Divine Name

יהוה

יְהֹוָה

In English, going in our direction, the four Hebrew consonants are YHWH.

This is a verb form: first person, pual (causative mode), present tense. It is variously rendered in translation: "I AM" or "I am Who am." It seems to me that the piel/pual forms of Hebrew verbs can have causitive connotations, so it may not be amiss to think that there may be an echo of creation in the Divine Name: "I am the one Who causes being." The rabbis who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek used ego eimi, "I AM," as the fundamental meaning of the word.

The consonants came first. Vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y in English) did not exist in Biblical Hebrew. The creation of a system of "vowel points" originated around 600 AD among the Masoretes in Tiberias, Jerusalem, and Iraq. Much controversy about the Hebrew text revolves around the question of vocalization--which vowels to insert into the sacred consonants so as to render them into words that can be spoken.

The second form of the divine name on this page has the vowels for Adonai, not the vowels for the original verb form.

Greek translation: "ego eimi."

Y + a + H + o + W + a + H

Yahowah --> Jehova

MRTN + Catherine = M + a + R + e + T + i + N + e = Maretine = gobbledeygook

Jehova is a nonsense word!