Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com>]

>>In Chapter 4 I relate YHWH to the innovation of matres lectionis,
>>noting and discussing the obvious fact that the tetragrammaton
>>consists only of letters used as matres lectionis.
>
>Maybe that is DAVKA on purpose so that it won't be known how to 
>pronounce it except if one was specifically TAUGHT how to pronounce 
>it?

Very interesting.  I have always assumed that the tetragrammaton had
no pronunciation, but I suppose that your suggestion is equally
likely.

(Either way, it sounded nothing like YAHWEH, or JAVE, or JOVE, or
YAHOVA, etc....)

BTW, another interesting data point is that SHEM ADONAI [lit., name
of Adonai] is very frequent, while SHEM ELOHIM is not.  Clearly, YHWH
and Elohim were not interchangeable.

-Joel