Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> I would agree that all of the divine names are equivalent in as much as
they refer to the
> same object, the God of Isreal.  What I think may have been
> the case is that the authors of the OT did not think them
> equivalent for writing purposes.  I am guessing that the
> ancient scribes and priests perferred to write the name of
> God as either Elohim, Eloah, or Yahweh and not as El, Yah,
> or Yahu.  I would also guess that this changed occurred
> after many of individuals named in the OT were given their
> names.

Or, perhaps simpler, YHWH is a formal, refined, grammatically correct
spelling of Iao, while Yh-Yahu is an older, vernacular by the time Torah was
written down spelling of the same Iao-Iau.

As for Eloah, I entertain an idea that it is El+Yah where waw is (old?
erroneous and frozen? more correct than iod?) mater lectionis for i.

Vadim Cherny