2. The most natural course is to seek to explain the name ‘ Jahweh’ (7°) from itself, that is, from the etymology underlying the form of the word. This seems all the more proper, because in at least one of the sources of the Pentateuch (E) we meet with an actual interpretation of the name (Ex 3!**), When Moses asks what name he is to give to the people as that of his Divine sender, God replies: ‘(Say) the I AM THAT I AM (or, again, the ‘I am’) hath sent me unto you.’ Here ‘Jahweh’ is plainly understood as the 3rd pers. sing. Imperf. of the old verb hawah ‘to be.’ But in Hebrew the Imperfect is the mood of continuance as well as of ever re- newed activity. Upon this interpretation ‘Jahweh’ denotes at once the Hternal (the form in which modern Jews reproduce the name) and the One who ever remains the same, the Constant.
Against this explanation, however, the strongest objections have been brought. From the time of Ewald it has been set down as a mere attempt at an artificial interpretation of an ancient name whose meaning had been long forgotten. But the root-idea of this name, we are told, just be- gause it is so ancient, must have been a material one, and cannot have been derived from abstract reflexion and metaphysical speculation. But this last objection, while it would apply to explana- tions which make Jahweh=‘ the truly Existing’ or ‘the absolute Being,’ etc., do not apply (or at least not to the same extent) to the simple view of the name as that of the Eternal and Constant,
* We take it for granted that our readers are aware that the form ‘Jehovah,’ which has the appearance of being handed down by tradition in the OT, is based upon a Christian misunder- standing, the vowels of the word *Adonai ‘Lord’ being taken (first in the year A.D. 1518) to be the real vowels of the Divine name, whereas they were attached by the Jews to the consonants JHWH (which are alone original) in order to warn the reader to avoid the actual pronunciation of the word and to substitute *Adonai for it. This treatment of the name ‘Jahweh’ as ‘unutterable’ sprang from an exaggerated dread of trans- gressing the commandment in Ex 207, The traces of this aversion to the utterance of the name can be carried back to about B.c. 300, although its utterance was for long after that regarded as allowable in the sacred domain, ¢.g. in the mouth of priests pronouncing the benediction. Neither in the Sep- tuagint (whether in the Canonical or in the Apocryphal books) nor in the whole of the NT is the name ‘Jahweh’ once used ; it is always 6 Képios ‘ the Lord.’ ;
Of the four possible ways of pronouncing the consonants JHWH (the so-called Tetragrammaton), namely, Jahweh or Jahdweh, Jahwah, or Jahdwah, the form Jahweh has rightly come to be prevailingly accepted. The following considerations tell in its favour: (1) that, according to Epiphanius (Heer. 1. iii. 20), a Jewish-Christian sect (according to Theodoret [Queest. 16 in E2.), the Samaritans) pronounced the name *Ia@é; (2) that in Jewish-Samaritan poems the end-vowel of J/HWH rhymes with é, not @; (8) that the shortening of the Divine name to Jého [J6| and Jahu in personal names like Jéhondthan [Jonathan] and Jéshi jahu (Isiah) are linguistically explicable only by assum- | ing as the basal form Jahweh. See, further, art. JEHOVAH in vol. ii.
626 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
the God whose living activity is always in exer- cise. Besides, the rejection of the interpretation offered in Ex 3" involves the conclusion that even the early sources of the Pentateuch were in error as to the true meaning of the most important and most sacred Divine name in Israel. But can it be supposed that at the time of E (c. 750 B.C.) the living apprehension of the genius of the Hebrew language was no longer adequate to interpret correctly a name like ‘Jahweh’? We cannot help thinking that this question has been answered in the affirmative far too hastily by those who follow the prevailing current of opinion on this subject. And we are only strengthened in our conviction when we note the extremely varied interpretations which have been proposed as sub- stitutes for that adopted in Ex 3%.* These fall into two categories according as they start like- wise from the verb Aawdah in the sense of ‘to be,’ or assume another meaning for this verb.
(a) The first of these two schools of interpreters takes ‘Jahweh’ to be the Imperfect of the Hiphil or Causative conjugation, and thus obtains the meaning ‘He who causes to be,’ ‘the Creator.’ But, apart from the circumstance that early Semitic languages want the Causative of the verb hawah, the idea of ‘ the Creator’ is precisely what is quite foreign to the name ‘Jahweh’ as we find it employed. No doubt, in later times, after the triumph of absolute monotheism, Jahweh is natur- ally brought into connexion with the work of creation. But at first He has to do almost ex- clusively with the deeds and fortunes of the people of Israel. This flows from His nature as a national God, and it is plain that it was in this latter capacity and not as the Creator that Moses at first proclaimed Him.—Absolutely to be rejected is the theory of an interchange of sound between hayah (hawah) and haydah ‘to live,’ so that Jahweh (here again Causative) would be=‘ He who gives life,’ ‘He who produces true (spiritual) life.’ However attractive this interpretation may be for its con- tents, it is shattered by the laws of the interchange of sound. These laws forbid an exchange between hand h at the beginning of a word.