Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Evgeny Ivanov <evi7538 AT yahoo.com>]

There is an interesting evidence that the word "YHVH" has something to do 
with the verb "to be". It may not be a solid evidence, but may be worth 
taking into account. It is the Gospel of John 18.4. 
 
18:4 "Then Jesus, because he knew everything that was going to happen to him, 
came and asked them, “Who are you looking for?” They replied, “Jesus the 
Nazarene.” He told them, “I am he.”  So when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” 
they retreated and fell to the ground."
 
Why would the soldiers (who in the garden were Israelites, not Romans) "fell 
to the ground" when they heard Jesus saying “I am he.”? There is a hypothesys 
that Jesus said "YHWH" and it was hearing the HaShem that made the Israelites 
fall to the ground. But if that is true, than the translation to Greek in 
form of “I am he” suggests that this is how early Christian Israelites 
understood the meaning of HaShem.    

Evgeny

"Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com> wrote:
> Is there any etymological connection between the Tetragrammaton
>and the idea of "breathing" or "breath"? The Siddur says, "The breathing of
>all life praises thy Name," and I'm wondering if this might be more than
>merely a platitude. Could there be an actual connection between YHVH and
>"breath"?

The only connection between YHWH (note - not YHVW) and breathing is
interpretive, not historical.

Van der Toorn's article in DDD on "Yahweh" goes through several
unlikely possibilities, noting the stunning amount of literature
devoted to the topic.

But the bottom line is that YHWH seems not to have an etymology.

Noting that (unlike Elohim, El, etc.), YHWH does not appear before
Israelite writing, I believe (based on this and considerable
additional evidence) that the Israelites invtented the term,
specifically out of the matres lectiones that they also invented.
(This is why it didn't have a pronunciation; it was purely a writing
convention.)

Sadly, my theory doesn't account for any connection between the verb
"to be" (HYH) and YHWH, relegating any similarities to coincidence,
but it does account for:

1. The lack of historical etymology to the word.

2. The fact that it contains only matres lectiones.

3. The fact that the traditional pronuncation for the word has
nothing to do with the sound of the letters.

4. The fact that until very late, the letters of YHWH themselves, and
not the sounds, seemed to be primary. (Some copies of the LXX
contain the Hebrew letters, and some DSS use the ancient letters
for YHWH among modern letters for the rest of the text.) 

It also accords well with the fact that the Israelites seem to have
used their matres lectiones for other important tasks, including
adding a Hey to the names of their Patriarch (AVRM --> AVRHM),
Matriarch (SHY --> SRH) and deity (ELYM --> ELHYM).

-Joel Hoffman



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Dr. Joel M. Hoffman recently observed:

"...But the bottom line is that YHWH seems not to have an etymology...Sadly, 
my theory doesn't account for any connection between the verb "to be" (HYH) 
and YHWH..."

I note that Dr. Beitzel expressed reservations concerning a relationship 
between "to be" and Yahweh. Cf. an extract below of his research:

Dr. Beitzel:

"Since the writing of G.R. Driver, a number of scholars have embraced the 
opinion that the divine name, when it first arose, did not have a readily 
intelligible form, instead being an emotional cultic outburst, such as 
dervishes might cry out ecstaticly. In the main basing his conclusions upon 
extra-biblical evidence, Driver affirmed that the antique form of the deity 
worshipped by some pre-Mosaic Hebrw ancestors was the digrammaton Ya, a form 
whose origin was a kind of numinal exclamation. Conclusive for Driver was 
the fact that whereas Hebrew compound proper names were never formed with 
Yahweh, many were formed with Ya. Now over a period of time, such primitive 
ecstatic ejaculations tend to be prolonged. Thus, taken together with 
Driver's belief that the genius of the Exodus event lay in the creation of a 
new national Hebrew diety, the evolution from Ya to Yahweh was easily 
effected. At once, this new form was recognized on the basis of popular 
etymology as closely resembling the verb hayah, therein facilitating its 
general acceptance and interpretation by the Mosaic community...As to these 
presuppositions, it must be asserted that it would be unprecedented for a 
Semetic divine name to originate in a religious exclamation...Furthermore, 
leaving aside the problem of how Ya developed into Yahweh and not some other 
form, Semitic proper names normally begin with transparent appellations or 
sentences and shorten or disintegrate. They do not become prolonged, as 
supposed by adherents of this view."

While the present writer has frequently encountered divine names consisting 
of one-word nouns (e.g. El), genitive compounds (e.g. Dagan-Neri, "Dagon is 
light"), noun plus pronoun (e.g. Yaum-An, "An is mine"), and verb plus noun 
(e.g. Itur'-Mer, "Mer returns"), it would be virtually unparalleld for a 
bare verbal form to exist as a divine name.

What is more, it must be pointed out that a root HWY is inextant in all West 
Semitic languages which antedate the Mosaic era. That is to say, Phoenician 
contains no root HWY; Ugaritic, despite its attestation of a divine name yw, 
bears no witness to this verbal root; and Amorite Akkadian evidences no root 
HWY. The root HWY is attested only in Aramaic, Syriac, Nabatean and 
Palmyrian...At the same time, a host of scholars advance the theory that the 
tetragrammaton derives from the causative stem of a Hebrew verb hayah. In 
this case, "Yahweh" and the verb "to be" are understood to be fused 
etymologically, and the divine name is taken to convey the meaning "the One 
Who causes to be (what is)," "He Who brings things to pass," or "the 
Performer of the Promise.

But again, one is left with a divine name composed wholly of a finite verb 
and, in this case, one of a demonstrably non-existent causative stem...In 
any case, the causative of this root is unattested in Semitic. (Barry J. 
Beitzel. "Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name: A Case of Biblical Paronomasia." 
Trinity Journal. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. 1980)



Regards, Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.

mattfeld12 AT charter.net

www.bibleorigins.net