RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Yahbalaha Yahweh
II. Meaning and Derivation: The form is doubtless derived from the verb hayah (hawah), ‘ to be or become,”’ as an imperfect either of the simple or causative species, differentiated as a proper name from the imperfect of the verb. But as this verb does not appear to have a causative species, it is better to take it as the simple form. In Ex. iii. 14 the question of Moses is answered by the statement “JT AM THAT I AM.” If for the first person were
substituted the third, the form might 1. The Ety- well be yahweh, and the idea is not mological that of being, existence (an abstract
Meaning. thought of late reflection), but of hap-
pening, coming to pass; the concept of being, existence, is a secondary derivation from that of coming to pass. In this case the translation is not “T am that I am,” nor (Aquila and Theodotion) “T will be what I will be,’’ upon which ideas are based the general Jewish notion of ‘‘ the Eternal.” The idea conveyed is ‘I, who manifest myself, reveal myself,” representing therefore not an abstract something, but a being who corresponds to a concrete need. Out of this flows a rich harvest of suggestion of Yahweh as the one living fact, out of which the form of the oath of Israel is derived—“ as Yahweh liveth.” God did not intend in the passage to assert his existence, for that was self-evident; the intention was to define himself as regnant in nature and history, revealing himself in life and force, rich in help for his people. The idea of eternity as represented in such passages as Isa. xl. 28, xli. 4, xliii. 13 is not to be imported into the Exodus passage. This rendering is related to that of Ibn Ezra, J. D. Michaelis, and J. Wellhausen, the last of whom renders. “‘I am because I am.”’ The rendering of W. R. Smith, which involves an implied idea that help to Israel is involved and imports “‘ to you” in some such way as “ I will be what I will be [to you] ” is refuted by Dillmann, who, however, was wrong in making it “I am what I am (inexpressible and inexplicable in essence),’’ which rendering he later renounced.
It is entirely a different question whether this etymological sense is now binding. Old-Testament usage allows more than a single meaning to a proper name, whether of place or person. It may be that
in Exodus there is a definite attempt
2. Other to etymologize, and that duty de-
Origins mands an attempt to go behind this.
Proposed. In fact many attempts of this sort have
been made, divisible into two classes, those which derive the name from Hebrew origin and those which regard as possible derivation of the name and the deity from non-Israelitic sources. The first group depends in part upon the supposition that the idea of existence is too metaphysical to be found at the very origin of a religion—an objection which does not lie against the rendering adopted above. Thus the meaning “ creator” has been suggested (J. LeClerc, Gesenius) from the causative idea of calling into existence. Cognate with this is the supposition that the verbs hayah and hawah, “live,” were fused in thought, with the result of a meaning similar to that just given, “ lifegiver’ or creator. But it may be asked whether in the text hayah, “to be or become ” is to stand,
Yahweh Year, The Hebrew
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
and whether a verb hawah, “‘ to fall ’’ or another of the same form meaning ‘to breathe, ask, or demand ”’ is not to be understood. In case Yahweh was a deity known in Israel long before the time of Moses, or was the deity of one of the ancestors of the people or of a non-Israelitic Semitic stock adopted by the whole people in Mosaic times, it would follow that an etymological origin in Hebrew either could receive no guaranty or would be excluded, and a Semitic stem hawah should be sought, leading far back into origins in nature religion. Hence Lagarde derived the name from the verb “ to (cause to) fall,’ ie., she storm-god (Orientalia, ii. 27, Géttingen, 1880), with whom practically agree W. R. Smith, Schwally, and Kerber; while Holzinger from the same root derives the meaning “ destroyer ” and Wellhausen obtains ‘‘ the breather” or “weather god’’—a meaning with which Ewald is in substantial accord. Other attempts have been made, as by Baudissin, Lenormant, and Schrader, to find the sources in Syrian or Babylonian religion, these attempts obtaining their support in the name Yaubidi, variant Jlubidi, of Hamath, which seems to look back to a deity Yau, or in a component of Babylonian names which appears as Ya or Yawa, Winckler supposing that the Babylonian deity was spiritualized into the Hebrew divinity, but derived directly from the Canaanites through whom he passed to the Israelites. Even F. Hommel is found as sponsor for the theory of a Babylonian origin (Hxpository Times, 1899, pp. 42 sqq.). But an objection to these proposals is that the ground form of the name does not appear to be Yahu but Yahweh, while Yah in Hebrew seems to be a poetic or liturgic abbreviation; and this is attested by the form on the Moabite Stone where Mesha wrote Yhwh and not Yhw or Yh. The occurrence of the forms in Syrian environment (such as Yaubidi, ut sup., or Azriyahu, H. Winckler, Forschungen, i. 16, Leipsic, 1893) or in Babylonia may be explained as direct loan names from Israel or as names carried by Hebrew captives or in part as not divine names, or even in some cases to be rendered as expansions of the prefix of the imperfect tense. Granted that there was a Sumerian deity Yau, it is highly improbable that he had any relationship to the Hebrew deity. Yahweh as a derivation from Yau is inexplicable, but to derive Yahu from Yahweh is easy and natural. Similarly the case alleged by W. M. Miiller (Asien und Europa, pp. 312-313, Leipsic, 1893) of a place-name Bait-ya (Beth-Yah or Beth-el) mentioned in the lists of Thothmes III. might possibly point to an old Canaanitic deity Ya, but whether this questionable deity had any relation to Yahweh is very problematical. So that the probabilities reduce to two; the form is native Hebrew or comes from a closely related (Arabic) stem.
From the historical standpoint it is to be remarked that, of the chief narrators of the Pentateuch, E and P refer the introduction of the worship of Yahweh among the Hebrews to Moses, while J in the manner of folk-lore carries this worship back into the earliest times of the race. In other words, Hebrews attributed to Moses the origin of Yahweh worship, and from the song of Deborah it appears that this cult was established before the time of Deb-
orah. And the narratives connect the origins closely with Sinai, in the neighborhood of which the deity revealed himself to Moses; so in
3. Was Deborah’s Song he comes forth from Si- Yahweh a nai and later Elijah goes to Sinai. At Kenite the time of this revelation, Moses was Deity? in connection with the shepherd stock
of Midianites, a stock related to the Kenites, who were in turn associated with the later Rechabites, strenuous maintainers of the Yahweh cult. Thus Yahwéh appears as an old deity of Sinai, revered in untold antiquity as a weather-god, and as such brought by Moses to Israel, to him revealed through his connection with the Midianite priestly family. In this way the difference of representations in J and E received explanation, since J belongs to Judah, as did the Kenites to whom Yahweh was the long-possessed ancestral deity. This is the view of Tiele, Stade, and Budde. To this it must be said that so essential a part is not assigned in the history to the Kenites; it is the Kenites who came to Israel and not the reverse (Num. x. 29 sqq.), and the conception assigns to the Hebrews no peculiarity, no religion, and no deity, while of a transfer from the Kenites no direct trace appears. If it is true, Moses must have discovered in this weather-god something new and singular entitling him to distinguish between the Kenites and the Israelites and enabling Moses to regard him ethically as the God of heaven and earth. If this ethical idea is lacking, the entire religious development of Israel remains a riddle. Budde lays stress upon the fact that the religion was a matter of election, of choice. But choice is not necessarily a matter of ethics, it may be one of arbitrary dealing. What Yahweh became in course of time he must have been, at least in germ, at the time of choice, the God of the right and the good. Of a change in the conception of God from a mere weather-god to an ethicel being the narrative says nothing; there is not a word which corresponds to the hypothesis of a derivation of their deity by Israel from the Kenites.
There remains the possibility that in the time before Moses a part of the people dwelt near Sinai and that by this part Yahweh was worshiped, and that from it Moses learned of him (so Nowack). It
is supposed that the sojourn in Egypt
4. Was he was by the Rachel tribes, while the God of the Leah tribes, to which Moses belonged, Leah _ remained at Sinai, whence Moses went Tribes? to summon the tribes in Egypt. But while this method of Nowack’s is the
only method by which the hypothesis of the Yahweh cult by a portion of the people can be supported, the matter remains pure hypothesis. Tradition knows of no abiding of an Israelitic stock at Sinai, only of a close connection of the Yahweh worship with Sinai. Further, it may be remarked that of the character of a pre-Mosaic Israelitic Sinai-god, Yahweh, nothing further is known except that he must have been other than he is conceived as the Yahweh of Moses. What can be affirmed is that with the person of Moses and the location of Sinai is bound up the revelation of Yahweh, so important for the history of Israel. The way in which
this came to Moses must, from the standpoint of human occurrences, remain an insolvable riddle. (R. Krrrs..)
Brstiograpuy: Besides the lexicons, especially Gesenius, Thesaurus, the works on O. T. theology, especially Schulze, the works on O. T. introduction, on the history of Israel, and the commentaries on Ex. vi., consult: S. R. Driver, in Studia Biblica, i. 1 sqq., Oxford, 1885; A. Kéhler, De pronunciatione . . . T'etragrammaton, Erlangen, 1867; W, W. von Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, 1. 181-254, Leipsic, 1876; E. Nestle, Die israelitischen Higennamen, ib. 1876; Tiele, in TAT’, xvi (1882), 262 sqq.; A. Kuenen, Volksreligion und Weltreligion, pp. 307 sqq., Berlin, 1883; Dietrich, in ZAT'W, iii (1883), iv (1884), 21 sqq.; Wellhausen, Heidentums; G. H. Dalman, Der Gottesname Adonaj, Berlin, 1889; P. de Lagarde, Uebersicht tiber die Nominalbildung, Gottingen, 1889; Pinches, in PSBA, xv (1892), 13 sqq.; G. Margoliouth, in PSBA, xviii (1895), 57 sqq.; J. Meinhold, Wider den Kleinglauben, vol. i., Freiburg, 1895; W. Nowack, Die Entstehung der israelitischen Religion, Strasburg, 1895; M. Jastrow, in ZA, x (1896), 222 sqq., ZATW, xv (1896), 1 sqq.; J. Robertson, Harly Religion of Israel, Edinburgh, 1896; F. Hommel, Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, Munich, 1897; G. Kerber, Die religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung der hebriischen EHigennamen, Tiibingen, 1897; E. Konig, in ZATW, xvii (1897), 172 sqq., NKZ, x (1899), 703 sqaq.; B. Stade, Die Entstehung des Volkes Israel, Giessen, 1897; B. Steinfiihrer, Untersuchung iiber den Namen Jehovah, Neustrelitz, 1898; K. Budde, Die Religion des Volkes Israel, Giessen, 1900; idem, Religion of Israel to the Exile, New York, 1899; Smith, Prophets; T. Tyler, in JQR, July, 1901; H. H. Spoer, in American Journal of Semitic Languages, Oct., 1901; G. A. Barton, Semitic Origins, chap. vii., New York, 1902; J. A. Montgomery, in JBL, xxv. 1 (1906); Expository Times, xviii (1907), 525; R. W. Rogers, Religions of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 91 sqaqa., New York, 1909 (deals with the name as found outside of Israel); P. C. Purves, The Jehovah Titles of the O. T., London, 1910; 8S. R. Driver, in his commentary on Genesis, Addendum II., ib. 1911; Schrader, KAT, pp. 457 et passim; Expository Times, Nov. 11, 1911; R. Kittel, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. 555 sqq., 628-629, Leipsic, 1912; DB, ii. 199-200; iv. 845; HB, iii. 3320-23; JE, vii. 87-88.