The Sacred Name - By Vance Ferrell

BY VANCE FERRELL

Pilgrims Books

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PB–3001The Sacred Nameby Vance FerrellPublished by Pilgrims BooksBeersheba Springs, TN 37305 USAPrinted in the United States of AmericaCover and Text Copyright © 1992by Pilgrims BooksReprinted in 8½ x 11 size 1998

“In order to strengthen our confidence in God, Christ teaches usto address Him by a new name, a name entwined with the dearestassociations of the human heart. He gives us the privilege of callingthe infinite God our Father. This name, spoken to Him and of Him, isa sign of our love and trust toward Him, and a pledge of His regardand relationship to us. Spoken when asking His favor or blessing, it isas music in His ears. That we might not think it presumption to callHim by this name, He has repeated it again and again. He desires usto become familiar with the appellation.”—Christ’s Object Lessons,141, 142.

“Then press your petition to the Father in the name of Jesus.God will honor that name.”—Christ’s Object Lessons, 147, 148.

“Let us study the life and death of Christ. Let us do all in ourpower to work out the plan of God. What tongue can tell, what penunfold the mighty results of looking to Jesus and living His life? Howfew of those claiming to be Christians have any real right to thatsacred name.—The Upward Look, 200.

“Heaven is a clean and holy place. God is pure and holy. All whocome into His presence should take heed to His directions, and havethe body and the clothing in a pure, clean condition, thus showingrespect to themselves and to Him. The heart must also be sanctified.Those who do this will not dishonor His sacred name by worshipingHim while their hearts are polluted and their apparel is untidy.”—Sonsand Daughters of God, 173.

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God’s Name Is Sacred 4

He Has Many Names 5

The Name of God Should Be Hallowed 5

The Meaning of the Third Commandment 6

When Something Becomes Too Sacred 7

When a Word Becomes Too Sacred 7

Character Is the Issue 8

The Unknown Name 8

Why Speak an Ineffable Name? 8

Believing the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy 9

Why Not Use the Alternate Names? 10

Some Questions Discussed 10

The Ineffable Name 16

The Hebrew Language 17

YHWH in the Bible 22

The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3 23

The Hebrew and Greek for “God” in the KJV 24

The Hebrew and Greek for “Lord” in the KJV 24

The Primary Names of God in the Old Testament 26

The Names of God and Christ in the KJV 26

Additional Quotations 33

Contents

44444 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Name

Is the name of God sacred? What arewe told about this important subject? Weare thankful for the Bible and Spirit ofProphecy. We can be sure that we will findour answer in those writings. However,there are historical facts which shouldprovide some useful help.

GOD’S NAME IS SACRED

Although we may or may not believe theSacred Name theory, we can very definitelybelieve in the sacredness of the Creator’sname. It is sacred for two reasons:

First, although no man’s name is sacred,His name is different. The sheer magnitudeof all that our Creator is and all that He cando should properly awe us into deep humil-ity.

Second, we are specifically told about thatsacredness in His Word:

“May 14, 1851, I saw the beauty and loveli-ness of Jesus. As I beheld His glory, the thoughtdid not occur to me that I should ever be sepa-rated from His presence. I saw a light comingfrom the glory that encircled the Father, and asit approached near to me, my body trembledand shook like a leaf. I thought that if it shouldcome near me I would be struck out of exist-ence, but the light passed me. Then could I havesome sense of the great and terrible God withwhom we have to do. I saw then what faint viewssome have of the holiness of God, and how

much they take His holy and reverend name invain, without realizing that it is God, the greatand terrible God, of whom they are speaking.While praying, many use careless and irrever-ent expressions, which grieve the tender Spiritof the Lord and cause their petitions to be shutout of heaven.”—Early Writings, 70.

“I saw that God’s name should be used withreverence and awe. The words God Almightyare coupled together and used by some inprayer in a careless, thoughtless manner, whichis displeasing to Him. Such have no realizingsense of God or the truth, or they would notspeak so irreverently of the great and dreadfulGod, who is soon to judge them in the last day.Said the angel, ‘Couple them not together; forfearful is His name.’ Those who realize thegreatness and majesty of God, will take Hisname on their lips with holy awe. He dwellethin light unapproachable; no man can see Himand live. I saw that these things will have to beunderstood and corrected before the churchcan prosper.”—Early Writings, 122.

It is clear that the name of our God issacred. How should we relate to it? In theabove two passages we are told how thisshould be done: (1) We should take it uponour lips when necessary, but not more oftenthan necessary. (2) We should both think andspeak of it amid an attitude of reverence. Forthis reason, the present writer tries not men-tion the Creator’s name any more than is nec-essary. And what is that name? According tothe above passage, when communicating tofellow human beings in English that name is



55555He Has Many NamesHe Has Many NamesHe Has Many NamesHe Has Many NamesHe Has Many Names“God.”

HE HAS MANY NAMES

The Wonderful One who made us hasmany names. He has, in Scripture, given us avariety of names by which to speak of, and to,Him. The present writer prefers to especiallyuse that one which is so very personal, andso very sweet. We find it discussed in Mat-thew 5:6:

“After this manner therefore pray ye: ‘OurFather which art in heaven, hallowed be Thyname.’”—Matthew 6:9.

In this passage (and in Luke 11:2), Jesusexplains to all who would be His disciples thename by which they should pray to theirMaker: “Our Father.”

What a most wonderful name! And howvery accurate! He is such a very good Father;He made us and continually provides us withcountless blessings. Lest you think that thefirst verse of the Lord’s Prayer is a slip of thetongue, Jesus repeats that name both beforeand after giving that prayer to us, His disciples(see Matthew 6:6 and 6:14-15). Indeed, theRuler of the universe is called our “Father” 12times in this one chapter alone! Read it foryourself (Matthew 6).

In fact, you will find that the appellation,“Father,” is the name given to Him 256 timesin the New Testament! Throughout the fourGospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and Revela-tion He is called our Father. (He is called “theFather,” “my Father,” or “our Father” in everyone of the New Testament books, except 3John.)

In the Spirit of Prophecy, we also find veryclear evidence that this is a special name wemay refer to Him by:

“In calling God our father, we recognize allHis children as our brethren . . The infiniteGod, said Jesus, makes it your privilege to ap-proach Him by the name of Father: Understandall that this implies. No earthly parent everpleaded so earnestly with an erring child as Hewho made you pleads with the transgressor.No human, loving interest ever followed theimpenitent with such tender invitations.”—Mount of Blessing, 105.

Read the entire section in that book, be-ginning on page 103. This privilege of callingHim “our Father,” brings with it an accompa-

nying responsibility:“But if you call God your Father you acknowl-

edge yourselves His children, to be guided byHis wisdom and to be obedient in all things,knowing that His love is changeless. You willaccept His plan for your life. As children of God,you will hold His honor, His character, His fam-ily, His work, as the objects of your highest in-terest. It will be your joy to recognize and honoryour relation to your Father and to every mem-ber of His family. You will rejoice to do any act,however humble, that will tend to His glory orto the well-being of your kindred.”—Mount ofBlessing, 105-106.

Which people on earth would have a spe-cial right to speak of God as their Father? Itwould be His commandment-keeping people!The worldlings who refuse obedience to Hislaw may acknowledge Him as “God,” but theyare not revealing, by their lives, that they ac-knowledge Him as their “Father.” He may, in-deed, be their true heavenly father, but, bytheir disobedience to the fourth command-ment, are unwilling to enter into that closerelationship, as His sons and daughters, de-scribed in Scripture.

Please do not misunderstand: We are nothere saying that “Father” is the only namewhereby the Creator must be spoken of or to.But it is a special, personal name. Let no mantell you that only one of His wonderful namesmay be used. He has many very meaningfulnames in Scripture; we will discuss some ofthem later in this study. In addition, when wespeak of Him as “Father,” we use His othersacred names (“God,” etc.) less frequently inour day-to-day conversation.

THE NAME OF GODSHOULD BE HALLOWED

As quoted in the Early Writings passagesabove, the name of God should only be takenupon our lips with reverence. But we can be-come self-deceived on this subject of treatingHis name sacredly. According to God’s Word,we should speak His name with deep rever-ence, and not use it more than necessary.

In view of that fact, it is a strange twist ofprinciple to say that “using His name sacredly”instead means to never speak His name in itsEnglish translation, but only in Hebrew.

The question is not whether God’s name

66666 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameis sacred, but how are we to relate to that sa-credness. Here is what we are told in the Spiritof Prophecy about what it means to sacredlyregard the name of God:

“To hallow the name of the Lord requiresthat the words in which we speak of the Su-preme Being be uttered with reverence. ‘Holyand reverend is His name.’ Psalm 111:9. Weare never in any manner to treat lightly the titlesor appellations of the Deity. In prayer we enterthe audience chamber of the Most High; andwe should come before Him with holy awe. Theangels veil their faces in His presence. Thecherubim and the bright and holy seraphimapproach His throne with solemn reverence.How much more should we, finite, sinful be-ings, come in a reverent manner before theLord, our Maker!”—Mount of Blessing, 106.

So that is what it means to hallow thename of God! —It is the reverent way we speakthe name. But, as for the particular name, weare not required to use a particular one of themany given in Scripture. In addition, God’sWord explains that “hallowing His name”means more than just being reverent whenwe think, speak, and write it. To treat the nameof our Creator with genuine sacredness—alsomeans to live like Him! In entering into suchreverence, we go beyond mere words—to ourway of life. It involves our very thoughts andactions.

“But to hallow the name of the Lord meansmuch more than this. We may, like the Jews inChrist’s day manifest the greatest outward rev-erence for God, and yet profane His name con-tinually. ‘The name of the Lord’ is ‘merciful andgracious, long-suffering, and abundant in good-ness and truth, . . forgiving iniquity and trans-gression and sin.’ Exodus 34:5-7. Of the churchof Christ it is written, ‘This is the name where-with she shall be called, The Lord our Righ-teousness.’ Jeremiah 33:16. This name is putupon every follower of Christ. It is the heritageof the child of God. The family are called afterthe Father. The prophet Jeremiah, in the timeof Israel’s sore distress and tribulation, prayed,‘We are called by Thy name; leave us not.’Jeremiah 14:9.

“This name is hallowed by the angels ofheaven, by the inhabitants of unfallen worlds.When you pray, ‘Hallowed be Thy name,’ youask that it may be hallowed in this world, hal-lowed in you. God has acknowledged you be-fore men and angels as His child; pray thatyou may do no dishonor to the ‘worthy nameby which ye are called.’ James 2:7. God sends

you into the world as His representative. Inevery act of life you are to make manifest thename of God. This petition calls upon you topossess His character. You cannot hallow Hisname, you cannot represent Him to the world,unless in life and character you represent thevery life and character of God. This you can doonly through the acceptance of the grace andrighteousness of Christ.”—Mount of Blessing,106-107.

THE MEANING OFTHE THIRD COMMANDMENT

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lordthy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold Himguiltless that taketh His name in vain.”—Exo-dus 20:7.

“But,” someone will say, “does not thethird commandment require us to use theHebrew name for ‘God’”?

Our heavenly Father, in His InspiredWord, has told us exactly what the third com-mandment requires us to do:

“This commandment not only prohibits falseoaths and common swearing, but it forbids usto use the name of God in a light or carelessmanner, without regard to its awful significance.By the thoughtless mention of God in commonconversation, by appeals to Him in trivial mat-ters, and by the frequent and thoughtless rep-etition of His name, we dishonor Him. ‘Holyand reverend is His name.’ Psalm 111:9. Allshould meditate upon His majesty, His purityand holiness, that the heart may be impressedwith a sense of His exalted character; and Hisholy name should be uttered with reverenceand solemnity.”—Patriarchs and Prophets,306-307.

We are not commanded—anywhere in theSpirit of Prophecy—to only use the originalHebrew form of one name—or any name—ofour Creator. And, according to the theory, weare told that, whatever our native language,we must use only one name, and not the manyothers given us by our Maker in the Bible.

Instead, the focus is on our conduct and“the thoughtless repetition of His name.” Fromthe above quotation we see that unnecessaryrepetitions of His holy name should not bedone by us His children. To do so in somecontexts can border on a species of swearing.

We are His children and we are indeed toacknowledge ourselves as His children andservants. But reverence for His awesome maj-

77777esty, power, and sovereignty will lead us notto speak His name more than necessary.

WHEN SOMETHINGBECOMES TOO SACRED

Man has a tendency to worship objectsinstead of his Maker. We should not concret-ize something and place it before our atten-tion so thoroughly that it stands in the placeof God. To prevent us from doing that, we weregiven the second commandment. Is it possiblethat we may be making such an “image” and“likeness,” when we insist that only one word,pronounced in only a certain way, can be usedin reference to our Creator—and then we lookupon those who do so as worshipers of a falsegod? When a word becomes more sacred thanChristian experience and our likeness to God,then we may be worshiping the word insteadof the One Whom it is supposed to represent.

We tend to worship objects. The story ofNehushtan is a powerful example of this. Thebrazen serpent represented Christ, and wasgiven to the Israelites in the wilderness as anobject lesson. We all know the story, as givenin Numbers 21. Few things in the Old Testa-ment provided His people with a more sol-emn clarification of the sacrifice of Christ. Yetit was God that ought to be venerated, not thebrazen serpent.

That brazen form was treasured by thepeople and, in later centuries, became an ob-ject of worship. They took something goodand, by making it the center of their religiouslife and worship, transformed it into a hin-drance to right living and true worship.

“He removed the high places, and brake theimages, and cut down the groves, and brake inpieces the brazen serpent that Moses hadmade: for unto those days the children of Is-rael did burn incense to it: and he called itNehushtan.”—2 Kings 18:4.

The brazen serpent was given to the Isra-elites to teach them a most important lessonabout the work of God for mankind. But,many centuries later, they began veneratingthe object! In response, good king Hezekiahcalled it what it was: Nehushtan—just “a pieceof brass.”

We today can do the same thing to one ofHis names. It may indeed represent our Maker

and point us to Him. But we dare not trans-form the name itself into the seat of worship.

Each of God’s names in the Bible has aspecial meaning. We value each one, as wevalue all the others. But we are not to singleout one of those names to the exclusion of allthe others—and declare that it is the only onewhich can be used. No one in Bible times didthat! Nether did Ellen White! All the Inspiredprophets used a variety of names when speak-ing to or about their Creator.

In the original Hebrew, one of the namesof God was YHWH. Like all the other namesand appellations of our Maker, it was special.But we are not to cast out the others, and usethat one name exclusively. Nowhere are wegiven such an example in the Inspired Writ-ings. Nowhere are we told that we must onlyuse it in its original Hebrew form.

Is there not a danger that some of us to-day may make a nehushtan of a word? Arewe safe in going beyond Scripture, and de-nouncing those who believe in “God” and“Jesus Christ” as apostates and the Antichrist?

Think about it.

WHEN A WORD BECOMESTOO SACRED

We are solemnly told that, according tothe theory, Yahweh (or some other spelling ofYHWH) is the Sacred Name, and that it aloneis the term by which we are to speak of, or to,our Creator. (We are also told that the namefor Jesus is Yeshua, Yehoshua, or some simi-lar spelling.) According to this theory, anyonewho uses another name is pronouncing thename of a heathen deity and thus worshipingthe devil. The Sacred Name articles and pa-pers tell us that all the devil-worshipers whomake God and Christ their master, will diethe second death unless they repent and be-gin using the right terms for the Godhead.(Little is said about the Holy Spirit, althoughHe has been given the name, “Yahwenissi.”)

We have here what appears to be a formof word-worship. A word has been deemed soholy that it is permitted to swallow up every-thing else.

In all of this, there is one aspect whichdisturbs me deeply: I have met sincere folk

When Something Becomes Too SacrWhen Something Becomes Too SacrWhen Something Becomes Too SacrWhen Something Becomes Too SacrWhen Something Becomes Too Sacrededededed

88888 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namewho cannot and will not speak of their Cre-ator or Redeemer in the presence of “non-be-lievers”—Christians or worldlings, and theywill not permit their children to do so. If theyhappen to be in a prayer session with “non-believers,” they will not pray out loud. If youask them, they will tell you that they are not“Christians,” because “Christ” is an evil word,and the name of the Antichrist. If pressed, theywill tell you that everyone in the whole worldwho worships “God” is worshiping a demonand will be damned to hellfire. Such peoplehave changed a beautiful name of God into anehushtan.

CHARACTER IS THE ISSUE

It is character which is the basic issue inChristianity and salvation. It is the basic is-sue in the name of God. It is not the speakingof the name or phonics of the name, but thecharacter expressed in that name reflected inus. Moses asked to see the divine glory, andhe was told that that name would be pro-claimed to him (Exodus 33:18-19). Then theCreator passed before Him and told Mosesabout His character:

“And the Lord descended in the cloud, andstood with him there, and proclaimed the nameof the Lord.

“And the Lord passed by before him, andproclaimed,

‘The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gra-cious, long-suffering, and abundant in good-ness and truth.

“‘Keeping mercy for thousands, forgivinginiquity and transgression and sin, and thatwill by no means clear the guilty;

“‘Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon thechildren, and upon the children’s children, untothe third and to the fourth generation.’”—Exo-dus 34:5-7.

It was not the name which was holy, itwas the character—His innate qualities—which were holy. By derivation, God’s peoplerender the name holy. In other words, it isthe holiness of God which makes His nameholy; there is nothing in the name itself. It iswhen we reflect that holiness—those purecharacteristics—that we honor His name anddo not take it in vain.

You and I are not made holy by mouthingHis name, nor are we saved by it. It is by daily

submission to Christ and obedience to HisInspired Word which is genuine Christianity.The name is nothing apart from the likenessof God—both in regard to Him and in regardto us also.

The objective is not to say a name, but tobe like our Creator and Redeemer.

The law is a transcript of His character,the name is not. The name is only a symbolor label. (Yet, within the name is a brief one-sentence statement about the character ofGod. We will overview that later in this study.)

THE UNKNOWN NAME

At the heart of the Sacred Name theory isthe term, YHWH. According to that theory, itis not a matter of knowing about the name;the crucial issue is pronouncing it! As oneSacred Name writer said in a 176-page book:“The issue has much, much to do with WORDSand SPEECH and SOUNDS” (full caps his). Ac-cording to the theory, if we do not SAY theword when we speak of, or to, our Creator,we will erelong go into the lake of fire.

That is pretty strong language,—especiallywhen one stops to consider that no one onearth knows how to pronounce YHWH. Howcan you say a word you do not know how tosay? How can our Lord and Saviour refuse ussalvation when we do not know how to speakthat special word which—by speaking—caninsure for us eternal life?

(The spoken and fully written Hebrew lan-guage was lost to us for over a thousand years,and there is no way we can now recover it.How then can we now return to what we nolonger have? More on this later in this study.)

WHY SPEAKAN INEFFABLE NAME?

Before the pronunciation of YHWH waslost to the Jews, it was for several centurieshidden by some of their zealots. The advo-cates of the sacred Name theory tell us it isimportant to speak the name, yet Jews con-sidered it too sacred to be pronounced. If itwas thought that the name is not to be pro-nounced, why does the Sacred Name theoryrequire that we today focus on pronouncingthat name?

99999If we are to copy the non-Scriptural think-

ing of Jews in Old Testament times, and exaltthe one name above all others, then why dowe not do the same with the name as theYHWH theorists did back then—and not useit at all?

If the name, YHWH is THAT sacred—thenwhy do believers in the Sacred Name theorynot use the other beautiful Old Testamentnames of God, instead? It is God in His Wordwho has given us all those names.

Both the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy tellus to hallow the name of the Lord. We aretold not to use the name any more than nec-essary. In order to help us do this, we havebeen given a variety of terms by which to ad-dress Him or speak about Him. But to takethe one name upon our lips—which the theorysays is the most sacred of all—instead of anyof the other Old Testament names, is to ren-der it less sacred than all the others!

We have a friend who independently iden-tified that one point clearly and, seeing it,abandoned the Sacred Name theory entirely.

BELIEVING THE BIBLEAND SPIRIT OF PROPHECY

It is dangerous to leave God’s Word. Ouronly safety is in knowing and obeying it. Ourprotection is in studying the writings of theprophets. We dare not go beyond Scripture.

Neither the Bible nor Spirit of Prophecypresents us with a pattern of only sayingYHWH when speaking to, or about, the Cre-ator. Turn to any book of the Bible, or to anybook of the Spirit of Prophecy and you willnot find such a pattern. Never do we find apattern of only using the word YHWH, theword YHS,’ or any variation of those twowords. When we leave the Scriptural pattern,we, in effect, throw our charts and compassoverboard. Erelong we may fully shipwreck.

But, before then, we are likely to wanderinto many more notions which people presentto us. No longer protected by an encirclingwall of trust in the clear statements of the Bibleand Spirit of Prophecy, we are open for de-ception. That is so because we have trainedourselves to believe that there is light outsideof Scripture, and new, advanced truth can befound in the writings of uninspired men.

Our only safety is in remaining with therevealed will of God.

“‘Can you refute by sound reasons the [Prot-estant] Confession made by the elector and hisallies?’ asked another of Dr. Eck. ‘With the writ-ings of the apostles and prophets no!’ was thereply . . ‘I understand,’ responded the ques-tioner. ‘The Lutherans, according to you are inScripture, and we are outside.’”—Great Con-troversy, 208.

“‘Unhappily,’ said a Catholic writer, ‘Lutherhad persuaded his followers to put no faith inany other oracle than the Holy Scriptures.’”—Great Controversy, 195.

A good persuasion. Stay with God’s Books;there is no other sure guide to heaven. Specu-lation may be enjoyable; but, in regard to thepathway to heaven, certainty is much better.Certainty is found in the words of Scripture,not in one or two words found in it.

And Scripture includes both the Bible andthe Spirit of Prophecy. They are equally in-spired, equally invaluable, equally vital to yourprotection and guidance. It was in the late1970s that our family first met Fred. He wastrying hard to be a Christian. Earlier in lifehe had become addicted to tobacco, and hewas still trying to overcome it. But he lovedDesire of Ages, and he continually read inthe Spirit of Prophecy. Day by day those bookshelped him in his search for Christ and a bet-ter way of life. But cigarettes remained a realproblem. Fred did whatever he could to helpothers.

One day Fred stopped by and said, “Vance,I am giving up the Spirit of Prophecy.” Startled,I replied, “Fred, why?” “It is simple,” he re-sponded in his very logical manner. “Last weekI read papers from Oregon which said thatthe wicked will not be punished by God, andthis week someone handed me a pamphletabout the Sacred Name. Because I like bothideas, and know that neither one is in theSpirit of Prophecy, I am giving up the Spirit ofProphecy.”

Fred was honest in his deception; he knewit was not in the Spirit of Prophecy. But hismind was made up and nothing we could docould change his thinking. Shortly afterward,he announced an auction and sold off his en-tire set of Spirit of Prophecy books. Refusingto talk with me further, he moved away. At

Believing the Bible and Spirit of ProphecyBelieving the Bible and Spirit of ProphecyBelieving the Bible and Spirit of ProphecyBelieving the Bible and Spirit of ProphecyBelieving the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy

1010101010 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namefirst his wife was happy with his decision, forshe was not interested in religion anyway. Butgradually Fred changed. His inner peace andstrength was gone and before long his wifeand children left him and moved to Indiana.About a year later, we learned that, alone in ahouse somewhere in central Illinois, Fred shutthe doors in the garage, turned on the engineand gassed himself to death. I think of Fredwhen I hear about the “God will never kill theincorrigibly wicked” theory (totally refuted inour tract-book, The Terrible Storm), or theSacred Name theory.

Some speculations may sound glorious,but that does not make them right. The ter-rible danger in accepting them is that, in do-ing so, we are emboldened to make still moreventures into ideas which are clearly not inGod’s Word. Pretty soon we are into “God willnever kill the wicked,” pendulums, or [some-thing else] other deception.

WHY NOT USE ALTERNATE NAMES?

According to the Sacred Name theory, ofall the Old Testament names for God it isYHWH which should be used. But if YHWH isso sacred, why speak that name at all? Whynot use the alternate names in place of it—simply because it is so sacred?

The obvious forerunners of the SacredName adherents were the Jews in Old Testa-ment times who decided that YHWH was moresacred than any other name of God. They werethe Sacred Name theorists of earlier history.But their theory was more consistent. Sincethey considered YHWH to be more sacred,they decided they would never speak it—andonly use a variant name in its place.

They called YHWH the “ineffable name,”that is, the “unspeakable name”—the namethat must not be spoken.

The contrast is striking. Why do those to-day who believe it is so very hallowed, take itso frequently upon their lips—to the exclu-sion of almost any other of the names of De-ity?

SOME QUESTIONS DISCUSSED

The following questions come directly

from several studies prepared by Sacred Nameadvocates; some rather lengthy:

“It is blasphemous to call our Maker ‘Lord,’since that name meant ‘Baal’ in the Hebrew.”

We are to adhere to Scripture and the pat-tern it uses. We are not to divert from thatpattern and consider our own logic sufficientto guide us aright. The word “lord” (“master”)in the Old Testament translates several dif-ferent words, but the most frequent wasYHWH, not “Baal.” The word “Baal” was ageneric term, meaning someone’s master.Jesus is our Lord and Master. It is true thatthe spiritists call Satan their master. But thatdoes not mean we cannot use the term in itsproper sense.

Protestants and Catholics call Sunday the“sabbath,” but that does not mean we shouldno longer use the term in its true setting. Theword “Lord” is applied to the true God over5,000 times in the King James Version. TheSpirit of Prophecy repeatedly calls Him by thesame name. By the way, checking on this wefind that the word “Lord” is applied to Christ57,914 times in the Spirit of Prophecy, as re-corded in CD-ROM. The word YHWH is notapplied to a member of the Godhead even oncein the Spirit of Prophecy.

In the New Testament, Jesus was oftencalled “Lord” by the Inspired writers. It is alsoa generic term for one’s master, and, in theNew Testament, is applied to Jesus about 600times.

Perhaps some may feel secure in going be-yond Scripture in the search for a “purer reli-gion.” But God’s faithful ones will stay withthe Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. The ques-tion is this: Are Jesus and His Scriptures suf-ficient to get a repentant, humble, believing,obedient person to heaven? Yes, they are. Soremain with them. Will a name get him there?No, it will not.

This charge (that we dare not use the word“Lord” applied to our Maker) has many im-plications. Here is just one of them: The Sab-bath is not the “Lord’s day” as John said (Rev-elation 1:10), and Ellen White agreed (GC 447;SL 74; 6T 128: DA 203, 206, 288; 6T 356).

1111111111“There are false ‘gods’ and there is a true

‘God.’ But there is only one YHWH. Thereforewe should use that name, instead of ‘God.’”

That is what we should do, IF God tellsus to. But, instead, we find that the most fre-quent name for our heavenly Father in theSpirit of Prophecy is “God.” We do best to staywith Scripture, and not try to venture out intothe darkness of other ideas and ways of do-ing things.

In the Bible times, there were many“lords.” Some of them referred to false gods,such as Baal. But the true God was also called“Lord.” So we have the same pattern in theOld Testament that we have in the Spirit ofProphecy. Today, we also have “landlords.”Throughout the middle ages, the lord was theowner of the property, on which the tenantfarmers lived. There are lords many and godsmany. But, in the Bible and Spirit of Proph-ecy, we are told that, in spite of the fact thereare false ones, there is also a true Lord andGod—and that is His name.

“I believe that Ellen White knew about‘Yashua’ in her time. That should prove thatit is the word we should use instead of ‘Jesus.’”

If that were true, it would only strengthenthe fact that we may “call His name Jesus”(Matthew 1:21). If Ellen White knew about thecontroversy over Yashua and still used Jesusthroughout her writings (including her veryearliest ones),—then that would provide ad-ditional evidence against using Yashua now.If she did not consider that to be “new light,”then we may safely do the same.

“Yes, it is true that the King James Versionuses the words, ‘God,’ and ‘Lord,’ and ‘Jesus,’and ‘Christ.’ But that is no reason why weshould do the same.”

The King James Version was the transla-tion especially used by Ellen White. In addi-tion, she herself used those four words morethan any others in describing the Father andthe Son. When we ask our heavenly Fatherfor a fish, He will not give us a stone. We musthave divine guidance in order to get to heaven,and He has given it through the writings ofHis Inspired prophets. If the Spirit of Proph-ecy tells us those four words are all right, thenthey are.

“But there is more light to come. Ellen Whitedid not have it all. We must search for more

light outside of the Bible and Spirit of Proph-ecy.”

That viewpoint is a dangerous one. And,if you want to know the truth, it is papal. TheRoman Catholic Church is founded on thepolicy that we must accept the words of manin addition to Scripture in order to have thetrue religion.

Over a period of time, those additionalsuppositions, accepted by the professedpeople of God, become the body of Tradition.And, once entrenched, woe be to him who didnot obey it all. That is how Sunday sacred-ness, holy water, beads, candles, tonsures,Easter—and all the rest came—into thechurch. That is how the Inquisition arrived.Read Great Controversy, chapters 2, 3, and37.

The Jews did the same thing. They hadtheologians eager to come up with somethingnew, just as we do. Over the years, they jottedcomments in the margins of Hebrew Bibles.Gradually a grotesque collection of all kindsof peculiar ideas was collected in what theycalled, the Talmud. This was a vast junk heapof sayings and oral tradition, culled from thewonderings of uninspired men. As with Ro-man Catholic tradition, the Talmud was ac-cepted as superior to Scripture because it wassaid to “interpret it” to the people and theirreligious leaders. In order to eliminate thewritings of Moses, the Mishna—containingstill more speculations—was added to thefront of the Talmud.

If you plan to search for “more light” out-side the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, wheredo you intend to find it? In your own think-ing? In musings propounded by some pass-ing preacher who holds meetings in your area?From someone’s newsletter? “To the law andto the testimony; if they speak not accord-ing to this Word, it is because there is nolight in them.” (Isaiah 8:20).

If you plan to search for “new light” out-side of God’s Books, then how will you knowwhen you find it? You have no way to verifythat it is truth,—simply because it is, as yousay, “light from outside Scripture.” If it waslight in Scripture, you would not have to gooutside to find it. Unless it totally agrees withall of God’s Word, then you can know it con-

Some Questions DiscussedSome Questions DiscussedSome Questions DiscussedSome Questions DiscussedSome Questions Discussed

1212121212 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Nametains error.

Is eternal life worth the gamble of trust-ing in your own sparks or those of someoneelse? Be honest with yourself, or someone maysteal your crown under the guise of giving you“new light.”

“It is idol worship and the worship of falsegods to even speak the names ‘God,’ ‘Jesus,’or ‘Christ.’”

In that case, all the prophets of the Biblewere engaged in false worship, and so wasEllen White. Not being smart enough myselfto unravel all the subtle arguments these theo-rists come up with I, for one, will take mystand with the Inspired writers of Scripture. Iconsider that far safer than throwing out allthe Bible and Spirit of Prophecy in order tosit at the feet of an uninspired man and slav-ishly follow his theories.

A friend of ours studied deeply into theSacred Name theory and then, after decidingit was a mass of contradictions, discarded it.For example, he discovered: If the theory betrue, then when the wicked swear—they arenot really swearing at all; but if God’s pro-fessed people speak one of those names—evenreverently,—they are wicked and in danger ofhellfire.

The Sacred Name theory turns right intowrong and theory into truth. It begins by of-fering to improve our understanding of theBible and Spirit of Prophecy—and ends bychanging words in the Spirit of Prophecy whenit quotes it; and rewriting and then printing anew Bible. It declares that all the world willdie the second death because they are notspeaking a name no one knows how to speak.

“Whoever does not exclusively name thename of YHWH should be put to death, andYHWH will do this after He has marked thosepeople with the mark of the beast. Disobedi-ence to the third commandment—not thefourth—is the test in these last days; it willbe the test in the final crisis before probationcloses.”

Your theory stands totally in oppositionto the plain statements of the Spirit of Proph-ecy as to the nature of the present and finaltest before probation closes. Read Great Con-troversy, chapters 25-29, and 35-39. TheBible Sabbath is the test.

According to the King James Version,

which Ellen White used all her life, the thirdcommandment calls Him “the Lord thy God”(Exodus 20:7). See also the introduction(20:1-2), and the second, fourth, and fifthcommandments (20:5,10-12), where thatdouble title is again used. Not once did shetell us that YHWH was the final test—or anytest to the people of God or to anyone else.

“Since we today know the exact way inwhich YHWH should be pronounced—Yahweh,—we must use that word exclusively.”

But we do not now know how YHWHshould be spelled or pronounced. The pro-nunciation of that word has been lost to man-kind for about 2,400 years. More on this laterin this study.

Apparently, our heavenly Father hid bothits true spelling and pronunciation, so thatwe would not be tempted to worship that wordas the Israelites later did with the brazen ser-pent. Even the Sacred Name advocates argueamong themselves as to the spelling and pro-nunciation of the two words. For example, ata recent Sacred Name meeting in the centralstates, a Sacred Name scholar stood up andtold the audience that they should say“Yahuah” for YHWH, and “Hahuahshuah” forJesus. According to his particular SacredName theory, we should take the modern He-brew spelling of “Judah” (Yehudah), knock outthe “d” and call the name of God “Yehuah.”After the meeting, Sacred Name followerscrowded around, discussed it, and concludedthat the spelling and pronunciation really didnot matter that much anyway. But they had agood point; why keep revising their sacredname, when new variations keep being sug-gested.

But what they were actually doing was ad-mitting that they had little idea how the wordsshould be sounded (or written); so, in orderto avoid even more confusion, they were will-ing to remain with whatever pronunciationseach one of them already had. But is that notCONFUSION?

Some say Yahuah; others say Yehwah orYahweh. Still others claim it should be Yehvehor Yayvah. Take your pick. As one SacredName writer wrote:

“The issue has much, much to do withWORDS and SPEECH and SOUNDS, obvi-

1313131313ously.”—Elijah, Introduction [full caps his].

“My research indicates that the word ‘Jesus’comes from the name of a pagan god. So it iswicked to use that name; whoever does so isworshiping a heathen god.”

Your research may not be accurate. Justbecause “Jesus” sounds like some other an-cient word is no proof of etymological deriva-tion. The study of word origins frequently in-volves look-alike guesswork. “This word lookslike that word, so they must be related.” Re-search can be in error, but Scripture is cer-tain—and Scripture uses the word “Jesus.”

The God of heaven gave us all the infor-mation we needed for service and salvationin the writings of the Bible and Spirit of Proph-ecy. In the Bible, He gave us the name “Jesus.”The New Testament was written in Greek, andthen translated over later centuries into otherlanguages. In all European translations, theoriginal Greek for “Jesus” was used or roughlytransliterated. Yet our Maker permitted it tohappen. Then He gave us a last-day prophetwho consistently used the names “Jesus” and“Christ.” You may feel secure in declaring thateveryone is wrong, but our safety is in stayingclose to Scripture and the providences of Godin transmitting it to us.

“HALLELUYAH: The names of Babylon [are]Lord, LORD, God, Jehovah, Jesus, Christ. Thenames of Philadelph[ia]-Brotherhood-Assem-bly [are] Yahweh-Father, Yahshua-Son,Yahwenissi-Holy Spirit, Messiah-AnointedOne. There really aren’t many ALTERNA-TIVES!”

That quotation, taken from near the endof a lengthy Sacred Name publication, sizesup the situation quite well. If this individualhad remained with the Bible and Spirit ofProphecy he would not now have this view-point. As it is, he can only have close fellow-ship with Sacred Name adherents (the ones,that is, who agree with his particular Divine-title spellings.) Although he did not include“Holy Spirit” in the evil category of those be-ings on the side of Babylon, the Third Personof the Godhead would obviously be there,along with God and Jesus Christ—since heplaced its “Sacred Name” counterpart in theother side.

Frankly, such a doctrine is a tragedy. Manyof us have acquaintances who have taken such

positions. It makes me weep to know that Ihave close friends who have done so.

“We should use the name of God given inthe original Bibles—the first ones. That nameis YHWH.”

That reason is the best one for acceptingthe Sacred Name theory. Why use a translatedor non-Hebrew name for God, when we canuse the original name? But the answer is two-fold and strikingly simple: First, God did notwant us to use that original word, lest we makea nehushtan out of it. It is clear that He pur-posely did this, for He permitted the Hebrewlanguage to entirely go out of spoken usagefor nearly a millennium and a half. He care-fully preserved the original Sabbath of thefourth commandment, but He did not preservethe original name in the third. He chose tomake the original Sabbath the test, not theoriginal name.

If you truly reverenced the sacred name,you would reverence the One who owns it—and obey His Word as He has given it to you.You would bow in submission to His inscru-table will instead of trying to change it. TheSpirit of Prophecy has clearly shown us whatare the issues and tests in these last days—and the ineffable name is not one of them.

Because there were no vowels in the writ-ten Hebrew language before it went out of us-age about the year 445 B.C., there was no waythat later generations could reconstruct thecorrect spelling or pronunciation of Hebrewwords, when they tried to do this centuriesafter the time of Christ. It was gone forever.All we have today are consonants, and eventhey can vary somewhat with the passing ofcenturies. In His infinite wisdom, our kindheavenly Father kept us back from making afetish of a name.

This situation applies not only to YHWH,but also to YHS,’ Thus, both the name of Godand the name of Joshua, in the original He-brew, are today unspellable and unpronounce-able.

Second, the usage of the divine names inthe Spirit of Prophecy clearly is that of trans-lated names (generally those given in the KingJames Version) rather than the Hebrew ones.

Third, we are nowhere told in the Spiritof Prophecy that we need to discover the origi-


1414141414 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namenal Hebrew of those names or that the finaltest—or any test—will be over those words inthese last days.

“Even if we are not told to do so, what canbe wrong with trying to relocate the originalnames so we can use them in worship to sharethem with others?”

It may sound harmless, but it gets us offthe track of what we are supposed to be do-ing, teaching, and preaching. One of the greatdangers to which God’s faithful ones in theselast days are succumbing to is the Athenianplague:

“And they took him, and brought him untoAreopagus, saying, May we know what this newdoctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?

“For thou bringest certain strange things toour ears: we would know therefore what thesethings mean.

“(For all the Athenians and strangers whichwere there spent their time in nothing else, buteither to tell, or to hear some new thing.)”—Acts 17:19-21.

Instead of going out to every man’s doorand telling him about the law, the Bible Sab-bath, and the enabling grace of Jesus to putaway sin and prepare for the Final Crisis,—far too many spend their time hearing somenew teaching.

Yet all those new teachings and time set-tings fill the attention, and keep God’s peoplefrom doing the work they need to do in orderto get themselves and others ready for heaven.

How can we solve the problem?The solution is, first, to focus on the mes-

sages God has given us for these last days inthe Spirit of Prophecy. We there find a distil-lation of exactly how we need to live, and whatwe need to do in order to prepare for the Fi-nal Crisis, the close of probation, the SecondAdvent, and eternity beyond.

The solution is, second, to do what Godhas told us to do in these last days. There arestandards to be kept, things to be put away,others things to be done.

The Spirit of Prophecy was specificallygiven to instruct us in the final truths and pro-tect us from last-day errors. To try to go be-yond it—into other theories for our time—isan activity fraught with great danger.

“Even if we cannot know what the Hebrewvowels were anciently, we can know what theconsonants in YHWH were. They were ‘Y,’ ‘H,’

‘W,’ and ‘H.’”It is very true (as we will discuss below)

that we have no idea what the vowels were inancient Hebrew words. But it is also true thatwe do not know how the consonants weresounded. Going back, even to the time of theRomans, several centuries after Christ, con-sonants were different than they are now. TheRomans had no “J.” Neither did they have a“U” or a “W.” That will give you an idea of thedrastic changes which have occurred in con-sonants over the centuries.

Someone will state, “Well, the consonantsmay have changed their written form, but thesounds didn’t.”

Not only the written form but the verbalsounds of written consonants have changeddown through the centuries. Men have highlyinventive minds, and they are constantlychanging things. An excellent example of thisis the large number of language scripts in theworld—Chinese, Arabic, English, and Hindi,for example. Although each is very different,yet they all developed since about 2348 B.C.Someone will reply, “God changed them at theTower of Babel.” He changed some of the lan-guages at that time, but men later made thegreat variety of scripts.

The sounds of the vowels and consonantsin these languages have changed also. An ex-ample of this would be Latin, compared withthree of its descendants: modern French,Spanish, and Italian. Vowels and consonantsin French and Spanish—as pronounced by na-tives of each nation—are quite different fromeach other!

But we are here specifically asked about“YHWH.” Consider this:

The letter “J” did not come into existenceuntil comparatively recent times (the 17th cen-tury). Prior to that, for a number of centuries,it was the script letter “I.” Then, gradually, aninitial “I” came to be sounded as a consonant,and written with an extra bottom left penstroke. Thus the “J” came into being. Goingback still further, the “I” had a “Y” or soft “G”sound; sometimes one, and sometimes theother. In the Spanish language, the soundbecame “whuah,” as in “Juanita,” or “H,” asin “La Jolla.” Sometimes the ancient “I” wassounded as a vowel (most frequently as a long

1515151515“E” or long “I.)” In later times, the two rantogether for a time as “IE” (or “eye,” the soundof our present long “I”). Sometimes the “I” wassounded as a consonant (“H,” “Y,” etc.). Sowhat did the “J” sound like in ancient times?Take your choice. These words continuechanging. Consider the varied sounds of “I”today in “fir,” “emir,” “receive,” “tide,” “pique,”and “eider.”

Someone will say, “But we are not con-cerned with how “J” sounded in Graeco, Ro-man, or Medieval times; we want to know howit sounded in ancient Hebrew.”

The answer to that is quite simple: We donot know what vowels and consonants soundedlike in ancient Hebrew. We can only get anidea by figuring out how similar vowels andconsonants may have sounded in other lan-guages contemporary to ancient Hebrew—butthese languages died out or changed downthrough the centuries also. Which raises thequestion, “But why cannot we not know howancient Hebrew was pronounced?” The an-swer is again simple enough: Because ancientHebrew died out as a spoken language over450 years before the time of Christ. We canonly ascertain its pronunciation indirectly.

Now let us consider the “H” sound: In an-cient times, one of the soundings of “H” was asoft “CH” as in “chief.” It was also soundedwith a hard “CH,” or “K” sound. Elsewhere itmay have been something similar to an “H”sound. It also had other sounds: The EasternIonic Greeks used it with a long “E” sound.The Western Greeks used it as an “H.” TheRomans gave it a related “E” sound. They werethe first to write it as “H.” The “H” soundlargely disappeared from the later Latin lan-guages. Today the changes continue: Considerthe variations in sounding between “harbor,”“behind,” “hat,” “ahead,” “hour,” and “hon-est,” and “heir.” In the case of “humble” and“humor,” they eventually lost their initial “H”sound—but, in later centuries, regained it!

Then there is the “W”: By the time of theRomans, the “W” sound had a “wh” or “w”sound. They took it from the Greeks and wroteit as “V.” Earlier still, it was found in Egyptianhieroglyphics, but its sound cannot be ascer-tained. We do know that, in the few hundredyears they were in power, the Romans changed

the pronunciation of this consonant from “W”to “V.” Hundreds of years later, French scribeswanted to sound the German “W” sound, anddid it by placing two “Vs” (“VV”) together;which, of course, is the shape of our modern“W.” Because it was at times written as two“Us” (“UU”), it came to be known as the“double U.”

It is quite obvious that there are few thingsas unstable as the languages of mankind. Butone thing which is even more changeable ishow they are pronounced! Just look at howAmericans in various parts of the nation pro-nounce the same words (New York, Boston,South, Midwest, etc.) Yet our nation is rela-tively young. Chaucerian English would todaybe hardly readable, because of spellingchanges; but it would be totally undecipher-able in pronunciation. Yet it is English, andhas remained a spoken language from thento now.

In the case of ancient Hebrew, it is a dif-ferent story. As we will discuss shortly, an-cient Hebrew ceased to be a spoken languageover 400 years before the birth of Christ; andno attempt was made to determine how thatlost language was to be pronounced untilnearly a thousand years after the Incarnation.Let us hang our salvation upon acceptanceand obedience to the certainties given us inScripture, not on the pronunciation of wordswhich we no longer can know.

“But the Spirit of Prophecy told us to useancient Hebrew in praying to God.”

Now, it did not. Instead, we are told:“Lessons must be given to humanity in the

languages of humanity.”—Prophets and Kings,700.

That is the way our kind Father has doneit down through the ages. He communicateswith us through OUR language, not in someunknown one. Keep in mind that it was a doc-trine of Rome that “it pleased God to give menHis Word in a foreign language,”—thereforethe Church decreed that the Bible could onlybe in Latin and must be studied only in thatlanguage (cf. GC 51). But it was Heaven’s planthat the people have and read God’s Word intheir own language, not in some foreign one!God speaks to man in his own language (PP106; 3S G 75) so that man may better under-


1616161616 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namestand Him (SR 71).

The Scriptures were not given to mankindin some superhuman language that men couldnot know (1SM 20), but in their own, every-day language. We should present the truth toothers in simple language (CT 261; 15 M 157),and our prayers to God should be presentedin simple language (GW 177). You do not needto be a Hebrew scholar to pray to God or talkto others about Him.

It is clear that the Spirit of Prophecy em-phasis is on knowing and properly using ourown language. We should improve our abilityto write and speak our own language. That isfar more important than foreign languages (Ed234).

“We can communicate with God better in anunknown language, using words not our own.It draws us closer to Him when we use the an-cient language of the Hebrews. This leads todeeper holiness and dedication.”

The tongues movement is based on theidea that an unknown tongue—that is, a lan-guage not our own—should be the languagein which our religious worship and prayersshould be expressed. For you and me, the liv-ing language is the one we use daily to com-municate with those around us. It is far bet-ter than the study and use of dead languages(MH 444). A knowledge of your native lan-guage is essential in studying and helping oth-ers (CT 215). Of greatest importance is know-ing your own language and how to use it cor-rectly (CT 207-208, 215-216, 219). The Spiritof Prophecy emphasis is on using our languageto win souls to Christ; no mention is evermade about using the Hebrew language topray, preach, or work for the lost. Her onlystatements about the Hebrew language con-cern Jews in ancient times. Nowhere does theSpirit of Prophecy tell us we should be usingit today.

THE INEFFABLE NAME

In Old Testament times, there was also aSacred Name party. This was a group of Jewswho believed that it was their first work inlife to protect the YHWH name. However, theyapproached the matter in an entirely differ-

ent manner than the Sacred Name adherentsof our own time. Instead of focusing their at-tention on verbalizing it, they concentrated onnot speaking it at all. They devised ways toorally use other names of God instead.

Since they considered the name to be ex-tremely sacred, they decided that, although itcould be written, it must not be spoken. Thiswas not as difficult to do as you might think,since written Hebrew only had consonantsand no vowels. In order to carry out their ob-jective, they agreed that they would not speakthe word themselves; and, secondly, they de-cided that they would teach the people a dif-ferent pronunciation for the word.

Before long, many of these speculativeJews imagined that the word had almostmagical properties. Its very proportions andshape were said to have been divinely given.They called it the “tetragrammaton”—the four-letter word (YHWH);—and, when speaking theword, they substituted different vowels inplace of its true ones.

Of course, this complicated the mattereven more. We in the 20th century do not knowthe original pronunciation of ancient Hebrewwords. But, back then, efforts were made tokeep the pronunciation of that one word justas hidden as it is today.

I think you are beginning to see what youare faced with, when someone comes alongand tells you that you need to speak the origi-nal pronunciation of the tetragrammaton inorder to be saved.

What were those substitute vowels,which were placed in YHWH? They weretaken from the Hebrew word ‘DNY’ (which,in the Masoretic system is written and pro-nounced ‘Adonay; it means “lord”). The re-sult of combining what the Masoretesthought were ‘DNY’ vowels with what werethought to be YHWH consonants—turns outto be “Jehovah.” I say “in the Masoretic sys-tem” advisedly, because we do not know theoriginal pronunciation of DNY any morethan we do YHWH.

Soon, magicians from other nations be-came intrigued with this mysterious Hebrew

1717171717word which the Israelites were so secretiveabout. So they tried to delve into Hebrewbooks and learn it—so they could say it intheir magical rites. This caused even moreconcern, and the secrecy deepened. On andon it went; and as the nation went steadilydeeper into apostasy and sin, concern overprotecting the name YHWH steadily increased.

This mystical name became known as the“ineffable name;” that is, the unspeakablename, the name which was not to be spoken.

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

Hebrew is one of the most important ofthe Semitic languages. It is related to bothArabic and Aramaic. How closely? Not a lot,as a comparison of Arabic with Hebrew willreveal.

“Hebrew” included the dialects of Moab,Ammon, Edom, Israel, and, partially Phoeni-cia. Narrowly, it was the dialect that centeredin Jerusalem and Judah. In the Old Testa-ment it was called the “language of Canaan”(Isaiah 19:18) and the “Jew’s language” (Isaiah36:11).

We do not know for certain whether it wasthe language of the Hebrews in the time ofAbraham, but it definitely was used by Moses(1450 B.C.) and the Israelites after his time,on down partway through the Babylonian cap-tivity (606-538 B.C.)

But then, in its spoken form, the languagewas lost. During the last part of the DividedKingdom, Aramaic came to be the lingaFranca of the Near East. This was becausethe Arameans were becoming the travelingmerchants of the entire area. As their camelcaravans bought, sold, and bartered, theyshared their language also. Because it hadsimilarities to Hebrew (much as French andItalian are similar, or German and English);the Jews gradually began to speak Aramaic.

Then, when Nebuchadnezzar carried theJews to Babylon (between 606 and 586 B.C.),they spoke both Aramaic and Babylonian. Ofthe two, the Aramaic stuck the best. Upontheir return to Jerusalem in, and after, 538B.C., few Jews remembered how to speaktheir own language. So, Hebrew gradually be-came a literary language.

When did this changeover occur? Weknow that about the year 701 B.C., when theAssyrian king, Sennacherib, sent theRabshekeh to Jerusalem to demand the sur-render of the city, the people knew how tospeak Hebrew, but not Aramaic.

Because of the grave importance in real-izing that, for far more than a thousand years,mankind lost the pronunciation of the Hebrewlanguage (and never really regained it since),we will give you a number of historical quota-tions to forcefully illustrate the historicity ofthis fact. Here is the first:

“From Lachish the Assyrian king sent offi-cials, including the Rabshekeh (a title ratherthan a name), to Jerusalem to urge the peopleof Judah to submit. A crowd was gathered ontop of the city wall when the Rabsaris [theAssyrian name for “Rabshekeh”] uttered hischallenge, an excellent example of psychologi-cal warfare (2 Kings 18:19-35). Fearing for themorale of the Jerusalemites, several ofHezekiah’s officers asked the Rabshekeh tospeak to them in Aramaic instead of Hebrew(the language of Judah). The people all knewHebrew, but the ruling class was conversant inAramaic, the diplomatic language of the day.”—C. F. Pfeiffer, Old Testament History, 367.

Over the next hundred years, as theArameans came to their cities in larger andstill larger numbers, the Jews adopted Ara-maic as the second language for barter andtrade. Then came the Babylonian captivity,which so disrupted their lives for more thana century. Continuing with the above quota-tion, Pfeiffer tells us:

“Later, during the time of the exile in Baby-lon, Aramaic was to become the common lan-guage of the Jews, Hebrew being reserved forreligious use.”—Ibid.

Commenting on this again later in hisbook, we are told:

“During the Exile a change took place in thespeech habits of the Jews. Their language inpre-exilic days was Hebrew.”—Op. cit., 425.

Upon their return from Babylon, the Jewswere far less acquainted with their mothertongue. Gradually, they lost it altogether. Bythe time of Nehemiah, there were few Jewswho could still speak it.

“It was the language spoken from at leastthe time of Moses to that of Nehemiah.”—SDABible Dictionary, 449.

Although reading and writing in the lan-

The HebrThe HebrThe HebrThe HebrThe Hebrew Languageew Languageew Languageew Languageew Language

1818181818 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameguage continued (as shown by the writings ofthe later Old Testament prophets; the lastprophet—Malachi—wrote about 400 B.C.), thespeaking of the language was very nearly lostby the time of Nehemiah. It was for this rea-son that, when Ezra rose before the people toread from portions of the Bible, translatorshad to explain what he was reading. Ezra, avery scholarly man (PK 608-609; Ezra 7:10),could still read—and verbally pronounce—Hebrew. But as he read aloud, someone hadto stand beside him and “give the sense,” thatis, translate what he said into Aramaic so thepeople could understand it.

“So they read in the book in the law of Goddistinctly, and gave the sense, and caused themto understand the reading.”—Nehemiah 8:8.

“Most of the people, however, spoke onlyAramaic. When Ezra read the Law to the menof Jerusalem, it was necessary to give an inter-pretation in the Aramaic tongue.”—C.F. Pfeiffer,Old Testament History, 426.

So the spoken language was partiallygone by 538 B.C., and almost totally so by thetime that Ezra and Nehemiah spoke to thepeople (the year 445 B.C., 13 years after thegovernorship of Nehemiah began).

From that time onward—for over a thou-sand years—there was no spoken Hebrew. Itis true that, in Palestine, Aramaic came to beknown as “Hebrew” by the middle of the firstcentury before Christ. But it was not the He-brew language, although it was the languagespoken by the Hebrews. (That is why Acts26:14 mentions speaking “in the Hebrewtongue.”) Although the Hebrew Bible couldstill be read in the time of Christ, the pronun-ciation used was as different as that of aFrenchman pronouncing what he read in anItalian Bible.

By the end of the first century, A.D., thestudy of the Hebrew Bible had become some-thing that only scholars did. All this was moreof a problem than you might imagine, sincewritten Hebrew did not include vowels.

“The Hebrew alphabet consists of twenty-twoletters, all of them consonants. Obviously vow-els were pronounced—speech would be impos-sible otherwise—but the ancient Hebrews, likemany other Semites, did not feel it necessaryto write them.”—I.M. Price, Ancestry of OurEnglish Bible, 18.

This meant that, when the people stopped

speaking the language, the vowels became to-tally forgotten!

But more: With the passing of centurieseven the consonants could change somewhat.For example, “ch” in English is sounded as in“church.” But when you read “ch” in the OldTestament, you should read it as “k.” At least,that is what scholars think it may have soundedlike back then—based on what the Masoretestold them. Actually, they do not really knowhow it sounded back then. As you may know,even the consonants have varied over the cen-turies. One example of this is “w” and “v.”These have switched back and forth over thecenturies, although the character for “v” wasnot invented until more recent times. Themany variations of “s” in the alphabets arewell-known to students of the history of the666.

In addition, the Jews changed their spo-ken language several times. A linguist will tellyou that “th,” “ch,” “j,” “c,” and many otherletters can vary dramatically in pronunciationin different languages. (The only reason mod-ern Israeli’s speak “Hebrew” is because theyreinvented it in our century; it had not beenspoken since Old Testament times.)

Since ancient Hebrew did not place anyspace between sentences, or even words, thisis how this paragraph would have been writ-ten in Hebrew:

SNCNCNTBRWDDNTPLCNSPCBTWNSNTNCSREVWRDSTHSSWTHSPRGRPHWLDVBNWRTNNBRW(The complexity of ancient languages is a

powerful evidence that the further back we goin history, the more intelligent men were. Eventhose living after the Flood were far more in-telligent than modern man, but they lackedour written records and cumulative technol-ogy. We deal with this more fully in volume 2of our three-volume collection on creation andevolution.)

As you can see, later generations wouldhave a difficult time putting the sounds backinto the language. However, throughout allthose centuries, the people could still read thelanguage. This was because the Jews hadswitched over to Aramaic, later Greek, andstill later Roman. So they substituted thesounds of the language they were currentlyusing.

1919191919But, of course, let us not pretend that we

can add Aramaic or Greek sounds to the origi-nal Hebrew, and come out with the same pro-nunciation that was originally there!

So, time passed; indeed, centuries cameand went. Christ was born, Calvary occurred,John the Revelator died, Constantine passedhis six Sunday laws, Charlemagne ruled. Thefirst millennium since Christ’s birth was three-quarters over.

Finally, efforts were made by sincere anddedicated Jews to rediscover the pronuncia-tion of their ancient language. The results oftheir guesswork is what we today call “Bibli-cal Hebrew.” These men were called theMasoretes (the last two syllables rhyme with“Nazarites”). As a result of their guesstimation,for the first time in all history, vowels wereadded to written Hebrew. They began theirwork on the dead language over half a millen-nium after the death of Christ, but did notreally develop a workable system of writtenHebrew vocalization (as it is called) until aboutthe year A.D. 900.

But you must understand that, by the timethe Masoretes were doing their work, evenAramaic was gone! New languages had arisen.Others—Greek, Latin, and more recently Ara-bic—had been brought into the Near East. Asfor the Jews themselves, they had dispersedthroughout those ancient lands, and also intoNorth Africa and Europe. Languages and ac-centuation had greatly changed.

But, now, we want to learn more aboutthese Masoretes who added the “salt and pep-per” (as the vowel points are sometimes called)to Hebrew language and to the Hebrew OldTestament. We are sure that each of our read-ers has seen a page from written Hebrew. Thelittle dots and dashes are the “vowel points”which the Masoretes added nearly a thousandyears after the birth of Christ:

“The Hebrew pronunciation determined bythe vowel signs appearing in modern HebrewBibles is that of the Jews of Palestine in the9th and 10th centuries A.D. Up to that timethe Hebrew script had been written withoutvowels. But the scholars of that time, calledMasoretes, invented a system of vowel signsthat showed how Hebrew was pronounced intheir own time. However, the Hebrew languagehad undergone changes in the interval of al-

most 2,400 years between Moses and the Maso-retes.”—SDA Bible Commentary, 449.

“They [the Masoretes] created a system ofvowel signs and accentual marks which theyinserted into their manuscripts, above or be-low, and to a less extent in the body of the con-sonants of the traditional text. It is mentioned,above, that the Hebrew alphabet, in commonwith most Semitic alphabets, consisted of con-sonants alone. This was a reasonably satisfac-tory method of writing so long as Hebrew con-tinued to be the common language of thepeople.”—L.M. Price, Ancestry of Our EnglishBible, 27.

A written script of consonants was onlysatisfactory as long as the language contin-ued to be spoken. But when the Jews stoppedspeaking the Hebrew language, they lost trackof its vowels. What the Masoretes did was todevelop an artificial method of adding vow-els, since they had no idea which vowelsshould actually be inserted.

“The sedulous care upon the words andforms have given to us a vocalization [vowelpointing] which represents the synagoguemethod of reading. This uniformity makes itdifficult to distinguish between the form of thelanguage at different periods.”—Funk andWagnall’s New Standard Bible Dictionary,335.

To add to the confusion, the Masoretesdid not want to disturb the ancient writingpattern, so they sprinkled the vowels in andaround the consonants in little dots anddashes. But they found they could only do thiseffectively if they constructed an artificial pro-nunciation pattern.

Because we are deeply interested in theMasoretes and the work they did, we will heregive an extended quotation from an authorityon the transmission of the Hebrew and GreekTestaments down through the centuries. Asyou can see from the following quotation, ap-parently it was Moses ben Asher, and his sonAaron, who developed our modern Hebrewvowel pointing. This they did about the yearA.D. 900:

“The Masoretes . . is a name derived from aHebrew word meaning tradition: they were thescholars charged with the responsibility of pre-serving the traditional text. The counting of thewords in the Biblical books, and the rest ofsuch minutiae mentioned above, was part oftheir work. They accumulated a vast body ofnotes on the occurrence of words, features of


2020202020 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namewriting, directions for pronunciation, variantsin their sources, and the like. These constitutewhat is known as ‘the Masorah.’ It was writtenin the margins of their manuscripts and at theends of the books of the Bible and, accordingto its location and bulk, is called Masorahmagna, Masorah parva, or Masorah finalis.In some of this the Masoretes were heirs ofearlier scribes, but their own work was distinc-tive and epochal. Beginning, as they apparentlydid, about A.D. 600, their great age of activityextended from the latter part of the eighth cen-tury to the first half of the tenth. Masoretic workwas carried forward in many centers; we hearof it in Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia; theJewish schools of Babylonia were prominent;but the most famous center was Tiberias, inPalestine, of whose scholars the names of sev-eral have been preserved, in particular of fivegenerations of the ben Asher family. The lastof these, and apparently the greatest, Mosesben Asher, and his son Aaron, who flourishedjust before and just after A.D. 900, brought toconclusion the line and the work of theMasoretes. Their results have become authori-tative for the Hebrew Bible, for it is in very largemeasure the system of ben Asher that is em-ployed in printed Hebrew Bibles. A rival sys-tem goes under the name of ben Naphtali; afew of its readings are preferred by moderncritical editors of the text. Of ben Naphtali littleis known; in fact, the extreme view has beensuggested that the name represents no indi-vidual at all, but is only a sort of personalizingof the system or of the group that produced it.A more reasonable position is that ben Naphtali(whose personal name is not known) was acontemporary of the latest ben Ashers and livedalso in Tiberias, the great center of Masoreticactivity. Some would locate him in Babylonia,but this is quite improbable; his system is defi-nitely Tiberian. A number of manuscripts andfragments have in recent years been identifiedas of the ben Naphtali school; consequently,we are no longer dependent on ancient lists ofdivergences, but can study at firsthand thesedifferences from the standard ben Asher read-ing.”—I.M. Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible,26-27.

As mentioned earlier, we are making thisa more exhaustive analysis, because there arethose who suggest that (1) we must return tothe ancient Hebrew pronunciation of two sa-cred names, (2) that we will be lost if we donot do so, and (3) we can know how thosetwo names were anciently pronounced. It iscrucial that you understand the issues, so youcan make a wise decision for yourself in re-

gard to this Sacred Name theory of Moses ben[son of] Asher who lived in Tiberias, near theSea of Galilee. Price explains that three vowelpointing systems were developed: the Pales-tinian, then the Syrian, and finally the systemwe use today—the Tiberian, developed byMoses ben Asher and his son Aaron:

“After certain preliminary attempts the sys-tem of vowel symbols now familiar in HebrewBibles was developed, along with two othersthat did not attain comparable popularity.”—Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, 18.

“It was doubtless in considerable measuredue to this situation [the fact that the spokenlanguage was lost] that the Jewish scholars,apparently about A.D. 700, found it desirableto undertake a system of written vowels. Theimpulse expressed itself in Palestine, and therea group of symbols was evolved that is similarto the vowel signs found in a few Samaritanmanuscripts. This vowel system is known asthe Palestinian. The meager knowledge whichwe had of it a little while ago has in recent yearsbeen greatly enlarged by the famous discovery,in 1897 and following years, in the rubbishroom (the genizah of the old synagogue inCairo), of half a dozen fragmentary Biblicalmanuscripts in which it is employed. The schol-ars of Babylonia were similarly active, but theyhad the stimulus and guidance of Syrian liter-ary men, their neighbors, who were evolving asystem of vowel signs and other guides to read-ing, based primarily on a simple diacriticalpoint. The influence of the developed Syriansystem is apparent in at least one fragmentaryHebrew manuscript found in the genizah. Butnote content with this: The Jewish scholarswent on to create a complex series of signsbased in considerable part on conventionalizedrepresentations of weak letters, some of whichhad been sporadically used for centuries to in-dicate the correct vowel in cases where doubtmight arise. The Babylonian and the Palestin-ian vowels were written above the relevant con-sonants; but the third of these systems, whichis correctly called the Tiberian (although clearlydeveloped out of the Palestinian) was written,in general, below the consonants. Yet more im-portant was the precision and detail to whichthe representation of the pronunciation of theHebrew words was developed in this system,differentiating the quality of even the slightestvocal elements. This is the system that incourse of time became universal in the westand is now familiar through its use in allprinted editions of the Hebrew Bible.

But the Masoretes of Tiberias and of

2121212121Babylonia went yet further in their writtenguides to the correct reading of the Bible. Theyevolved complex systems of accentual marks;indeed, in the Liberian tradition there is actu-ally a second system which is employed for thepoetic books of the Bible only. These ‘accents’serve the need that is met in modern writingby use of punctuation, and thus they frequentlybecome guides to the correct meaning, as theMasoretes understood it. But it is clear thatthe original purpose was to give direction forthe proper inflection of the voice in public read-ing in the synagogue. They are thus not unlikemusical notations.”—Op. cit., 27-28.

As you can see, scholarly Jews spent 200years (from A.D. 700 to 900) trying to guesstheir way toward the recovery of the Hebrewvowels. Finally, Moses ben Asher’s system ofguesswork, devised about the year A.D. 900,was accepted as the standard thereafter. Atrandom, one syllable would be given an “a”sound, and another an “o” sound. And on itwent until his work was completed. Anyonewho has studied the conjugation of the He-brew verb, knows what a difficult task he setfor himself.

Obviously, ben Asher and his son had tobase their system of pronunciations on a com-bination of guesswork in languages, dialects,regional pronunciations, and accents in usein northern Palestine in A.D. 900. These wereprimarily Greek and Arabic. Those were prob-ably the everyday languages used by ben Asherand his son.

Keep in mind that they did their work half-way through the Dark Ages! Six hundred yearsearlier, Constantine I decreed his Sundaylaws; 600 years later, Martin Luther wouldnail his theses to the door of the WittenbergChurch.

From 445 B.C., when Ezra read to thepeople while helpers “gave the sense,” on downto A.D. 900, when Moses ben Asher and hisson Aaron pointed the Hebrew Bible—was animmense span of time! It amounted to 1,345years.

Regarding this problem of uncertaintyabout the pronunciation of Old Testament He-brew words, Price comments:

“An acute problem is how far the Masoreticsystem of vowels represents the actual pronun-ciation of Biblical Hebrew in ancient times; for,we would recall, the insertion of all these dia-

critical marks took place more than a thou-sand years after the writing of considerableparts of the Old Testament and many centu-ries subsequent to the latest of it. The ques-tion is of more than passing importance, for itwill be realized that all subsequent systems ofHebrew grammar are built upon the Masoreticpunctuation. Yet uncertainty has been felt formany years.”—Op. cit., 28-29.

This sense of uncertainty regarding thetrue pronunciation is compounded by the factthat Origen, the well-known Christian scholarof several centuries earlier, had also tried tovocalize the Hebrew Old Testament text. Whenmodern scholars compare the ben Ashervowel pointing with the system devised byOrigen, they are horrified at the differences;the two pronunciation methods are almosttotally unalike! Then they compared the benAsher pointings with the Septuagint andJerome’s Latin (Vulgate) translation. The situ-ation was just as bad.

Price explains:“Proper names in the Greek translation

made about 250 B.C. diverge notably from theirvocalization in the Masoretic text. To a lesserextent this is true of the Vulgate also, althoughits translation took place only a few centuriesbefore the great activity of the Masoretes. How-ever, definitive evidence was not available untilthe discovery by Cardinal Mercati about 1895of a palimpsest (rewritten) manuscript of partof the famous work of the great Christianscholar, Origen, known as the Hexapla; themanuscript contains considerable passages ofthe Psalms transliterated into Greek letters.Since the Hexapla dates from approximatelyA.D. 250, the manuscript provides thus ourearliest record of the pronunciation of Hebrew.And the astonishing fact is the Masoretic sys-tem is not a faithful record of the language ofthe eighth century A.D., but is in considerablepart an artificial creation. These men, underwhatever influence, decided how the Bibleought to be read, developed their complex andprecise system, and diverted the course of thenatural evolution of the Hebrew language. Theirsuccess in Palestine is clearly intelligible, forTiberias was through those centuries the intel-lectual center of the land; but in time their sys-tem overcame and displaced the Babylonian[Jewish system] also.”—Op. cit., 29.

Thus we are told that the Masoretic sys-tem of pronunciation was “in considerablepart an artificial creation.” In the above quo-tation, a “palimpsest” is a leather manuscript


2222222222 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namewhich had its text erased, and a different textwas then written over it. This was done be-cause leather was so valuable.

In this section of the study we have goneinto great detail in order to track down thefacts regarding the pronunciation of the He-brew Old Testament. Let no man tell you thathe knows how to pronounce the tetragram-maton—YHWH (variously guessed as“Yahweh,” Yehveh,” “Yahuah,” etc.) or the He-brew of Joshua—YHS’ (possibilities rangethrough “Yeshua,” “Yahuahshuah,” “Yosha,”etc.)

Here is but one example of the confuseduncertainties which research into the possiblepronunciation of YHWH leads to. The follow-ing paragraph was written by a distinguishedJewish scholar (Aaron Lichenstein) who hasspent years trying to figure out how thetetragrammaton was sounded in ancienttimes. Yet “hybrid,” “could be,” “could havebeen,” and “equally valid” is the closest he cancome to it:

“There are several hybrid names of the Fa-ther and of the Messiah that have come downto us through time. For example, Jehovah,Jehova, Yahweh, Yahveh, etc. We must under-stand the development of alphabets. First, notethat there is no ‘J’ in Hebrew. Second, that theletters ‘J,’ ‘U,’ and ‘W’ only came into existenceduring the Middle Ages (800-1600 C.E.). The‘V’ in Latin had an ‘00’ sound [in the early Chris-tian centuries] and ‘U’ and ‘W’ were derivedfrom ‘V.’ Even ‘W’ retains this in its name ofdouble ‘U.’

“Keeping these things in mind, ‘Jehovah’could be correct if taken back in time and couldhave been pronounced ‘Yahooah’ or equallyvalid as ‘Yahuah.’”

This is actual history we have been dis-cussing. It is important for you to understandthat although the pronunciation has been lost,the meaning of the words has not. This is dueto the fact that Hebrew was a trilateral lan-guage. The root stem of each noun, pronoun,and adjective had three radicals, or charac-ters. (YHWH was an exception; which was whyit was called a tetragrammaton.) To this ba-

sic stem would be added prefixes and suffixes,so that the single word “obey” could thus be-come “I obey him.” Thus it had a carefullystructured verb system, noun formation, a ten-dency to coordinate its sentences, togetherwith a sparing use of particles (“if,” “but,” etc.),and suffixed pronouns. Therefore, we canknow the meaning of the ancient Hebrew writ-ings, but we cannot know their pronunciation.

Let us now turn our attention to the mean-ings of the divine name in Hebrew. Two factsstand out: (1) Our kind Father had many sa-cred names in the Old Testament, and (2) eachone contains most beautiful meanings.

YHWH IN THE BIBLE

YHWH appears 6,800 times in the OldTestament Scriptures. It is easy to locateYHWH in either of two English Bible transla-tions of the Old Testament: the King James(Authorized) Version and the Revised Stan-dard Version.

In the KJV and RSV of the Old Testament,YHWH is always written as LORD (note thefull-cap “ORD” in “LORD”), instead of Lord.“Lord” in the KJV or RSV is generally trans-lated from ‘DN (Adon) or ‘DNY (Adonay). Wheneither is combined with YHWH, the result iswritten in the KJV or RSV as Lord GOD (noteOD in the second word); the second of whichis always YHWH.

Thus we find that, in the King JamesVersion, the word “Lord” is most frequentlyused to translate YHWH. But it can also befound as “God” in the phrase “Lord God.”But there is a third translation of YHWH inthe King James: Four times it is written “Je-hovah” (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah12:2; 26:4).

As mentioned earlier, a group of ancientJews changed the sound of the four-conso-nant word, YHWH, when they read it. Thiswas done either by saying “Adonai,” or bycombining the vowels of Adonai with theconsonants of YHWH. But, of course, wetoday do not know the vowels of either word.The Masoretes invented the vowels for both

2323232323Adonai (they pointed it as ‘adhonay) andYHWH that we use today. (It should be men-tioned that this form of pointing is grammati-cally impossible, for it does not match the deri-vation of YHWH, which is “to be.”)

When the Masorete vowels of Adonai areapplied to YHWH, the result is “Jahovah”(which we today write and sound as “Jeho-vah”).

Well, then—how should we TODAY saythat word? By what name or names shouldwe speak to, or of, our God? That is a crucialquestion. The Sacred Name theory maintainswe must use the one name, YHWH, and onlyits original pronunciation. But we have dis-covered that no one knows what that pronun-ciation was—or any other pronunciation.

But there is an answer: An excellent so-lution to the problem is to find how the latter-day prophet used the word. Whenever EllenWhite quoted one of the more than 6,000 pas-sages in which YHWH is found, she renderedit in the same way that the translation beforeher did it. It is thus clear that it does notmatter which name is used, and it does notmatter if it is a foreign name (English, for ex-ample, instead of ancient Hebrew).

Beginning in the 1880s, a movement be-gan to translate Spirit of Prophecy and otherAdvent books into other languages. Yet EllenWhite never required that the name of Godbe rendered in a special language. She wasquite content to see Great Controversy trans-lated into French, German, Spanish, and Ital-ian—yet with the names of God in each trans-lation being only those names current andfamiliar to each language group.

For over a decade, as the present writerhas typed quotations from her writings to usein his tracts and books, he has carefully notedher writing style. As you may know, the bestwriting style does not repeat the same wordany more than necessary. In her use of thedivine name, she would generally use theword, “God.” But when it had to be repeatedin the next sentence or two, she generally sub-stituted a different word, frequently “Lord.”

Or she would start with “Lord” and use “God”as the alternate. It is of special interest thatshe only used the word “Jehovah” when toofrequent repetitions of the divine name wereneeded in succeeding sentences. Then sheused “Jehovah” as a third variation. But shemight instead use “the Creator,” etc., instead.Apart from writing style, there seems to be noreason why she used “Jehovah.” Yet that wordcomes closer to YHWH than the other Englishdivinity words used by her.

All this would indicate that there is norequirement that we today must try to recoverthe original word and say it in the originalpronunciation. Read again Early Writings,70,122, and Mount of Blessings, 103-106(quoted at the beginning of this study). Youwill there find the divinely appointed rules bywhich we are to sacredly reverence and usethat name. Let us stay with Scripture and notwander away. Obedience by faith to the re-vealed will of God is worth all else beside.

THE MEANING OF EXODUS 6:2-3

“And God spake unto Moses, and said untohim, I am the Lord: And I appeared untoAbraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by thename of God Almighty (El Shaddai], but by Myname of JEHOVAH [YHWH] was I not knownto them.”—Exodus 6:2-3.

It would appear from this verse thatYHWH was not used earlier in Scripture.Skeptics say this proves that Exodus 6:2-3was written before Genesis. Others claim thatYHWH was a later insert into Exodus 6:2-3.

But YHWH was used large numbers oftimes in Genesis. (It was used in the phrase“Lord God,” in connection with Adonai—Gen-esis 15:2, 8. It was used alone as “Lord”—inGenesis over a hundred times.)

In addition, YHWH is from Havah, theform of “to be” which is in the oldest Hebrew,previous to its separation from the Syriac andChaldee (after the separation of those two dia-lects from it, Hebrew has Hayah, not havah.

The meaning of Exodus 6:2-3 is probablythis:

“I was manifested to Abraham . . as thealmighty One, able to do all I promised; butin My character of YHWH, the unchanging I

The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3The Meaning of Exodus 6:2-3

2424242424 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed NameAM (see Exodus 3:14], the fulfiller of Mycovenanted promises, I was not in act madeknown, as I am now about to make Myselfknown to My people.”

In Genesis 2:4 to the end of chapter 3,YHWH Elohim are combined, indicating thatthe powerful Creator is the same YHWH whorevealed Himself to Adam, and later to Mo-ses. Eve exclaimed: “I have gotten a man bythe help of YHWH.” Thus she hoped that herfirstborn son would be the fulfiller of thecovenanted promise of Genesis 3:15. (YHWHis the covenant-keeping God.) The covenantpromise was also given to Noah. He receivedthe covenant promise from YHWH in Genesis5:29.

In the plagues sent upon Egypt as well asthe divine deliverance of His people from sla-very, the Covenant-keeping God powerfullyacted on behalf of His own.

THE HEBREW AND GREEK WORDSFOR “GOD”

IN THE KING JAMES VERSION

The following Hebrew words are trans-lated “God” in the King James Version:

Old Testament—

El (Mighty One)Elah (God as an object of worship)Elohim (God; gods)Eloah (God; 56 times)YHWH [read by the Jews as “Elohim”

to keep it secret]Tsur (Rock; 1 time: Isa 44:8)

New Testament—

Theos (God)Daimonion (Demon; 1 time: Acts

17:18)Kurios (Lord; 1 time; Acts 19:20)Of the above words, Elohim is translated

“God” in the king James Old Testament farmore frequently than any other word. In thoseinstances in which YHWH is translated as“God,” it is found in the phrase “Lord God,”with Elohim translated “Lord” and YHWHtranslated “God.” In the New Testament,Theos is translated “God” in every instanceexcepting two.

THE HEBREW AND GREEK WORDSFOR “LORD”

IN THE KING JAMES VERSION

The following Hebrew words are trans-lated “Lord” in the king James Version:

Old Testament—

YHWH (The One who is [the eternal,self-existent One])

Adonai (Lord, lords)Adon (Lord, sir, master)Mare (One high or exalted; 4 times—all

in Daniel)Jah (Yah; a contract of YHWH)Seren (A prince; 20 times)Rab (A great one; 1 time: Dan 2:10)Sar (Prince, chief; 1 time: Ezek 8:25)Shalish (One over three; 4 times)Rabreban (Great ones; 6 times)

New Testament—

Kurios (Lord, master)Despotes (Master; 5 times)Rabboni (Master, rabbi; 1 time: Mk

10:51)Megistanes (Great men; 1 time: Mk

6:21)

Of the above Hebrew words, YHWH orAdonai are the ones almost always found. Inthe New Testament, Kurios is used in nearlyevery instance.

THE PRIMARY NAMES OF GODIN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Here are the principal names of God inthe Old Testament. To the extent that spacepermits, we will list some of His secondarynames at the conclusion of this study.

In the following suggestive analysis, wewill use the customary pronunciation patternin use today, which ben Asher and his sondeveloped nearly 1,100 years ago.

As we study the various occurrences ofeach of the primary names of our Creator, wefind certain qualities asserting themselves inthe context of the passages in which eachname occurs.

ELOHIM—This word occurs 2,700 times

2525252525in the Old Testament. Its first occurrence as-sociates it with the Creation. Elohim indicatesthe relation of God as the Creator to His crea-tures. We see vital power exercised. This wordis used in the Genesis 1 creation narrative,and is common throughout the books ofMoses. Elohim expresses the might of theCreator and Sustainer of the universe. It issometimes used in compounds, such as El-elyon (the Most High God) and El Shaddai(the Almighty). This word occurs in the OldTestament as follows: “God” over 2,000 times;“angels” 1 time; “goddess” 2 times; “gods” 240times; “judges” 5 times; “great” 1 time;“mighty” 2 times; “very great” 1 time.

YHWH (YAWEH, YAHWEH, YEHAH,YAHUAH, YEHOWAH, JEHOVAH)—Thisword occurs 6,800 times in the Old Testa-ment. Commonly called “Jehovah,” Yahweh isthe Covenant-keeping God. This is God inrelation to His people. Yahweh is also the Eter-nal God, the Immutable One. This is He whoWAS, and IS, and IS TO COME. This nameexpresses His unchangeable faithfulness inHis covenanted promises to His people.

As mentioned earlier, Yahweh is indicatedin the King James Version by small capitalletters, “LORD.” When it occurs in combina-tion with Adonai, it is written “GORD” in thisarrangement: “Lord GORD” or Adona Yahweh.

YHWH is translated “Lord” or “God.”There are several other combinations

which occur in the King James. These arecalled “Jehovah titles.” Here they are:

1 - JEHOVAH-JIREH—Jehovah will see,or provide (Genesis 22:14).

2 - JEHOVAHROPHEKA—Jehovah thathealeth thee (Exodus 15:26).

3 - JEHOVAH-NISSI—Jehovah my ban-ner (Exodus 17:15).

4 - JEHOVAH-MeKADDISHKEM—Je-hovah that doth sanctify you (Exodus 31:13;Leviticus 20 8; 21:8; 22:32; Ezekiel 20:12).

5 - JEHOVAH-SHALOM—Jehovah(send] peace (Judges 6:24).

6 - JEHOVAH-ZeBA’OTH—Jehovah ofhosts (1 Samuel 1:3, etc.).

7 - JEHOVAH-ZIDKENU—Jehovah ourrighteousness (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16).

8 - JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH—Jehovah isthere (Ezekiel 48:35).

9 - JEHOVAH-ELYON—Jehovah mosthigh (Psalm 7:17; 47:2; 97:9).

10 - JEHOVAH-ROI—Jehovah my Shep-herd (Psalm 23:1).

The name Yaweh should especially bestudied in connection with Exodus 3:13. It isthere given in the so-called imperfect tense ofthe verb “to be,” and is rendered “I am that Iam.” This means the self-existent, eternal God.He exists, always has existed, and can nevercease to exist. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He is thus completely de-pendable, and can be relied upon to do allthat He has said.

JAH—This occurs 49 times and is Jeho-vah as our salvation. This word is translated“God” or “Lord.”

EL—This is Elohim in all His strength andpower. This is the Mighty One. The word couldbe translated the Almighty, although it neveris. This is God the Omnipotent, who knowsall, sees all, and does all for His people. Thisword occurs as follows: “God” 212 times;“god” 15 times; “idol” 1 time; “might” 1 time;“mighty one” 1 time; “power” 3 times; “goodly”1 time; “great” 1 time; “mighty” 4 times;“strong” 1 time. The last three were inexacttranslations of a noun by a verb or adjective,etc.

ELOAH—This is the One who is to be wor-shiped. It is God in connection with His willrather than His power. It is the title used when-ever He is contrasted with false gods or idols.Eloah is the living God, in contrast with mind-less, inanimate idols. The word is translated“God” 52 times, and “god” 5 times.

ELYON—This title is applied to our Cre-ator 36 times. This is the most high God. It isEl and Elohim, but not as the Creator—butas the possessor of heaven and earth. Thisname expresses His sublimity. For this rea-son it is associated with Christ who is the “Sonof the highest.” As possessor of the earth,

The Primary Names of God in the Old TThe Primary Names of God in the Old TThe Primary Names of God in the Old TThe Primary Names of God in the Old TThe Primary Names of God in the Old Testamentestamentestamentestamentestament

2626262626 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed NameElyon divides the nations “their inheritance.”He is “over all the earth.” As a King upon Histhrone, He dispenses His blessings. The wordis translated as follows: “high” 9 times;“higher” 4 times; “highest” 3 times; “mosthigh” 27 times; “on high” 1 time;“upper(most)” 1 time.

SHADDAI—In every instance this istranslated as “Almighty.” It is God (El), not asthe source of strength, but of grace. It is God,not as Creator, but as the Giver. This nameexpresses His all-sufficiency. He is the All-bountiful. We see here His power to supply allthe needs of His people. This word is trans-lated “Almighty” 48 times.

ADON—This is the Lord as Overlord, orRuler of the earth. He is the Ruler of all men,including those who are not His subjects, hav-ing denied His rulership. The word is usuallytranslated as “Lord,” “lord,” or “master.” Onceeach it is translated “owner,” or “sir.”

ADONAI—This is the Lord as Blesser. Hecarries out His purposes of blessing in theearth. (It was the vowels from this word whichancient Hebrews placed with YHWH to changeits pronunciation.) This name expresses Hislordship. In reference to Him, this word is al-ways translated as “Lord.”

ADONIM—This is the plural of Adon, andmultiplies the qualities of Adon. Adonim isthe Lord as owner and proprietor. He is theRuler of those who love Him. The word is al-ways translated as “Lord,” or “lords.”

There are many other names and titleswhich our kind Father has given us to callHim by. Let us try to use every one, for all areoutstanding. He is too wonderful a Father tocall by just one of His great names.

THE NAMES OF GOD AND CHRISTIN THE KING JAMES VERSION

The following collection of names wasoriginally compiled over a hundred yearsago:

1 - Thou art the Christ, the SON of theLiving God. Matthew 16:16The Son.—1 John 4:14The Son of God.—John 1:34

The Son of the living God.—Matthew 16:16His only begotten Son.—John 3:16The only begotten Son of God.—John 3:18The Son of the Father.—2 John 3The only begotten of the Father.—John 1:14The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom

of the Father.—John 1:18The first born of every creature.—Colossians

1:15His own Son.—Romans 8:32A Son given.—Isaiah 9:6One Son (His well-beloved).—Mark 12:6My Son.—Psalm 2:7His dear Son (or the Son of His love).—

Colossians 1:13The Son of the Highest.—Luke 1:32The Son of the Blessed.—Mark 14:61Wonderful.—Isaiah 9:6

Testimony borne to the SON by theFather, by Jesus Himself, by theSpirit, by Angels, Saints, Men,and Devils.

The Father, “My Beloved Son.”—Matthew 17:5Jesus Himself, “I am the Son of God.”—John

10:36The Spirit, “The Son of God.”—Mark 1:1Gabriel, “The Son of God.”—Luke 1:35John, Baptist, “This is the Son of God.”—John

1:34John, Apostle, “The Christ, the Son of God.”—

John 20:31Paul, Apostle, “He is the Son of God.”—Acts

9:20Disciples, “Thou art the Son of God.”—Mat-

thew 14:33Nathanael, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God.”—

John 1:49Martha, “The Christ, the Son of God.”—John

11:27Eunuch, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”—

Acts 8:37Centurion, “Truly this man was the Son of

God.”—Mark 15:39Unclean spirits, “Thou art the Son of God.”—

Mark 3:11The Legion, “Thou Son of the Most High

2727272727God.”—Mark 5:7

2 - Unto the Son he saith, Thythrone, O GOD, is for ever andever.—Hebrews 1:8

God.—John 1:1; Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 40:3Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever.—

Hebrews 1:8The Mighty God.—Isaiah 9:6The Everlasting God.—Isaiah 40:28The True God.—1 John 5:20My Lord and my God.—John 20:28God my Saviour.—Luke 1:47Over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.—Ro-

mans 9:5The God of the whole earth.—Isaiah 54:5God was manifest in the flesh.—1 Timothy

3:16Our God and Saviour.—2 Peter 1:1The Great God and our Saviour Jesus

Christ.—Titus 2:13Emmanuel, God with us.—Matthew 1:23The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and

the God of Jacob.—Exodus 3:2, 6The Highest.—Luke 1:76

3 - Before Abraham was, I AM. John8:58

Holy, Holy, Holy is JEHOVAH of Hosts.—Isaiah6:3

Jehovah.—Isaiah 40:3The Lord Jehovah.—Isaiah 40:10Jehovah my God.—Zechariah 14:5Jehovah of Hosts.—Isaiah 6:3; John 12:41Jehovah God of Hosts.—Hosea 12:4-5; Gen-

esis 32:24The King, Jehovah of hosts.—Isaiah 6:5The Strong and Mighty Jehovah.—Psalm 24:8Jehovah, mighty in battle.—Psalm 24:8The Man, Jehovah’s Fellow.—Zechariah 13:7Jehovah-tsidkenu, (the Lord our righteous-

ness).—Jeremiah 23:6The Lord.—Romans 10:13; Joel 2:32The Lord of Glory.—1 Corinthians 2:8The Same.—Hebrews 1:12; Psalm 102:27I am.—Exodus 3:14; John 8:24I am (before Abraham was).—John 8:58I am (whom they sought to kill).—John 18:5-6

I am (the Son of Man lifted up).—John 8:28I am (the Resurrection and the Life).—John

11:25

4 - HE is before ALL things, and byHIM ALL things consist.—Colossians 1:17

The Almighty, which is, and which was, andwhich is to come.—Revelation 1:8

The Creator of all things.—Colossians 1:16The Upholder of all things.—Hebrews 1:3The Everlasting Father, (or Father of Eter-

nity).—Isaiah 9:6The Beginning.—Colossians 1:18The Beginning and the Ending.—Revelation

1:8The Alpha and the Omega.—Revelation 1:8The First and the Last.—Revelation 1:17The Life.—1 John 1:2Eternal Life.—1 John 5:20That Eternal Life which was with the Father.—

1 John 1-2He that liveth.—Revelation 1:18

5 - No man hath seen God at anytime . . HE hath DECLARED HIM.John 1:18

The Word.—John 1:1The Word was with God.—John 1:1The Word was God.—John 1:1The Word of God.—Revelation 19:13The Word of Life.—1 John 1:1The Word was made flesh.—John 1:14The Image of God.—2 Corinthians 4:4The Image of the Invisible God.—Colossians

1:15The Express Image of his Person.—Hebrews

1:3The Brightness of his Glory.—Hebrews 1:3Wisdom.—Proverbs 8:12, 22The Wisdom of God.—1 Corinthians 1:24The Power of God.—1 Corinthians 1:24My Messenger.—Isaiah 42:19The Messenger of the Covenant.—Malachi 3:1The Angel of Jehovah.—Genesis 22:15The Angel of God.—Genesis 31:11, 13; Exo-

dus 14:19

The Names of God and Christ in the KJVThe Names of God and Christ in the KJVThe Names of God and Christ in the KJVThe Names of God and Christ in the KJVThe Names of God and Christ in the KJV

2828282828 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed NameThe Angel of His presence.—Isaiah 63:9

6 - Thou madest HIM a little lowerthan the angels.—Hebrews 2:7

The Man.—John 19:5The Man Christ Jesus.—1 Timothy 2:5A Man approved of God.—Acts 2:22The Second Man, The Lord from Heaven.—1

Corinthians 15:47The Son of Man.—Mark 10:33The Son of Abraham.—Matthew 1:1The Son of David.—Matthew 1:1The Son of Mary.—Mark 6:3The Son of Joseph (reputed).—John 1:45The Seed of the Woman.—Genesis 3:15The Seed of Abraham.—Galatians 3:16, 19Of the Seed of David.—Romans 1:3

7 - Lo, I COME, to do Thy will, OGod.—Hebrews 10:9

The Babe.—Luke 2:12The Child.—Isaiah 7:16The Young Child.—Matthew 2:20A Child Born.—Isaiah 9:6The Child Jesus.—Luke 2:43Her First Born Son.—Luke 2:7The Sent of the Father.—John 10:36The Apostle.—Hebrews 3:1A Prophet.—Acts 3:22-23A Great Prophet.—Luke 7:16The Prophet of Nazareth.—Matthew 21:11A Prophet, mighty in deed and word.—Luke

24:19A Servant.—Philippians 2:7The Servant of the Father.—Matthew 12:18My Servant, O Israel.—Isaiah 49:3My Servant, the Branch.—Zechariah 3:8My Righteous Servant.—Isaiah 53:11A Servant of Rulers.—Isaiah 49:7A Nazarene, or Nazarite.—Matthew 2:23The Carpenter.—Mark 6:3The Carpenter’s Son (reputed).—Matthew

13:55He humbled Himself . . unto death.—

Philippians 2:8A Stranger and an Alien.—Psalms 69:8A Man of Sorrows.—Isaiah 53:3

A Worm, and no Man.—Psalm 22:6Accursed of God, (or the Curse of God,

marg.)—Deuteronomy 21:23

8 - God . . hath given Him A NAMEwhich is above every name.—Philippians 2:9-10

Jesus.—Matthew 1:21Jesus Himself.—Luke 24:15I, Jesus.—Revelation 22:16A Saviour, Jesus.—Acts 13:23The Saviour of the World.—1 John 4:14A Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.—Luke

2:11Jesus Christ.—Revelation 1:5The Lord Jesus Christ.—Colossians 1:2Our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself.—2 Thessalo-

nians 2:16Jesus the Christ.—Matthew 16:20Jesus Christ our Lord.—Romans 5:21Jesus Christ, the Righteous.—1 John 2:1Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, and today,

and forever.—Hebrews 13:8Jesus of Nazareth.—Acts 22:8Jesus Christ of Nazareth.—Acts 4:10; 10:38Lord Jesus.—Acts 7:59Christ Jesus.—1 Timothy 1:15Christ.—Matthew 23:8Messiah, which is called Christ.—John 4:25Anointed.—Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:27Christ, the Lord.—Luke 2:11The Lord Christ.—Colossians 3:24The Christ of God.—Luke 9:20The Lord’s Christ.—Luke 2:26The Christ, the Son of the Blessed.—Mark

14:61The Christ, the Saviour of the World.—John

4:42

9 - Worthy is the LAMB that wasslain to receive power, andriches, and wisdom, andstrength, and honour, and glory,and blessing.—Revelation 5:12

The Lamb of God.—John 1:29A Lamb without blemish and without spot.—1

Peter 1:19The Lamb that was slain.—Revelation 5:12

2929292929A Lamb as it had been slain.—Revelation 5:6The Lamb in the midst of the Throne.—Rev-

elation 7:17The Bridegroom.—Matthew 9:15; Revelation

21:9Lamb (the Temple of the City).—Revelation

21:22Lamb (the Light of the City).—Revelation

21:23Lamb (the overcomer).—Revelation 17:14

10 - I will set up ONE SHEPHERDover them, and He shall feedthem.—Ezekiel 34:23

One Shepherd.—John 10:16Jehovah’s Shepherd.—Zechariah 13:7The Shepherd of the Sheep.—Hebrews 13:20The Way.—John 14:6The Door of the Sheep.—John 10:7The Shepherd of Israel.—Psalm 80:1The Shepherd and Bishop of Souls.—1 Peter

2:25The Good Shepherd (that laid down His

Life).—John 10:11The Great Shepherd, (that was brought again

from the dead).—Hebrews 13:20The Chief Shepherd (that shall again ap-

pear).—1 Peter 5:4

11 - The TREE OF LIFE, which is inthe midst of the Paradise ofGod.—Revelation 2:7

The Root of Jesse.—Isaiah 11:10The Root of David.—Revelation 5:5The Root and offspring of David.—Revelation

22:16A Rod out of the stem of Jesse.—Isaiah 11:1A Branch out of his roots.—Isaiah 11:1The Branch.—Zechariah 6:12The Branch of the Lord.—Isaiah 4:2The Branch of Righteousness.—Jeremiah

33:15A Righteous Branch.—Jeremiah 23:5The Branch strong for Thyself.—Psalm 80:15The Vine.—John 15:5The True Vine.—John 15:1The Tree of Life.—Revelation 2:7The Corn of Wheat.—John 12:24

The Bread of God.—John 6:33The True Bread from Heaven.—John 6:32The Bread which came down from Heaven.—

John 6:41The Bread which cometh down from

Heaven.— John 6:50The Bread of Life.—John 6:35The Living Bread.—John 6:51The Hidden Manna.—Revelation 2:17A Plant of Renown.—Ezekiel 34:29The Rose of Sharon.—Canticles 2:1The Lily of the Valley.—Canticles 2:1A Bundle of Myrrh.—Canticles 1:13A Cluster of Camphire.—Canticles 1:14

12 - I am the LIGHT of the world: Hethat followeth Me . . shall havethe light of life.—John 8:12

The Light.—John 12:35The True Light.—John 1:9A Great Light.—Isaiah 9:2A Light come into the World.—John 12:46The Light of the World.—John 8.12The Light of Men.—John 1:4A Light to lighten the Gentiles.—Luke 2:32A Light of the Gentiles.—Isaiah 42:6A Star.—Numbers 24:17The Morning Star.—Revelation 2:28The Bright and Morning Star.—Revelation

22:16The Day Star.—2 Peter 1:19The Day-spring from on High.—Luke 1:78The Sun of Righteousness.—Malachi 4:2

13 - The name of the Lord is aStrong Tower.— Proverbs 18:10

The Strength of the Children of Israel.—Joel3:12-16

A Strength to the Poor.—Isaiah 25:4A Strength to the Needy in distress.—Isaiah

25:4A Refuge from the Storm.—Isaiah 25:4A Covert from the Tempest.—Isaiah 32:2The Hope of His people (or Place of Repair or

Harbour of His people, marg.)—Joel 3:12-16

A Horn of Salvation.—Luke 1:69


3030303030 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Name14 - They drank of that spiritual

Rock that followed them, andthat ROCK was CHRIST.—1Corinthians 10:4

The Rock.—Matthew 16:18My Strong Rock.—Psalm 31:2The Rock of Ages (marg.)—Isaiah 26:4The Rock that is higher than I.—Psalm 61:2My Rock and my Fortress.—Psalm 31:3The Rock of my Strength.—Psalm 62:7The Rock of my Refuge.—Psalm 94:22A Rock of Habitation (marg.)—Psalm 71:3The Rock of my Heart (marg.)—Psalm 73:26The Rock of my Salvation.—2 Samuel 22:47My Rock and my Redeemer, (marg.)—Psalm

19:14That Spiritual Rock.—1 Corinthians 10:4The Rock that followed them.—1 Corinthians

10:4A Shadow from the Heat.—Isaiah 25:4

15 - Other FOUNDATION can no manlay than that is laid, which isJesus Christ.—1 Corinthians 3:11

The Builder.—Hebrews 3:3; Matthew 16:18The Foundation.—1 Corinthians 3:11A Sure Foundation.—Isaiah 28:16A Stone.—Isaiah 28:16A Living Stone.—1 Peter 2:4A Tried Stone.—Isaiah 28:16A Chief Cornerstone.—1 Peter 2:6An Elect Stone.—1 Peter 2:6A Precious Stone.—1 Peter 2:6The Head Stone of the Corner.—Psalm 118:22A Stone cut out without hands.—Daniel 2:34,

45To them which are disobedient:A Stone of Stumbling.—1 Peter 2:8A Rock of offence.—1 Peter 2:8

16 - In His TEMPLE doth every onespeak of His glory. —Psalm 29:9

The Temple.—Revelation 21:22A Sanctuary.—Isaiah 8:14The Minister of the Sanctuary and of the True

Tabernacle.—Hebrews 8:2Minister of the Circumcision.—Romans 15:8

The Veil (His flesh.).—Hebrews 10:20The Altar.—Hebrews 13:10The Offerer.—Hebrews 7:27The Offering.—Ephesians 5:2The Sacrifice.—Ephesians 5:2A Ransom (His life.)—Mark 10:45The Lamb.—Revelation 7:9The Lamb Slain.—Revelation 13:8The Forerunner (for us entered, even Jesus).—

Hebrews 6:20The Mercy-seat (or Propitiation).—Romans

3:25The Priest.—Hebrews 5:6The High Priest.—Hebrews 3:1The Great High Priest.—Hebrews 4:14The Mediator.—1 Timothy 2:5The Daysman.—Job 9:33The Interpreter.—Job 33:23The Intercessor.—Hebrew 7:25The Advocate.—1 John 2:1The Surety.—Hebrews 7:22

17 - A GIFT Is as a Precious Stone Inthe eyes Of Him that hath It;whithersoever it turneth, itprospereth.—Proverbs 17:8

The Gift of God.—John 4:10; 3:16His Unspeakable Gift.—2 Corinthians 9:15My Beloved, in whom my soul is well

pleased.—Matthew 12:18Mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth.—

Isaiah 42:1Thy Holy Child Jesus.—Acts 4:27The Chosen of God.—Luke 23:35The Salvation of God.—Luke 2:30The Salvation of the daughter of Zion.—Isaiah

62:11The Redeemer.—Isaiah 59:20The Shiloh, (Peace Maker).—Genesis 49:10The Consolation of Israel.—Luke 2:25The Blessed.—Psalm 72:17The Most Blessed for ever.—Psalm 21:6

18 - Who was FAITHFUL to Him thatappointed Him.—Hebrews 3:2

The Truth.—John 14:6The Faithful and True.—Revelation 19:11

3131313131A Covenant of the People.—Isaiah 42:6The Testator or Covenantor.—Hebrews 9:16-

17The Faithful Witness.—Revelation 1:5The Faithful and True Witness.—Revelation

3:14A Witness to the People.—Isaiah 55:4The Amen.—Revelation 3:14

19 - He that is HOLY, He that IsTrue.—Revelation 3:7

The Just.—1 Peter 3:18The Just One.—Acts 7:52Thine Holy One.—Acts 2:27The Holy One and the Just.—Acts 3:14The Holy One of Israel.—Isaiah 49:7The Holy One of God.—Mark 1:24Holy, Holy, Holy.—Isaiah 6:3; John 12:41

20 - That in ALL things HE mighthave the PREEMINENCE.—Colossians 1:18

The Beginning of the Creation of God.—Revelation 3:14

My First Born.—Psalm 89:27The First Born from the dead.—Colossians

1:18The First Begotten of the dead.—Revelation

1:5The First Born among many Brethren.—

Romans 8:29The Firstfruits of them that slept.—1

Corinthians 15:20The Last Adam.—1 Corinthians 15:45The Resurrection.—John 11:25A Quickening Spirit.—1 Corinthians 15:45The Head (even Christ).—Ephesians 4:15The Head of the Body, the Church.—

Colossians 1:18The Head over all things to the Church.—

Ephesians 1:22The Head of every Man.—1 Corinthians 11:3The Head of all Principality and Power.—

Colossians 2:10

21 - Gird Thy SWORD upon Thythigh, 0 Most Mighty, with Thyglory and Thy majesty.—Psalm

45:3

The Captain of the Host of the Lord.—Joshua5:14

The Captain of Salvation.—Hebrews 2:10The Author and Finisher of our Faith.—He-

brews 12:2A Leader.—Isaiah 55:4A Commander.—Isaiah 55:4A Ruler.—Micah 5:2A Governor.—Matthew 2:6The Deliverer.—Roman 11:26The Lion of the Tribe of Judah.—Revelation

5:5An Ensign of the People.—Isaiah 11:10The Chiefest among 10,000 (in an army) or

Standard Bearer (marg.)—Canticles 5:10A Polished Shaft.—Isaiah 49:2The Shield.—Psalm 84:9

22 - ALL POWER is given unto Me inheaven and in earth.—Matthew28:18

The Lord.—1 Corinthians 12:3One Lord.—Ephesians 4:5God hath made that same Jesus both . . Lord

and Christ.—Acts 2:36Lord of Lords.—Revelation 17:14King of Kings.—Revelation 17:14Lord both of the dead and living.—Romans

14:9Lord of the Sabbath.—Luke 6:5Lord of Peace.—2 Thessalonians 3:16Lord of all.—Acts 10:36Lord over all.—Romans 10:12

23 - HIM hath GOD EXALTED to be aPRINCE and a SAVIOUR.—Acts5:31

The Messiah the Prince.—Daniel 9:25The Prince of Life.—Acts 3:15A Prince and a Saviour.—Acts 5:31The Prince of Princes.—Daniel 8:25The Prince of the Kings of the earth.—Revela-

tion 1:5A Prince (among Israel).—Ezekiel 34:24The Glory of thy people Israel.—Luke 2:32He that filleth all in all.—Ephesians 1:23


3232323232 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Name24 - HE shall REIGN for ever and

ever.—Revelation 11:15

The Judge.—Acts 17:31The Righteous Judge.—2 Timothy 4:8The King.—Zechariah 14:16King of Kings.—Revelation 19:16Lord of Lords.—Revelation 19:16A Sceptre (out of Israel).—Numbers 24:17The King’s Son.—Psalm 72:1David their King.—Jeremiah 30:9The King of Israel.—John 1:49King of the daughter of Zion.—John 12:15The King of the Jews (born).—Matthew 2:2;The King of the Jews (crucified).—John 19:19The King of Saints, or King of Nations.—

Revelation 15:3King over all the Earth.—Zechariah 14:4-5, 9The King of Righteousness.—Hebrews 7:2The King of Peace.—Hebrew 7:2The King of Glory.—Psalm 24:10The King in his beauty.—Isaiah 33:17He sitteth King for ever.—Psalm 29:10Crowned with a Crown of Thorns.—John 19:2Crowned with Glory and Honor.—Hebrews 2:9Crowned with a Crown of pure Gold.—Psalm

21:3Crowned with many Crowns.—Revelation

19:12

ALLUSIONS, CHARACTERISTICS,AND EPITHETS

As a Refiner’s Fire. As Fuller’s Soap.—Malachi3:2

As the Light of the Morning when the sunriseth, a morning without clouds. As theTender Grass by clear shining after rain.—2 Samuel 23:4

As a Tender Plant (to God), and as a Root outof a dry ground (to man.)—Isaiah 53:2

As Rain upon the mown grass. As Showersthat water the earth.—Psalm 72:6

As Rivers of Water in a dry place, as theShadow of a great Rock in a weary land,and as an Hiding Place from the wind.—Isaiah 32:2

As Ointment poured forth.—Canticles 1:3Fairer than the Children of Men.—Psalm 45:2

A glorious high Throne from the beginning isthe place of our sanctuary.—Jeremiah17:12

For a Glorious Throne to his father’s house.—Isaiah 22:23

Nail fastened in a sure place.—Isaiah 22:23A Brother born for adversity.—Proverbs 17:17A Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.—

Proverbs 18:24A Friend that loveth at all times.—Proverbs

17:17His Countenance is as the sun.—Revelation

1:16His Countenance is as Lebanon.—Canticles

5:15Yea, He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved,

and my Friend.—Canticles 5:16

Consider HIM:

He was Obedient.—Philippians 2:8He was Meek, Lowly.—Matthew 11:29He was Guileless.—1 Peter 2:22He was Tempted.—Hebrews 4:15He was Oppressed.—Isaiah 53:7He was Despised.—Isaiah 53:3He was Rejected.—Isaiah 53:3He was Betrayed.—Matthew 27:3He was Condemned.—Mark 14:64He was Reviled.—1 Peter 2:23He was Scourged.—John 19:1He was Mocked.—Matthew 27:29He was Wounded.—Isaiah 53:5He was Bruised.—Isaiah 53:5He was Stricken.—Isaiah 53:4He was Smitten.—Isaiah 53:4He was Crucified.—Matthew 27:35He was Forsaken.—Psalm 22:1He is Merciful.—Hebrews 2:17He is Faithful.—Hebrews 2:17He is Holy, Harmless.—Hebrews 7:26He is Undefiled.—Hebrews 7:26He is Separate.—Hebrews 7:26He is Perfect.—Hebrews 5:9He is Glorious.—Isaiah 49:5He is Mighty.—Isaiah 63:1He is Justified—1 Timothy 3:16

3333333333He is Exalted.—Acts 2:33He is Risen.—Luke 24:6He is Glorified.—Acts 3:13

The Lord Is My Portion.

My Maker, Husband.—Isaiah 54:5My Well beloved.—Canticles 1:13My Saviour.—2 Peter 3:18My Hope.—1 Timothy 1:1My Brother.—Mark 3:35My Portion.—Jeremiah 10:16My Helper.—Hebrews 13:6My Physician.—Jeremiah 8:22My Healer.—Luke 9:11My Refiner.—Malachi 3:3My Purifier.—Malachi 3:3My Lord, Master.—John 13:13My Servant.—Luke 12:37My Example.—John 13:15My Teacher.—John 3:2My Shepherd.—Psalm 23:1My Keeper.—John 17:12My Feeder.—Ezekiel 34:23My Leader.—Isaiah 40:11My Restorer.—Psalm 23:3My Resting Place.—Jeremiah 50:6My Meat (His flesh.).—John 6:55My Drink (His blood.).—John 6:55My Passover.—1 Corinthians 5:7My Peace.—Ephesians 2:14My Wisdom.—1 Corinthians 1:30My Righteousness.—1 Corinthians 1:30My Sanctification.—1 Corinthians 1:30My Redemption.—1 Corinthians 1:30My All and in All.—Colossians 3:11

Unto US!

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. . and His name shall be called Wonderful,Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlast-ing Father, The Prince of Peace.—Isaiah9:6.

He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heartto believe all that the prophets havespoken! . . And beginning at Moses, andall the prophets, He expounded unto them

in all the Scriptures the things concerningHimself.—Luke 24:25, 27.

That all men should honour the Son, even asthey honour the Father. He that honourethnot the Son, honoureth not the Fatherwhich hath sent Him.—John 5:23.

ADDITIONAL QUOTATIONS

“In order to strengthen our confidence inGod, Christ teaches us to address Him by anew name, a name entwined with the dearestassociations of the human heart. He gives usthe privilege of calling the infinite God our Fa-ther. This name, spoken to Him and of Him, isa sign of our love and trust toward Him, and apledge of His regard and relationship to us.Spoken when asking His favor or blessing, it isas music in His ears. That we might not thinkit presumption to call Him by this name, Hehas repeated it again and again. He desires usto become familiar with the appellation [anidentifying name or title].”—Christ’s ObjectLessons, 141-142.

“Then press your petition to the Father inthe name of Jesus. God will honor thatname.”—Christ’s Object Lessons, 148.

“Man must overcome as Christ overcame.And then, through the victory that it is his privi-lege to gain by the all-powerful name of Jesus,he may become an heir of God and joint heirwith Jesus Christ.”—4 Testimonies, 33.

“Holy angels have been displeased and dis-gusted with the irreverent manner in whichmany have used the NAME of God, the greatJehovah. Angels mention that SACRED NAMEwith the greatest awe, ever veiling their faceswhen they speak the NAME of God; and theNAME of Christ is so SACRED to them thatthey speak it with the greatest reverence.”—1Testimonies, 410.

“The miracles wrought by Paul in the NAMEof Jesus created great excitement among theEphesians. And certain Jewish exorcists, be-lieving that the SACRED NAME acted as acharm, determined to cast out evil spirits bythe same means that the apostle had employed.Seven brothers, the sons of Sceva, a chief priestof the Jews, were of this number. Finding a manwho was possessed of an evil spirit, they ad-dressed him, ‘We adjure you by Jesus, whomPaul preacheth.’ But the evil spirit answeredwith scorn, ‘Jesus I Know, and Paul I know;but who are ye?’ And the man who was pos-sessed attacked them, and overcame them, ‘sothat they fled out of that house naked andwounded.’ Their discomfiture was soon known

AAAAAdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotations

3434343434 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameto Jews and Gentiles throughout Ephesus; andit furnished unmistakable proof of the sacred-ness of the NAME of Jesus, and of the perilincurred by those who would invoke it whilethey had no faith in his divine mission.”—The Signs of the Times, February 18,1886, para. 3.

“Those who are in the service of God, whoprofess to believe the truth, should closely ex-amine themselves, to see whether they are inthe faith, whether they are using SACRED orcommon fire. At the death of Nadab and Abihu,Moses declared to Aaron, ‘This is it that theLord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in themthat come nigh me, and before all the people Iwill be glorified. Let all who NAME the NAMEof Christ depart from iniquity.”—The GeneralConference Bulletin, October 1, 1899, para.2.

“Those who profess the NAME of Christ areto represent Christ as their pattern and ex-ample. They are to unfold to others the truthin its purity, and make known to them whatare the privileges and responsibilities of theChristian life, and this can be done by the pro-fessed follower of Christ only as he conformshis character to the SACRED principles oftruth.”—Advent Review and Sabbath Her-ald, November 20, 1894, para. 4.

“The grace given cost Heaven a price it isimpossible for us to measure. That grace is ourchoicest treasure, and Christ means that it shallbe communicated through us. It is SACRED,in the NAME of Jesus, to the saving of the soul.It is the revealing of the honor of God, an un-folding of His glory. And shall any man orwoman professing godliness misinterpret thegift, ignore the Giver, and present a substi-tute?”—In Heavenly Places, 220.

“It was Christ who planned . . every specifi-cation in regard to the building of Solomon’stemple. The One who in His earthly life workedas a carpenter in the village of Nazareth wasthe heavenly architect who marked out the planfor the SACRED building where His NAME wasto be honored . . ”—My Life Today, 117.

“Christians are to be indeed the representa-tives of Jesus Christ; they are not to be pre-tenders. Shall the world form its conceptionsof God by the course of those who only takethe NAME of Christ, and do not His works?Shall they point to those who claim to be be-lievers, but who are not believers at heart, whobetray SACRED trusts, and work the works ofthe enemy.”—Our High Calling, 123.

“Christ claims all those as His who havebelieved in His NAME. The vitalizing power ofthe Spirit of Christ dwelling in the mortal body

binds every believing soul to Jesus Christ.Those who believe in Jesus are SACRED to Hisheart; for their life is hid with Christ in God.The command will come from the Life-giver,‘Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thydew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shallcast out the dead’ (Isa. 26:19).”—Selected Mes-sages Book 2, 271.

“Heaven is a clean and holy place. God ispure and holy. All who come into His presenceshould take heed to His directions, and havethe body and the clothing in a pure, clean con-dition, thus showing respect to themselves andto Him. The heart must also be sanctified.Those who do this will not dishonor His SA-CRED NAME by worshiping Him while theirhearts are polluted and their apparel is untidy.God sees these things. He marks the heart-preparation, the thoughts, the cleanliness . . ofthose who worship Him.”—Sons and Daugh-ters of God, 173.

“This testimony in regard to the establish-ment of the Christian church is given us, notonly as an important portion of SACRED his-tory, but also as a lesson. All who profess theNAME of Christ should be waiting, watching,and praying with one heart. All differencesshould be put away, and unity and tender loveone for another pervade the whole. Then ourprayers may go up together to our HeavenlyFather with strong, earnest faith. Then we maywait with patience and hope the fulfillment ofthe promise.”—The Spirit of Prophecy Vol.3, 272.

“Some think it a mark of humility to pray toGod in a common manner . . They profane HisNAME by needlessly and irreverently minglingwith their prayers the words, ‘God Almighty’—awful, SACRED words, which should neverpass the lips except in subdued tones and witha feeling of awe.”—The Faith I Live By, 41.

“Let us study the life and death of Christ.Let us do all in our power to work out the planof God. What tongue can tell, what pen unfoldthe mighty results of looking to Jesus and liv-ing His life? How few of those claiming to beChristians have any real right to that SACREDNAME.”—The Upward Look, 200.

“When appearing as members of their [Je-suit] order, they wore a garb of sanctity, visit-ing prisons and hospitals, ministering to thesick and the poor, professing to have renouncedthe world, and bearing the SACRED NAME ofJesus, who went about doing good. But underthis blameless exterior the most criminal anddeadly purposes were often concealed.”—TheGreat Controversy, 235.

“Young men, young women, you are called

3535353535by the Master to take up His work. His require-ments are too SACRED to be tampered with.In the NAME of the Lord, I ask you to conquerevery unlawful appetite and passion and topurify your souls by a belief of the truth. Over-come by the blood of the Lamb and the wordof your testimony. Discharge faithfully yourobligations, looking to God for strength.”—Pacific Union Recorder, November 20, 1902,para. 10.

“Brethren and sisters, I call upon you in theNAME of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to workwhere God works. Now is the day of graciousopportunity and privilege. Let not one be a trai-tor to holy, SACRED trusts, as were the Jews.Resist not grace, abuse not privileges, smothernot in your human pride the convictions of theSpirit of God. Despise not warnings, settle notdown in hardness of heart, in confirmed im-penitence, as did Pharaoh, the rebellious kingof Egypt. Let every one listen to the voice of theTrue Shepherd, and not only hear but obey,and it will be well with your soul.”—AdventReview and Sabbath Herald, July 23, 1889,para. 16.

“Life is not given to us to be spent in idle-ness or self-pleasing; but great possibilitieshave been placed before every one who willdevelop his God-given capabilities. For this rea-son the training of the young is a matter of thehighest importance. Every child born into thehome is a SACRED trust. God says to the par-ents, Take this child, and bring it up for Me,that it may be an honor to My NAME, and achannel through which My blessings shall flowto the world.”—Fundamentals of ChristianEducation, 416.

“When they are intrusted with children, it isthe same as though Christ placed them in theirarms and said, ‘Train these children for me,that they may shine in the courts of God.’ Oneof the first sounds that should attract their at-tention is the NAME of Jesus, and in their ear-liest years they should be led to the footstoolof prayer. Their minds should be filled withstories of the life of the Lord, and their imagi-nation encouraged in picturing the glories ofthe world to come.”—Advent Review and Sab-bath Herald, February 19, 1895, para. 7.

“Let us study the life and death of Christ.Let us do all in our power to work out the planof God. What tongue can tell, what pen unfold,the mighty results of looking to Jesus and liv-ing His life! How few of those claiming to beChristians have any real right to that SACREDNAME!”—Advent Review and Sabbath Her-ald, August 11,1903, para. 18.

“On Monday, February 8, the Lord gave me

a plain message for the people, and all presenthad evidence that the voice of the Holy Spiritwas in the message I bore in the NAME of theLord. I presented before our people principlesthat were SACRED and holy, principles whichthe Lord expects His people to carry out.”—Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, March11,1909, para. 4.

“By our baptismal pledge we avouched andsolemnly confessed the Lord Jehovah as ourRuler. We virtually took a solemn oath, in theNAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of theHoly Ghost, that henceforth our lives would bemerged into the life of these three great agen-cies, that the life we should live in the fleshwould be lived in faithful obedience to God’sSACRED law.”—God’s Amazing Grace, 150.

“Men in SACRED office ought not to be sanc-tioned and upheld while they are going downto the world’s level, and dragging the banner oftruth after them. In the NAME of Jesus Christof Nazareth I urge that the world’s spirit andmaxims, their likings, their principles, shall notleaven the churches. Shall the principles ofheaven be discarded as in the days of Noah?Shall he that departeth from evil make himselfa prey to sharp, critical, designing men? In thelast work, the last influence, and the last warn-ings of the world, shall we give the trumpet anuncertain sound? There is a broad, clear, deepline drawn by the eternal God between worldlypolicy and the unselfish, undeviating principlesof justice, and righteousness, and equity.”—TheEllen G. White 1888 Materials, 1401.

“I am getting to be very tired of moving. Itworries me out, settling and unsettling, gath-ering up Manuscripts and scattering them, tobe gathered up again. If I should look to mypoor, finite self, I should soon become discour-aged; but in looking unto Jesus, the Authorand Finisher of my faith, I take courage, andpress forward with His NAME on my lips tothe mark for the prize of the high calling whichis in Christ Jesus. If we at times feel our infir-mities encompassing us, and a discouragementcomes upon us, we must look away from selfunto Jesus, and pray for spiritual eyesight.”—The Paulson Collection of Ellen G. WhiteLetters, 101.

“‘Ye shall not swear by my NAME falsely,neither shalt thou profane the NAME of thyGod; l am the Lord.’ The NAME of the Lord isprofaned in many ways. It is spoken thought-lessly, and is often dishonored in common con-versation by appealing to God, as ‘the Lordknows,’ etc., thus making common that NAMEwhich is sacred, and should always be spokenwith reverence. Some even in their prayers take

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3636363636 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namethe NAME of God upon their lips in a thought-less manner. His HOLY NAME is to be spokenwith solemnity, and not to be heedlessly broughtinto our prayers every few sentences. ‘Lord GodAlmighty,’ ‘HOLY and Reverend is His NAME!’His purity, majesty and excellence should bemeditated upon, and the lips be sanctified thatutter His NAME. Although we do not hear Hisvoice from Sinai’s mount proclaiming His HOLYlaw, we have just as much need to fear andtremble as had they who surrounded it at thattime. The law of God is exceeding broad. Wecannot measure it, neither can we evade itspositive claims, for it will be the rule of futurejudgment.”—The Signs of the Times, July22, 1880, para. 8.

“Teach your children reverence for God andthe hour of prayer. The Lord our God is HOLYand his NAME is to be treated with great rever-ence. Angels are displeased and disgusted withthe irreverent manner in which the NAME ofGod, the great Jehovah, is sometimes used inprayer. They mention that NAME with the great-est awe, even veiling their faces when they speakthe NAME of God; the NAME of Christ also issacred, and is spoken with the greatest rever-ence. And those who in their prayers use theNAME of God in a common and flippant man-ner, have no sense of the exalted character ofGod, of Christ, or of heavenly things.”—TheSigns of the Times, November 18, 1886,para. 12.

Irreverence.—“I saw that God’s HOLYNAME should be used with reverence, and awe.Said the angel, ‘Couple them not together; forfearful is His NAME.’ I saw that God Almightywas coupled together, and used by some inmeeting in a careless, thoughtless manner,which was displeasing to God. They have norealizing sense of God, or the truth; or theywould not speak so irreverently of the great anddreadful God, who is soon to judge them inthe last day. Those who realize the greatnessand majesty of God, will take his NAME on theirlips with HOLY awe. He dwelleth in light unap-proachable; no man can see him and live. Isaw that these things would have to be under-stood and corrected where they exist, beforethe church can prosper.”—Supplement to theChristian Experience and Views of EllenG. White, 43.

Present Inspiring Themes of the Gospel.—“We need a power to come upon us now andstir us up to diligence and earnest faith. Then,baptized with the HOLY Spirit, we shall haveChrist formed within, the hope of glory. Thenwe will exhibit Christ as the divine object ofour faith and our love. We will talk of Christ,

we will pray to Christ and about Christ. We willpraise His HOLY NAME. We will present beforethe people His miracles, His self-denial, Hisself-sacrifice, His sufferings, and His crucifix-ion, His resurrection and triumphant ascen-sion. These are the inspiring themes of the gos-pel, to awaken love and intense fervor in everyheart. Here are the treasures of wisdom andknowledge, a fountain inexhaustible. The moreyou seek of this experience, the greater will bethe value of your life.”—Selected Mes-sages Book 3, 186.

“We come unto God in the NAME of Jesusby special invitation, and He welcomes us toHis audience chamber, and imparts to thehumble and contrite heart that faith in Christby which he is justified. Jesus blots out as athick cloud his transgressions, and the com-forted heart exclaims, ‘O Lord, I will praise thee:though thou wast angry with me, thine angeris turned away, and thou comfortedst me’ [Isa.12:1]. He will understand such a one by hisown experience in the words of Paul, ‘With theheart man believeth unto righteousness; andwith the mouth confession is made unto salva-tion’ [Rom. 10:10] .He then becomes a sancti-fied agent that God can employ to work outHis noble purposes. He represents Christ, hold-ing forth to the world His mercy and love. Hehas a testimony that he desires that othersshould hear. In the language of the psalmist,he says, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul: and allthat is within me, bless His HOLY NAME. Blessthe Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His ben-efits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; whohealeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy lifefrom destruction; who crowneth thee withlovingkindness and tender mercies’ [Ps. 103:2-4.]”—Counsels to Parents, 242.

“I believed, without a doubt, in the perfectand entire restoration of my husband to health.The Lord is for us, praise His HOLY NAME!Although Satan tried to press us sore, yet helphas been laid upon One that is mightier thanhe, and in the NAME of Jesus, our great Deliv-erer, we knew we should come off conquer-ors.”—Advent Review and Sabbath Herald,April 23, 1914, para. 14.

“We know that trials await us. But those whoare true and steadfast will have a strong andpowerful defense in God. My trust is unwaver-ing. I am not discouraged, because I can holdto the hand of Christ. Let us be always cheer-ful, that others may not catch from us the spiritof discouragement. Sing praises to the Lord;sing praises to His HOLY NAME.”—BibleTraining School, November 1, 1903, para.5.

3737373737“Why are so many who profess to be chil-

dren of God devoting their God-entrusted ca-pabilities to selfish purposes? They are stew-ards of the grace of Christ, and should lift upJesus before the world. They should talk ofChrist. His praise should be on their lips be-cause the Sun of Righteousness is shining intheir hearts. Through them His HOLY NAMEshould be exalted in the earth. Many, many,become the subjects of Satan’s temptationsbecause they do not disinterestedly and ener-getically engage in the service of Christ, but taketheir position in opposition to the Great Worker.The names of such cannot be registered in thebooks of heaven as laborers together with God.They are numbered with the idlers.”—AdventReview and Sabbath Herald, August 16,1898, para. 13.

THE PRONUNCIATIONOF THE WORD “YHWH”

The Sacred Name theory is centeredaround the teaching that only the ineffablename of God must be spoken, and it mustbe pronounced correctly. Here are somefacts about the ineffable name which youwill want to consider:

FACT ONE — Some people call it “YHWH”while others call it “JHWH,” but no one knowshow to pronounce it.

FACT TWO — It is the “ineffable name”; thatis, the unspeakable name, because, downthrough the centuries, the Jews have refused totake it upon their lips and pronounce it.

FACT THREE — Instead, they applied dif-ferent vowels to it; i.e., the vowels of word ADN(Adonai). This has confused the matter still more,rendering it even more difficult to know its origi-nal vowels.

FACT FOUR — Aside from the ineffablename, the Masorite Jews did not know how topronounce any Hebrew words, when they guess-timated which vowels should be added to eachHebrew word in c. A.D. 900. This is because the

AAAAAdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationsdditional Quotationspronunciation of the Hebrew language had beenlost since the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

FACT FIVE — The pronunciation of the en-tire Hebrew language was lost for about 1,345years—because the Jewish people stoppedspeaking the language by the time of Nehemiah(445 B.C.; Ezra 7:10, PK 608-609), and no onetried to figure out how it had been pronounceduntil c. A.D. 900, when the Masoritic Jews triedto do so centuries before the time of Christ.

FACT SIX — If a language is not spoken fora century, the correct pronunciation will be lost.However, the written vowels can partially restorethe pronunciation. But, in the case of ancient He-brew, no vowels had ever been in the written lan-guage! So, even a couple hundred years later, noone could know how to pronounce a languagethat no one had spoken for twenty decades, es-pecially when no earlier written vowels had beenincluded in the language.

FACT SEVEN — But, from the time of Ezraand Nehemiah (445 B.C.) down to the time whenthe Masorites tried to guess their way throughthe pronunciation of the ancient Hebrew manu-scripts (c. A.D. 900), over a millennium hadelapsed years—twenty-three centuries! Therewas absolutely no way they could correctly re-store the pronunciation of the ancient language!

FACT EIGHT — After so many centuries, theMasorites could not even be certain how the con-sonants sounded! For example, in German, the“J” is pronounced like “Y.” The same problem ofconsonantal differences in pronunciation couldhave affected ancient Hebrew. The Masorites inthe eighth century, A.D.,15-20 had absolutely noway of knowing how JHWH had been pro-nounced twenty-three centuries earlier.

FACT NINE — For thousands of years, reach-ing back far into Old Testament times, JHWHhas been the “ineffable name”; that is, the “un-pronounceable name.” The Jews have refusedto pronounce it correctly. How then can we to-day know how it should be pronounced?

FACT TEN — The pronunciation of wordsin a language can change very quickly, even whenthe words are spoken daily. We know this wasso, even in ancient Israel. According to the chro-nology given in Judges, the incident in Judges12:6 occurred only 319 years after Joshua ledthe Israelites into Canaan. Yet, within that shortperiod, significant differences in pronunciation

3838383838 The SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe SacrThe Sacred Nameed Nameed Nameed Nameed Namehad developed between Jewish tribes whichdwelt in the land. The word, Shibboleth, means“flowing stream,” yet the Ephraimites could notpronounce the initial letter, shin, properly.

FACT ELEVEN — The Jews before the timeof Ezra did not pronounce the name. They alsocalled it the “ineffable name.” So, after Mosesand Joshua led the Hebrews into the PromisedLand, the word was no longer pronounced.Someone will say, “Well, every Jew living thenwould know how to pronounce the word.” No,they could not know this, and for two reasons:(1) The word was never spoken, and (2) no vow-els were included in the word when it was writ-ten. Therefore, no one could know how it shouldbe pronounced.

FACT TWELVE — But, because of the lapseof about a millennium, between the time of Ezraand Nehemiah and the time of the Masorites,when it was not spoken,—the entire Hebrew lan-guage became ineffable! No one could correctlypronounce any of it!

FACT THIRTEEN — For over a thousandyears, from after the time of Moses on down tomodern times, the Jews refused to speak theineffable name. It has been a word read, but notspoken. When something is only read and neverpronounced, the sounding of it is eventually lostto the people. That is what happened to YHWH

FACT FOURTEEN — It is quite obvious thatthe God of heaven purposely permitted this situ-ation, so no one today could worship Hebrewwords! We are to worship God and obey Him!And we are to do it in our language, not in anunknown language!.

FACT FIFTEEN — If the Jews did not thinkthe word should be pronounced, why must any-one in our time demand that everyone todaymust pronounce it!

FACT SIXTEEN — We are told in Great Con-troversy that one of the popes declared that itwas pleasing to God that He be worshiped in anunknown language. Is this what we are doing?We are told we must forsake our own languageand use foreign ones which we cannot pro-nounce. Is not worshiping God in spirit and truthmore important than trying to ascertain un-known pronunciations?

FACT SEVENTEEN — Assuming that we canbe certain of the pronunciation of the conso-

nants, which we cannot, YHWH is generally pro-nounced “YAH-WHEH.” We guess that “ah” and“eh” may be the two vowels to be suppled tosound the ineffable name. But, any vowel couldbe used instead of those two. Someone may re-ply, “Oh, that is simple enough; there is only “A,”“E,” “I,” “O,” and “U” to pick from!” But, math-ematically, that could give you many possiblepronounciations, if even only one vowel wereplaced after the “Y” and one after the “W.” Butthe situation is far more complicated than that.

FACT EIGHTEEN — Just as we do today,ancient Hebrews often placed vowels at the be-ginning of their words, before the consonants.Some were particles of various kinds, and somewere not. So an additional vowel could easilyhave been attached to the front of the ineffablename (before the “Y”),—with another at the farend of the word (after the “H”). Thus the namecould have had as many as four unknown vow-els in it.

FACT NINTEEN — The unknown vowels inthe ineffable name might have been diphthongs;which are double vowels, producing still differ-ent sounds. (“AI,” “OU,” “AU,” “OI,” etc., etc.)

FACT TWENTY — But actually, there are farmore than the five vowel sounds, “A,” “E,” “I,”“O,” and “U.” There are actually over thirty vow-els in the phonetic alphabet! The experts whostudy such things tell us they have cataloged alarge number of ways that vowels can be pro-nounced! For example, in English “OU” can bepronounced in at least six different ways:“Though he pulled through a cough and hic-cough, he still had a rough night on a bough.”

FACT TWENTY-ONE — In many languageseven consonants have varied in pronunciation.For example, in English note the difference be-tween the “th” of ether and the “th” of either;between the “ssi” of mission and the “si” of vi-sion.

FACT TWENTY-TWO — If you will check inany reputable Hebrew grammer, you will learnthat Hebrew experts inform us that the first con-sonant in the ineffable name (which is commonlywritten as “Y,” for lack of something better), isoften quiescent. This means that Jewish schol-ars tell us it is often not sounded at all.

FACT TWENTY-THREE — If you will checkin any reputable Hebrew grammer, you will dis-cover that the second consonant in the ineffable

3939393939name (which we write as “Y”) can be pronouncedin three different ways: with a “Y” sound, a “J”sound, or a “V” sound! Which do you prefer?

FACT TWENTY-FOUR — If you will checkin any reputable Hebrew grammer, you will findthat the third consonant in the ineffable name(which we write in English as “H”) is also oftenquiescent, or not sounded!

FACT TWENTY-FIVE — In view of all this,does it not seem that our kind heavenly Fatherdoes not want us to worship a word, any word,and particularly that word? He wants us to wor-ship Him and spend our lives trusting in Jesus,obeying His Commandments, and helping oth-ers.

FACT TWENTY-SIX — The meaning of theineffable name is crucially vital. God is totally,eternally self-existent—Self-existence; that is,life that is unborrowed and underived, is a veryspecial attribute of God. It is this truth that isvital, not the language in which it is expressed.

Let us close with this statement about theineffable name by a leading expert in the Hebrewlanguage:

“The Name of Jehovah: The Old Testamentcontained this name in some 5,500 places, andin this Interlinear Bible, we have always renderedit Jehovah, or in its shortened form, Jah. TheJews, of course, considered this name to be in-

communicable and never pronounced it or wroteit.

“The root bears the meaning of continuingbeing, a personal, absolute, self-determining Ex-istence. It is very likely best translated as in Exo-dus 3:14, where the Lord said to Moses, ‘I AMTHAT I AM’— ‘Thus you shall say to the sons ofIsrael, I AM has sent me to you . .’ Because of thevagueness of the Hebrew tense (which is the samein both parts of the sentence) other renderingsare possible, but none are better than “I AMTHAT I AM.’

“The name Jehovah is, of course, an Englishword which is based on the Masoretes’ choice ofwriting. They so revered this holy name that theywrote the vowels of the word Lord (adonai) withthe consonants of the name which God gave toHimself, JHWH, resulting in Jehovah—or someprefer to render it, Yahweh, the consonants be-ing in the Hebrew transliterated YHWH. In thehistory of the English language, the letter J hasa written counterpart in the German J, althoughthe letter J in German is pronounced like an En-glish Y. The bulk of theological studies havingcome from German sources, there has been anintermix usage in English of the J and the Y. Wehave to chosen to use J, thus Jehovah—becausethis is established English usage for Bible namesbeginning with this Hebrew letter (e.g. Jacob, Jo-seph, etc.),”—Jay P. Green, Interlinear Bible, Vol.1, page xi.

BACK COVER

The Sacred Name

A subject which many would like to know more about:

Is the name of God sacred?

What is the name?

Can we know it?

How should we relate our lives to it?

How should we hallow it?

Where should we go to learn our duty

toward God and His name?

Is there only one name?

A list of special names

Over a hundred more names

The history of the language

The Sacred Name

A wide-ranging discussion

about a very interesting subject.

A book you will want to share with friends.

who have questions

$3.95



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The Sacred Name - By Vance Ferrell