Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

> >
> Thank you. I prefer to accept this scholarly evidence. I don't think we
> can trust Karl's proto-Sinaitic evidence as we don't know how the words
> were pronounced.
>
> So, if matres lectionis were new in the 9th century, is there any
> earlier evidence of the name YHWH, complete with final he?
>
> -- 
> Peter Kirk


No, there is not. The earliest epigraphic evidence we have of the
Tetragrammaton is in Mesha. But there, where, as I have written, matres
lectionis are used only partially, final he's are used for the vowel o. So
if the final he in YHWH was intended as a mater lectionis, it would have
been pronounced Yahwoh. But I don't think it was. Which is why I think that
all four letters of the Tetragrammaton were pronounced as consonants, and
that the Name was never taken to be a verb (even if it is etymologically
related to the verb HYH/HWH).

Yigal