But the armies of the alliance became entrapped in a waterless wilderness. Jehoshaphat therefore called for a prophet of Jehovah. Only out of regard for Jehoshaphat did the prophet Elisha seek divine inspiration, and his subsequent advice saved the three kings and their armies from disaster.—2 Ki. 3:4-25.

JEHORAM BECOMES KING

While Jehoshaphat was still alive he gave the kingship to his firstborn Jehoram, but to his other sons he gave precious gifts and fortified cities in Judah. (2 Ki. 8:16; 2 Chron. 21:3) Particularly after Jehoshaphat’s death and burial in the city of David did the marriage alliance with the house of Ahab prove to be disastrous for the kingdom of Judah. Under the influence of Athaliah, Jehoram abandoned the right course of his father and revived idolatrous practices.—1 Ki. 22:50; 2 Chron. 21:1-7, 11.

4. Father of Israelite King Jehu.—2 Ki. 9:2, 14.

JEHOSHAPHAT, LOW PLAIN OF

Evidently a symbolic place, also called the “low plain of the decision.” (Joel 3:2, 14) Since it relates to God’s execution of judgment, it is appropriately designated as the “low plain of Jehoshaphat,” for the name “Jehoshaphat” means “Jehovah is Judge.” Also, during Jehoshaphat’s reign Jehovah delivered Judah and Jerusalem from the combined forces of Ammon, Moab and the mountainous region of Seir, causing the enemy forces to become confused and to slaughter one another.—2 Chron. 20:1-29.

At the symbolic “low plain of Jehoshaphat” Jehovah judges the nations as worthy of execution on account of their mistreatment of his people. The low plain itself serves as a huge symbolic winepress for crushing the nations like bunches of grapes. To link the “low plain of Jehoshaphat” literally with the Kidron Valley or the Valley of Hinnom, as some have done, is hardly plausible. Neither one of these valleys would be large enough to accommodate “all” the nations.—Joel 3:1-3, 12-14; compare Revelation 14:18-20.

JEHOSHEBA

(Je·hoshʹe·ba) [Jehovah is an oath].

Wife of High Priest Jehoiada; daughter of King Jehoram of Judah, though not necessarily by his wife Athaliah. Her name is also spelled “Jehosha-beath.” (2 Chron. 22:11) After the death of her brother (or half-brother) King Ahaziah, Jehosheba took his infant son Jehoash into hiding to escape Athaliah’s slaughter of the royal offspring. Jehoiada and Jehosheba kept their nephew hidden in their temple quarters for six years before Jehoiada brought him out to be proclaimed king. (2 Ki. 11:1-3; 2 Chron. 22:10-12) Jehosheba’s action, along with that of her husband, providentially preserved the royal lineage from David to the Messiah.

JEHOSHUA

(Je·hoshʹu·a) [Jehovah is salvation].

Son of Nun; an Ephraimite who succeeded Moses and led the Israelites into the Promised Land. His original name was Hoshea, but Moses called him Jehoshua or Joshua (a short form for Jehoshua).—Num. 13:8, 16; Deut. 34:9; Josh. 1:1, 2; see JOSHUA No. 1.

JEHOVAH

(Je·hoʹvah).

The personal name of God. (Isa. 42:8; 54:5) Though Scripturally designated by such descriptive titles as “God,” “Lord”, “Creator,” “Father,” “the Almighty,” “the Most High” and others, his personality and attributes—who and what he is—are fully summed up and expressed only in this personal name.—Ps. 83:18.

CORRECT PRONUNCIATION OF THE DIVINE NAME

“Jehovah” is the best known English pronunciation of the divine name, although “Yahweh” is favored by most Hebrew scholars. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts present the name in the form of four consonants, commonly called the Tetragrammaton (from Greek teʹtra, meaning “four,” and gramʹma, “letter”). These four letters (written from right to left) are יהוה and may be transliterated into English as YHWH (or, according to some, YHVH).

The Hebrew consonants of the name are therefore known. The question is as to which vowels are to be combined with those consonants. Vowel points did not come into use in Hebrew until the second half of the first millennium C.E. (See HEBREW, II.) The vowel pointing found in Hebrew manuscripts from that time forward does not provide the key, however, for determining which vowels should appear in the divine name, because of a religious superstition that had begun centuries earlier.

Superstition hides the name

At some point a superstitious idea arose among the Jews that it was wrong even to pronounce the divine name (represented by the Tetragrammaton). Just what basis was originally assigned for discontinuing the use of the name is not definitely known. Some hold the teaching arose that the name was too sacred for imperfect lips to speak. Yet the Hebrew Scriptures themselves give no evidence that any of God’s true servants ever felt any hesitancy about speaking his name. Non-Biblical Hebrew documents, such as the so-called Lachish Letters, show the name was used in regular correspondence in Palestine during the latter part of the seventh century B.C.E. And the Elephantine Papyri, documents from a Jewish colony in Upper Egypt dating from the fifth century B.C.E., also contain the divine name, de spite the fact that these documents are mainly of a secular nature.

Another view is that the intent was to keep non-Jewish peoples from knowing the name and possibly misusing it. However, Jehovah himself said that he would ‘have his name declared in all the earth’ (Ex. 9:16; compare 1 Chronicles 16:23, 24; Psalm 113:3; Malachi 1:11, 14), to be known even by his adversaries. (Isa. 64:2) The name was in fact known and used by pagan nations both in pre-Common Era times and in the early centuries of the Common Era. (The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 119) Another claim is that the purpose was to protect the name from use in magical rites. If so, this was poor reasoning, as it is obvious that the more mysterious the name became through disuse the more it would suit the purposes of practicers of magic.

When did the superstition take hold?

Just as the reason or reasons originally advanced for discontinuing the use of the divine name are uncertain, so, too, there is much uncertainty as to when this superstitious view really took hold. Some claim that it began following the Babylonian exile (607-537 B.C.E.). This theory, however, is based on a supposed reduction in the use of the name by the later writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, a view that does not hold up under examination. Malachi, for example, was evidently one of the last books of the Hebrew Scriptures written (in the latter half of the fifth century B.C.E.) and it gives great prominence to the divine name.

Many reference works have suggested that the name ceased to be used by about 300 B.C.E. Evidence for this date supposedly was found in the absence of the Tetragrammaton (or a transliteration of it) in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures begun about 280 B.C.E. It is true that the most complete manuscript copies of the Septuagint now known do consistently follow the practice of substituting the Greek words Kyʹri·os (Lord) or The·osʹ (God) for the Tetragrammaton. But these major manuscripts date back only as far as the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. More ancient copies, though in fragmentary form, have recently been discovered that prove that the earliest copies of the Septuagint did contain the divine name.

The fragmentary remains of a papyrus roll, listed as Inventory Number 266 of the Fouad Papyri, contain the second half of the book of Deuteronomy and regularly present the Tetragrammaton, written in Hebrew characters, in each case of its appearance in the Hebrew text being translated. This papyrus is dated by scholars as of the second or first century B.C.E., four or five centuries earlier than the manuscripts mentioned previously.

Commenting on another ancient papyrus find, Dr. Paul E. Kahle says: “The papyrus containing fragments of Leviticus ii-v is written in a hand closely akin to that of Papyrus Fouad 266, characterized as already mentioned by the fact that the name of God is rendered by the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew square letters (יהוה) not by χύριος== as later in Christian MSS [manuscripts] of the Bible.”—The Cairo Geniza, 1959 ed., pp. 222, 224.

So, at least in written form, there is no sound evidence of any disappearance or disuse of the divine name in the B.C.E. period. In the first century C.E., there first appears some evidence of a superstitious attitude toward the name. Josephus, a Jewish historian from a priestly family, when recounting God’s revelation to Moses at the site of the burning bush, says: “Whereupon God declared to him his holy name, which had never been discovered to men before; concerning which it is not lawful for me to say any more.” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, chap. XII, par. 4) Josephusʼ statement, however, besides being inaccurate as to knowledge of the divine name prior to Moses, is vague and does not clearly reveal just what the general attitude current in the first century was as to pronouncing or using the divine name.

The Jewish Mishnah, a collection of rabbinical teachings and traditions, is somewhat more explicit. Its compilation is credited to Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, who lived in the second and third centuries C.E. Some of the Mishnaic material clearly relates to circumstances prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 C.E. Of the Mishnah, however, one authority says: “It is a matter of extreme difficulty to decide what historical value we should attach to any tradition recorded in the Mishnah. The lapse of time which may have served to obscure or distort memories of times so different; the political upheavals, changes, and confusions brought about by two rebellions and two Roman conquests; the standards esteemed by the Pharisean party (whose opinions the Mishnah records) which were not those of the Sadducean party . . . these are factors which need to be given due weight in estimating the character of the Mishnah’s statements. Moreover there is much in the contents of the Mishnah that moves in an atmosphere of academic discussion pursued for its own sake, with (so it would appear) little pretence at recording historical usage.” (H. Danby, The Mishnah, pp. xiv, xv) Some of the Mishnaic traditions concerning the pronouncement of the divine name are:

In connection with the annual Day of Atonement, Yoma, 6, 2, states: “And when the priests and the people which stood in the Temple Court heard the Expressed Name come forth from the mouth of the High Priest, they used to kneel and bow themselves and fall down on their faces and say, ‘Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever!’” Of the daily priestly blessings, Sotah, 7, 6, says: “ . . . in the Temple they pronounced the Name as it was written, but in the provinces by a substituted word.” Sanhedrin, 7, 5, states that a blasphemer was not guilty ‘unless he pronounced the Name,’ and that in a trial involving a charge of blasphemy a substitute name was used until all the evidence had been heard; then the chief witness was asked privately to ‘say expressly what he had heard,’ presumably employing the divine name. Sanhedrin, 10, 1, in listing those “that have no share in the world to come,” states: “Abba Saul says: Also he that pronounces the Name with its proper letters.” Yet, despite these negative views, one also finds in the first section of the Mishnah the positive injunction that “a man should salute his fellow with [the use of] the Name [of God],” the example of Boaz (Ruth 2:4) then being cited.—Berakoth, 9, 5.

Taken for what they are worth, these traditional views may reveal a superstitious tendency to avoid using the divine name sometime before Jerusalem’s temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. Even then, it is primarily the priests who are explicitly stated as using a substitute name in place of the divine name, and that only in the provinces. Additionally the historical value of the Mishnaic traditions is questionable, as we have seen.

There is, therefore, no genuine basis for assigning any time earlier than the first and second centuries C.E. for the development of the superstitious view calling for discontinuance of the use of the divine name. The time did come, however, when in reading the Hebrew Scriptures in the original language, the Jewish reader substituted either ʼAdho·nayʹ (Lord) or ʼElo·himʹ (God) rather than pronounce the divine name represented by the Tetragrammaton. This is seen from the fact that when vowel pointing came into use in the second half of the first millennium C.E. the Jewish copyists inserted the vowel points for either ʼAdho·nayʹ or ʼElo·himʹ into the Tetragrammaton, evidently to warn the reader to say those words in place of pronouncing the divine name. If using the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in later copies, the reader, of course, found the Tetragrammaton completely replaced by Kyʹri·os and ho The·osʹ.

Translations into other languages, such as the Latin Vulgate, followed the example of these later copies of the Septuagint. The Catholic Douay translation (of 1609) in English, based on the Vulgate, therefore does not contain the divine name, while the King James Version (1611) uses LORD or GOD (in all capitals) to represent the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Scriptures in all but four cases.

The pronunciations “Jehovah” and “Yahweh”

By combining the vowel signs of ʼAdho·nayʹ and ʼElo·himʹ with the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton the pronunciations Y^eho·wahʹ and Y^eho·wihʹ were formed. The first of these provided the basis for the Latinized form “Jehova(h).” The first recorded use of this form dates from the thirteenth century C.E. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican Order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270.

Hebrew scholars generally favor “Yahweh” as the most likely pronunciation. They point out that the abbreviated form of the name is Yah (Jah in the Latinized form), as at Psalm 89:8 and in the expression Hal·lu-Yahʹ (meaning “Praise Jah, you people!”). (Ps. 104:35; 150:1, 6) Also, the forms Y^ehohʹ, Yoh, Yah and Yaʹhu found in the Hebrew spelling of the names Jehoshaphat, Joshaphat, Shephatiah and others can all be derived from Yahweh. Greek transliterations of the name by early Christian writers point in a somewhat similar direction with spellings such as I·a·beʹ and I·a·ou·eʹ, which, as pronounced in Greek, resemble Yahweh. Still, there is by no means unanimity among scholars on the subject, some favoring yet other pronunciations, such as Yahuwa, Yahuah or Yehuah.

Since certainty of pronunciation is not now attainable, there seems to be no reason for abandoning in English the well-known form “Jehovah” in favor of some other suggested pronunciation. If such a change were made, then, to be consistent, changes should be made in the spelling and pronunciation of a host of other names found in the Scriptures: Jeremiah would be changed to Yir·m^eyahʹ, Isaiah would become Y^esha·ʽayaʹhu, and Jesus would be either Y^ehoh·shuʹaʽ (as in Hebrew) or I·e·sousʹ (as in Greek). The purpose of words is to transmit thoughts; in English the name “Jehovah” identifies the true God, transmitting this thought more satisfactorily today than any of the suggested substitutes.

IMPORTANCE OF THE NAME

Many modern scholars and Bible translators advocate following the tradition of eliminating the distinctive name of God. They not only claim that its uncertain pronunciation justifies such a course, but also hold that the supremacy and uniqueness of the true God make unnecessary his having a particular name. This is similar to the view advanced by Philo, a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt, who gained prominence during the first century C.E. His teaching was that God must remain unnameable since he is indefinable and incomprehensible. Such views receive no support from the inspired Scriptures, either those of pre-Christian times or those of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

The very frequency of the appearance of the name attests its importance to the Bible’s author, whose name it is. The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,961 times in the original-language text of the Hebrew Scriptures (this includes 134 times where the Masoretic text shows that ancient copyists [Sopherim] had changed the primitive Hebrew text to read ʼAdho·nayʹ or ʼElo·himʹ instead of Y^eho·wahʹ). In just the book of Psalms the name appears 742 times. Its use throughout the Scriptures far outnumbers that of any of the titles, such as Lord or God, applied to him.

Noteworthy, also, is the importance given to names themselves in the Hebrew Scriptures and among Semitic peoples. Professor G. T. Manley points out: “A study of the word ‘name’ in the Old Testament reveals how much this word means in Hebrew. The name is no mere label, but is significant of the real personality of him to whom it belongs . . . when a person puts his ‘name’ upon a thing or another person the latter comes under his influence and protection.”—Compare Genesis 27:36; 1 Samuel 25:25; Psalm 20:1; Proverbs 22:1; see NAME.

“God” and “Father” not distinctive

The title “God” is neither personal nor distinctive (one can even make a god of his belly; Phil. 3:19). In the Hebrew Scriptures the same word (ʼElo·himʹ) is applied to Jehovah, the true God, and also to false gods, such as the Philistine god Dagon (Judg. 16:23 24; 1 Sam. 5:7) and the Assyrian god Nisroch. (2 Ki. 19:37) For a Hebrew to tell a Philistine or an Assyrian that he worshiped “God [ʼElo·himʹ]” would obviously not have sufficed to identify the Person to whom his worship went.

In its articles on JEHOVAH, the Imperial Bible Dictionary (Vol. I, p. 856) nicely illustrates the difference between Elohim (God) and Jehovah. Of the name Jehovah, it says: “It is everywhere a proper name, denoting the personal God and him only; whereas Elohim partakes more of the character of a common noun, denoting usually, indeed, but not necessarily nor uniformly, the Supreme. . . . The Hebrew may say the Elohim, the true God, in opposition to all false gods; but he never says the Jehovah, for Jehovah is the name of the true God only. He says again and again my God. . . ; but never my Jehovah, for when he says my God, he means Jehovah. He speaks of the God of Israel, but never of the Jehovah of Israel, for there is no other Jehovah. He speaks of the living God, but never of the living Jehovah, for he cannot conceive of Jehovah as other than living.”

The same is true of the Greek term for God, ho The·osʹ. It was applied alike to the true God and to such pagan gods as Zeus and Hermes (Roman Jupiter and Mercury). (Compare Acts 14:11-15.) Presenting the true situation are Paul’s words at 1 Corinthians 8:4-6: “For even though there are those who are called