Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Rolf:

On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Rolf <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no> wrote:

… We do not know the real pronunciation of YHWH, but the clues we have, based on theophoric names, and corroborated by Akkadian transcriptions of Hebrew names, are that YHWH had three syllables, that the first was YE, and the last was WA, or WE (segol), and that the middle vowel was O  or U. There is absolutely no ancient Hebrew evidence in favor of the two-syllabic YAHWEH.

I don’t think we’ll ever recover the pronunciation of the name, but I think that the closest we can get to it is by analyzing what was the pronunciation of the language as a whole, not just the one name.

From what sparse evidence I’ve seen, it seems that pre-Babylonian Exile Hebrew was spoken with all open syllables, all consonants followed by a vowel. The final vowel of a multisyllabic word unstressed. That would indicate that the name had four syllables, but that fairly early on after the Babylonian Exile the unstressed fourth syllable was lost. That would make for three syllables, even as late as the Masoretes.

Because of the futility of recovering the pronunciation, I just can’t see making big arguments about it, nor attaching much importance to it.

Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway

Karl W. Randolph.