wherever niiT is written, it is evidently to be read Jehovah . On this one account alone they retained Scheva under Jod : as also the Chaldean paraphrasers do, in that very contraction in their writing, J, which represents the name Jehovah and Adonai. As niiT* is written by means of the points of the name D\“6n, so by means of the points of the name TIN it might be written niiT , unless it were of itself to be pronounced HIT. Proper names, as Jehojakim , and many others, which are formed from the name niiT, and Greek forms of writing this name, being spread abroad among those of foreign lands, have been long ago collected by the learned.
§ 12. There is an incomparable and admirable compounding of the name niiT from 'IT Shall he , and nin Being , and nin Was. This para- phrase of the Divine Name by three tenses flowed on to the most ancient Greek poets and to the Talmudical writers. Passages are given in Wolf, T. iv. Curar. in N. T. p. 436. But the Apocalypse has the greatest strength.
§ 13. The second part, c Qeog, presents no difficulty. The name Qsbg, derived from 6&u, I place , bespeaks the Author of all things. But the first, K vp/og, requires some mention.
§ 14. Jo. Pearson, in his Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, p. 261, endeavours to bring the matter to this, that the word xupiog, in- asmuch as it answers to nin'1, is derived from -/.-jpu, I am. But the instances which he brings forward from the Tragic writers in parti- cular, all imply a kind of fortuitous being ; so that %vpu, or rather zi >pZ>, answers to the verb bnapya, no more than it does to the verb ruyydvw in meaning, and to the verb mp in its very sound. He who shall thoroughly perceive the force of the noun xvpog, by which it not only denotes moral influence, but also natural stability and firmness, will readily acknowledge that the noun xvpiog is a suitable word for trans- lating the noun nin'', the threefold expression of time being set aside ; and that it certainly denotes Him who is.
§ 15. As often as the noun 0g og is appended to the noun K vpiog, the latter answers to the proper noun nin' ; and this is its meaning in the present passage also.
§ 16. Now, since mention is so often made of God in the Old Testament, and in all the instances which occur, these titles only, amounting to three at the most, Jehovah , God, Almighty, are accus- tomed to be used in one place, what reason is there for the use of four here in the Apocalypse, the word K vpiog being prefixed to the other three ?
§ 17. The Apocalypse often expresses a thing in a twofold man-