Hebrew language.....TX for the OP TOG

[jasonc]

sounds don't translate well. phonetics often aren't close enough and have a grey area to it. my guess that is the case.

 

[Deborah13]

sounds don't translate well. phonetics often aren't close enough and have a grey area to it. my guess that is the case.

While agree with that, it is actually written differently in the Hebrew text.

 

[Stan1953]

If it is not Yud Hei Vav Hei, in Hebrew what is it, please?

In the Hebrew it was written in, it is Waw as explained HERE.

Also as far as the name goes you can find some good info HERE.

 

[Stan1953]

You said there was no other possible way of transliterating it. I pointed out that there was.

Not properly, but you can refer to the links I provided Deb above.

No vav in yud-hey-VAV-hey? Are you sure about that?

Like I just showed, it is pronounced Waw in English, not vav.

Could it be that I get what you're saying but that you are wrong? Could it be that there really is a vav in the tetragrammaton and that vav in Hebrew can be pronounced as V and therefore can be transliterated as such? Could it be that there is more than one valid way of transliterating God's name and that you are not the only one who knows the only correct way of doing it? No... I guess none of those things are possible.

Nope.

And like I said, I don't even know what that is. It's hard to study up on something when you don't know what it is.

Hence the exhortation to study it ...i.e.; Google it.

I'm not refusing to see anything.

Sounds like you are.

Names are much more than labels in Hebrew. They tell something about the person. As an analogy, consider the name Christopher. The name Christopher means "Christ bearer". Imagine that there is an evangelist named Christopher. When you first meet him, you don't know he's an evangelist, but you know that he goes by the name Christopher. To you, that name is nothing more than a label that identifies him. Then, some time after you first meet him, he starts witnessing to you (imagine that you are not a Christian) and telling you about God's love and what Christ did for you. You could say that, up until that time, you knew him by the label Christopher, but you didn't know him as Christ bearer. I think that's what's happening here. People seem to have known the label, but they didn't know the nature that label conveys until God revealed it to them.

Very true but my point was the word YHWH.

 

[Stan1953]

It's interesting that TOG should mention that names and the way they are spelled can mean something in languages and that's true in Hebrew as well. I found something today when checking out 'vav'.
Deborah in Hebrew is pronounced with a 'v' sound not a 'b' sound, as far as everything I know. I wasn't using Deborah but Debby when I was young, to bad because I would have heard it from those same Jewish couples years ago.
Anyway, I looked at Deborah in Judges and found it strange that there would be 5 Hebrew letters used when there is only 4 consonants. There were two 'v' letters, both the 'vet' and the 'vav'. Why would that be, then I got this thought to check out Deborah the nurse to Rebekah in Genesis 35:8. Whoa, only one 'v', the 'vet'.

Genesis 35
8 And Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried below Beth-el under the oak; and the name of it was called Allon-bacuth.
ח וַתָּמָת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה, וַתִּקָּבֵר מִתַּחַת לְבֵית-אֵל תַּחַת הָאַלּוֹן; וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ, אַלּוֹן בָּכוּת. {פ}

Judges 4:4
4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time.
ד וּדְבוֹרָה אִשָּׁה נְבִיאָה, אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת--הִיא שֹׁפְטָה אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּעֵת הַהִיא.

Deborah - Dalet Vet Reysh Hei (or Hey)
Deborah - Dalet Vet Vav Reysh Hei

Does anyone have any suggestions why this would be?

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0704.htm

As I showed above, probably because the Hebrew in the OT is not pronounced the same or used as it is today, no different than the English of 600 AD is nowhere near what we use today.

 

[Deborah13]

The point I was making is that the transliteration is what it is, YHWH. There is no other proper transliteration. There is no representative J in Hebrew and vav cannot be used for any of these 4 Hebrew letters. I suggest you look into the Q're perpetuum to see what I am talking about. What we see in the NT is Greek into English. YHWH is only used in the OT, after the implementation of the Mosaic Laws.

EDIT: Sorry Stan I posted this both I saw your post. I'll check out the links. Thanks

Is this what you are talking about?

Another example of an important qere perpetuum in the text of the Bible is the name of the God of Israel – יהוה (cf. Tetragrammaton). Often it is marked with the vowels יְהוָֹה, indicating that it is to be pronounced as אֲדֹנָי Adonai (meaning "my Lord") rather than with its own vowels. The consensus of mainstream scholarship[citation needed] is that "Yehowah" (or in Latin transcription "Jehovah") is a pseudo-Hebrew form which was mistakenly created when Medieval and/or Renaissance Christian scholars misunderstood this common qere perpetuum; the usual Jewish practice at the time of the Masoretes was to pronounce it as "Adonai," as is still the Jewish custom today.[3] Pronouncing it as "Jehovah," "Yehowah" or similar would be a mistake of exactly the same type as reading hiw for the qere perpetuum of the third-person singular feminine pronoun.

Occasionally, the Tetragrammaton is marked יֱהוִֹה (Deuteronomy 3:23, Psalms 73:28) to indicate a qere of אֱלֹהִים Elohim, another Divine Name.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qere_and_Ketiv

This appears to be saying that both ways are incorrect? While I don't consider wiki to be the best source of information I was have trouble finding this anywhere except on blogs.
Do you have a better source link?

 

[Deborah13]

As I showed above, probably because the Hebrew in the OT is not pronounced the same or used as it is today, no different than the English of 600 AD is nowhere near what we use today.

I think we are talking about two different things. I'm talking spelling and alphabet letters and you're talking pronunciation.

 

[reba]

Guys please remember most of the readers here are not "students" of Hebrew .... try to keep such a complicated language simple...

 

[Stan1953]

I think we are talking about two different things. I'm talking spelling and alphabet letters and you're talking pronunciation.

Yes I know and my point is that how their alphabet was used then is not the same as today. The Hebrew letter that is transliterated as vav, was pronounced Waw. Today it has a V sound but then it did NOT.

 

[TOG]

Not properly, but you can refer to the links I provided Deb above.

So, the American Way is the only proper way? You can believe that if you want.

Like I just showed, it is pronounced Waw in English, not vav.

And the American Way is even the only proper way of pronouncing the names of Hebrew letters. Sorry, but native Hebrew speakers say "vav". I've tried to learn Hebrew a few times (I'm not good at learning languages), with a few different books and online. Every book and site I've seen starts by teaching the alphabet (or aleph-bet as it's oftenreferred to in Hebrew) and lists the 6th letter as "vav".

The TOG​

 

[Eugene]

Stan1953
Transliterated wrongly by definition, sound, or whatever, is the following scripture describing God?

Isa 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD. In this case the word LORD is referring to Jesus.

H-3068 the proper name of the one true God. Is this true if written YHWH, or Jevehoh?

 

[Deborah13]

In the Hebrew it was written in, it is Waw as explained HERE.

Also as far as the name goes you can find some good info HERE.

OK what I get from your first link is that the author believes, as many do, that at one time in the ancient Hebrew language the letter 'vav' was actually 'waw'. One of the reasons for this is that Modern Arabic is 'waw' so Modern Hebrew is probably wrong in using 'vav' instead of 'waw'.
The author of the article makes the statement that in Modern Hebrew that when 'vav' is used as a vowel it is the sound 'ow' and 'uw'.
Here are a few Jewish sites that in Modern Hebrew the 'vav' when used as a vowel is pronounced 'oo' and 'o' depending on the placing of the dot.
http://www.hebrewtoday.com/content/hebrew-alphabet-letter-vav-ו
http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm

This last one is the best. The audio is included. However, it is only giving the pronunciation when used as a consonant. http://www.chabad.org/library/howto/trainer_cdo/aid/138150/jewish/Aleph-Bet-Trainer.htm#!1228/v27
On this same site there are other articles that include the vowel sounds used in Modern Hebrew.
http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/1953205/jewish/Letters-of-Light-Vav.htm
hebrew4christians is another site that has lots of information.

Your second link is interesting as it states that the letters in the YHWH/YHVH are all vowels and when the dots, etc. for the other vowels sounds are added it would sound like this,
"including the fact that we don't know how to pronounce it (if it contains of only vowels, it may have sounded like: AAEEIIOOUU!!)."
So in order to not mispronounce the Lord's name we can just say Lord/Adonai.

Personally I don't think that we should argue about how our Lord's name should be pronounced or even how it may have been written in the Ancient Hebrew letters. If one uses the YHWH because they believe it is how the 'vav' or 'waw' or even 'uau' was written that is fine. If one uses the Modern Hebrew, YHVH does it change the meaning?
Each Hebrew letter has a meaning attached to it. As the dalet/daled is sometimes a door, depending on context. The 'vav' a peg as in a tent peg/nail or a hook. And in Jewish thought the idea of pulling down. Sometimes when we look at the meanings of the letters in a Hebrew word we get a picture of something that we don't see by just looking at the individual letters.
The letters also represent numbers.

 

[Stan1953]

Personally I don't think that we should argue about how our Lord's name should be pronounced or even how it may have been written in the Ancient Hebrew letters. If one uses the YHWH because they believe it is how the 'vav' or 'waw' or even 'uau' was written that is fine. If one uses the Modern Hebrew, YHVH does it change the meaning?
Each Hebrew letter has a meaning attached to it. As the dalet/daled is sometimes a door, depending on context. The 'vav' a peg as in a tent peg/nail or a hook. And in Jewish thought the idea of pulling down. Sometimes when we look at the meanings of the letters in a Hebrew word we get a picture of something that we don't see by just looking at the individual letters.
The letters also represent numbers.

I'm glad you got something out of those links. My reason for being so adamant is two fold. I want all to trust and accept God's word but I am also aware that many cults and false doctrine exist because of how men have falsely claimed something they say is in the Bible when it isn't. The issue of YHWH is a big one when it relates to JWs.

 

[Stan1953]

Stan1953
Transliterated wrongly by definition, sound, or whatever, is the following scripture describing God?
Isa 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD. In this case the word LORD is referring to Jesus.
H-3068 the proper name of the one true God. Is this true if written YHWH, or Jevehoh?

Actually it is describing John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Isaiah prophesied what God told him to, but God didn't give him Jesus' name, just that He would be The WORD/GOD/LORD. Jehovah is not ANYWHERE in the Bible. It is an error in translation and transliteration. YHWH is not meant to be pronounced, it is simply meant to represent GOD without saying His name.

 

[Stan1953]

So, the American Way is the only proper way? You can believe that if you want.

Well, it is English, and seeing as I'm Canadian, I have no idea why you would say this in such a derogatory manner?
The following are examples of who God says He is...10 are English, 1 Spanish and 1 French.

1. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am," (ASV).
2. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am," (KJV).
3. "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am," (NASB).
4. "I tell you the truth, Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!" (NIV).
5. "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM," (NKJV).
6. "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am," (RSV).
7. "Truly, truly, before Abraham was, I am," (NLT).
8. "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am," (RSV)
9. "Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am!" (KJ21).
10. "Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham's coming--I am,' (YLT).
11. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am," (Darby).
12. "Antes que Abraham fuese, yo soy," (Spanish) - uses "yo soy" which is "I am."
13. "En vï'ritï', en vï'ritï', je vous le dis, avant qu'Abraham fï't, je suis," (French) "je suis" which is "I am."

 

[TOG]

Well, it is English, and seeing as I'm Canadian, I have no idea why you would say this in such a derogatory manner?

Why are you being derogatory toward others? Maybe you don't mean to be, but you are. You transliterate it the way you do because you speak English. If you go back over my posts, both in this thread and others, you will see that I transliterate it the same why when I'm writing in English. But when I'm writing in a language where J is pronounced like the Y in "yes", and there isn't even any W in the alphabet, then I transliterate it as JHVH. That's a perfectly legitimate transliteration. But you have basically been saying that everyone who doesn't have English as their native language is wrong. English is not the only proper language and the way things are done in English isn't the only proper way to do those things. There isn't only one proper way. In fact, there isn't even only one proper way to transliterate God's name in English. We don't know for certain how His name was pronounced by the ancient Hebrews. The vav may have been pronounced like a V. I even heard one man say that some ancient manuscripts (unfortunately I don't remember which ones) say that God's name consisted of 4 vowels. That could have meant a number of combinations, with the vav either as O or U and the heys as either E or A. There are many possibilities. If you are absolutely convinced that YHWH is correct, then use that, but don't tell everybody else that they are wrong and yours is the only correct way. Others also have reasons for the way they do it and , until we find something that tells us with absolute certainty how it was pronounced, we don't know which is correct.

The TOG​

 

[Deborah13]

I'm glad you got something out of those links. My reason for being so adamant is two fold. I want all to trust and accept God's word but I am also aware that many cults and false doctrine exist because of how men have falsely claimed something they say is in the Bible when it isn't. The issue of YHWH is a big one when it relates to JWs.

If I were to witness again to a JW, I wouldn't be arguing with them about something that I cannot prove in the scriptures. No one knows for sure about the vav, waw, including the Jews themselves and there isn't any scripture that speaks to that issue.

Prayer and the pure gospel message of the cross.

Did you investigate any of the links I gave you?

 

[His_nee (Jeff)]

I'm glad you got something out of those links. My reason for being so adamant is two fold. I want all to trust and accept God's word but I am also aware that many cults and false doctrine exist because of how men have falsely claimed something they say is in the Bible when it isn't. The issue of YHWH is a big one when it relates to JWs.

So? I haven't met or seen any jws here on this site. (one did come to the door THIS MORNING- go figure!) and they left the same way they came, dead in their sins and trespasses. Hmmmm ..... gone to pray for them. I'll let you know if they repent if I find out.

Also, a lot of Christians and Hebrews and Jews , (apparently, from my voracious reading loving YHWH's WORD in YESHUA) use or type or stick with YHWH or YHVH (I use both interchangeably, so far, for decades).

 

[jasonc]

I knew a fluent jewess, she is fluent in modern Hebrew and raised in the temple. she says its YHVH with the vah sounding. we must take into account that ancient Hebrew at the time of moses would evolve in time. theres is evidence to this fact.

 

[Eugene]

Actually it is describing John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Isaiah prophesied what God told him to, but God didn't give him Jesus' name, just that He would be The WORD/GOD/LORD. Jehovah is not ANYWHERE in the Bible. It is an error in translation and transliteration. YHWH is not meant to be pronounced, it is simply meant to represent GOD without saying His name.

Somehow I must have not explained what I was asking very well. To me the Hebrew word used for LORD in Isaiah 40:3 is not referring to John the Baptist. To reiterate, does the word used for LORD (H3068) have the definition of GOD?

Blue Letter Bible using Strong's Concordance and their Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon give an explanation of the superstitions prevalent causing much of the problems with the word used for God at http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H3068&t=KJV&ss=1 - Thanks.