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Chapter 0 Vocabulary

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Chapter 0 Vocabulary

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Chapter 0 Vocabulary

Names for God

The deity is called by many names in the Bible. These are the two most prevalent:

This name has the form of a plural noun. There are a few places in the Bible where it is used as
such, taking a plural verb; in these instances, it can refer to human judges or to foreign gods.
Mostly, however it used to mean “God” and it takes a singular verb (Elohim IS, not Elohim
ARE), as in the first verse of Genesis. It sometimes appears with the definite marker: ‫ ָֽהאֱֹלהים‬.
‫ֱאֹלהִים‬ With or without the definite marker, most translators render it as “God.”
In this text, we will “translate” this word by transliterating it and writing it in italics: Elohim.
Some people pronounce this word “Elokim” when they are saying it outside of a ritual context
such as prayer or public Torah reading. This is a way of “building a fence around the Torah” –
making sure to stay far away from mentioning God’s name lightly.

This is the “tetragrammaton,” the four-letter personal name of the deity. We’ve written it with
dashes between the letters because this series of symbols has the utmost sacredness in the
Jewish tradition. Once it is written down in full, the piece of paper on which it is written should
not be discarded but should be kept in a geniza until it can be buried in a proper grave. You
will see it without the dashes in the Torah scroll and in printed Bibles. In the rest of this
curriculum, we will use the abbreviation ‫יי‬.

According to the Masoretic tradition, this name is not to be pronounced using the consonants
as written, but should instead be pronounced using the euphemism ‫ – אֲדֹ ני‬Adonai – which
means “my lord.” The Masoretes indicated this by overlaying the vowels of the word ‫ אֲדֹ ני‬onto
the consonants ‫ה‬-‫ו‬-‫ה‬-‫י‬, yielding ‫ה‬-ִ‫וֹ‬-‫ה‬-ִ‫י‬. Note that the composite sh’va under the aleph in
‫ אֲדֹ ני‬changes to a regular voiced sh’va when it’s under a yud.
‫ה‬-‫ו‬-‫ה‬-‫י‬ [This is what the Masoretes do when the written form of a word (the k’tiv) does not match the way it
should be read (the k’ri). The name “Jehovah” comes from a misunderstanding of this process, reading
the vowels with the consonants as written, transliterated using the German J for Y.]
Most translators render ‫ה‬-‫ו‬-‫ה‬-‫ י‬as “The Lord.” We will represent it in English with the letters
YHVH, in small caps. Some people are willing to pronounce the Masoretic euphemism Adonai
in a non-ritual context. Others say ‫ – הַ שֵּׁ ם‬Ha-Sheim – in its place, which means “the name.”
Why is this name not pronounced? Perhaps it is too sacred. In Temple times it was only
pronounced by the high priest, in the inner sanctum, on Yom Kippur. And perhaps the correct
pronunciation was lost with the end of the priesthood. And perhaps it is actually impossible to
pronounce this name. Notice that the letters of the tetragrammaton are all vowel letters. How
would one say a string of vowels without consonants to box them in? It would take until the
end of time just to get started.

Page 1 of 1 4/21/2022 9:38 AM © Copyright 2021 Mekom Torah

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