Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
To: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation


> Yah
>
> I was always under the impression that the shortened form Yah
> was used as a matter of preference in poetry and it is for
> this reason that we see such a dominance of this form in the
> Psalms.
>
> yhwh as a verb
>
> I think it has been quite clear for many centuries that yhwh
> is a verb form very much related to the occassion when Yah
> revealed his name in connection with his purpose to his servant
> Moses on Mount Sinai. Even for critics who don't take the account
> as authentic it should be reasonably clear that the author of the
> Torah felt that it was so related.
>
> can a name be a verb?
>
> I find no conflict in the hebrew custom of naming and the use of
> a verb in a proper name. Names were always descriptive of the
> person rather than the mere lables we tend to use today in the
> English language.
> What better way to describe a person than by what he does?
> In times past in Britain people were named 'Smith' if they made swords
> or 'Thatcher' if they made rooves or 'Carpenter' if they made tables and
> chairs.
> The causative yhwh would literally mean something like 'he causes to be'
> or 'he causes to become' or in plain English 'he creates'. This seems
> to fit the character nicely and more than just satisfying grammatical
> rules seems to sound right from a spiritual perspective, which is a
> perspective that must have been very important to the ancient hebrews.


El and Yhwh may have been merged as an hypocoristicon. The Qal  of hwh 
(later shifting to Hiph'il in folk etymology) taken from a TITLE phrase as a 
hypocoristicon of EL, ala Albright and Cross.  A title like "El causes 
something to come into being".

Jack