowah in the Hebrew, while Yahweh appears in no Hebrew text.

I beg to differ with you. We KNOW that the work was YHWH, and we know that Jehovah is just YHWH with the "adonai" vowell pointers. The fact is that we got the word "Jehovah" first when translators not skilled in the Hebrew or knowledgeable about that part of history did not realize that set of circumstances and thought that "Jehovah" was the literal word there. It was not, and there is no question about that fact.

 

[torahgrandma]

I beg to differ with you. We KNOW that the work was YHWH, and we know that Jehovah is just YHWH with the "adonai" vowell pointers. The fact is that we got the word "Jehovah" first when translators not skilled in the Hebrew or knowledgeable about that part of history did not realize that set of circumstances and thought that "Jehovah" was the literal word there. It was not, and there is no question about that fact.

Really? Do you read Hebrew.? If so, please direct me to any passage in any Masoretic text that has YHWH is pointed as "Yahweh". Also, are you saying that the KJV translation team was not skilled in Hebrew and Aramaic?

 

[LamorakDesGalis]

God's name YHWH in the Massoretic text always appears as a Ketib-Qere - which is Aramaic for "what is written - to be read." That is, the consonants are ignored (what is written) and the vowels are pronounced (to be read). It is usually the vowels for adonai - my Lord - that are imposed on YHWH. However there are places where the text says "adonai YHWH." The Massoretes did not want to repeat "My Lord, my Lord." So they pointed YHWH to read as Elohim (God). Therefore the reading was "My Lord, God" instead of repeating the same reading twice. Genesis 15:2 and 15:8 are a couple of places where one can see the pointing of YHWH as Elohim in the Hebrew text, instead of the usual adonai.

My point is that the Massoretes never intended for a reader of the text to pronounce the Ketib-Qere as it was written, because they pointed YHWH under different conditions.


LDG

 

[torahgrandma]

God's name YHWH in the Massoretic text always appears as a Ketib-Qere - which is Aramaic for "what is written - to be read." That is, the consonants are ignored (what is written) and the vowels are pronounced (to be read). It is usually the vowels for adonai - my Lord - that are imposed on YHWH. However there are places where the text says "adonai YHWH." The Massoretes did not want to repeat "My Lord, my Lord." So they pointed YHWH to read as Elohim (God). Therefore the reading was "My Lord, God" instead of repeating the same reading twice. Genesis 15:2 and 15:8 are a couple of places where one can see the pointing of YHWH as Elohim in the Hebrew text, instead of the usual adonai.

My point is that the Massoretes never intended for a reader of the text to pronounce the Ketib-Qere as it was written, because they pointed YHWH under different conditions.


LDG

If you look at the Leningrad codex, it is pointed other different ways as well.

 

[psalms37l29]

THE DIVINE NAME:
Dear Rita;

The King James Version acknowledges that the True God's name is in fact Jehovah.
Seeing, then, that Jehovah is the greatest personality in the universe, how is it that his name is so little known?

Because a malicious enemy, Satan the Devil, has misled all nations away from the true God.

The Bible identifies the culprit: “Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Rev. 12:9, NW)

The Devil does not want men to know Jehovah; so he has induced them falsely to believe that Jehovah is just the name of some tribal god.

Not only that, but the Devil has so thoroughly misled mankind that false religions abound.

These have succeeded in removing the name Jehovah from many translations of the Bible itself!

In the ancient Hebrew Scriptures Jehovah’s name is represented by four letters called the “tetragrammaton,” for which the English characters are JHVH (or YHWH).

How many times does the divine name, represented by the tetragrammaton, occur in the Hebrew Scriptures? It occurs 6,823 times!

Just how the name is pronounced is not exactly known, but the most popular way of rendering it is “Jehovah.”

To translate the tetragrammaton as “the LORD” is to obscure the divine name.

ie......"LORD" is a Title, not a name, Just like "President" is a title, but "George Bush" is his name. Thats why it was in the original writings as "Jehovah GOD"
Romans 10:13,14 says: "For “everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved"

14 However, how will they call on him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn, will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach?


Yet what have most of Christendom’s Bible translators done? Like the Jewish clergy in Jesus’ day and today, they refuse to know and use the divine name.

Thus out of the 6,823 times that the four-letter name or tetragrammaton occurs, the translators of the King James Version Bible used the name Jehovah only four times! The Roman Catholic Douay Version and Jewish versions entirely eliminate the name Jehovah.

When the much-advertised Revised Standard Version recently came out, what happened to the divine name?

The translators completely removed it!
In the preface the translators explained that they were using the term “the LORD,” thus returning “to the procedure of the King James Version, which follows the precedent of the ancient Greek and Latin translators and the long established practice in the reading of the Hebrew scriptures in the synagogue.”

Thus the translators of this popular Bible follow a course like the Jewish clergy, who rejected Christ Jesus. No wonder the words of Jesus are especially apt today: “Righteous Father, the world has, indeed, not come to know you”!—John 17:25, Righteous Father, the world has, indeed, not come to know you; but I have come to know you, and these have come to know that you sent me forth. 26 And I have made your name known to them and will make it known, in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in union with them.”

Hope that helps.

 

[torahgrandma]

Here is one article that I personally found to be quite informative. There are some other good ones as well:

http://www.seekgod.ca/htname.htm