His Name
Part II of VI
John 1:12 KJV, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
His Name
Part II -Why We Need To Know
1.a. Psalm 91:14 KJV, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name." Malachi 3:16-18 KJV, "16 Then they that feared [ יהוה ] spake often one to another: and [ יהוה ] hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared [ יהוה ], and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith [ יהוה ] of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not." Malachi 4:2 KJV, "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." I could quote a several dozen more Scriptures that discuss the name of God, but I cannot quote a single Scripture in the King James Bible that gives God's full name. I cannot quote a single Scripture in the New International Version that gives God's name in any form that can be found by the casual reader.
1.b. In the Scriptures above, you will have noticed that the word LORD has been replaced with the Hebrew word that was used in the Masoretic Text (MT) - יהוה . This word is known as the tetragrammaton. These are the four Hebrew letters that are used to spell His name. These Hebrew letters are the script used in our day, not in the ancient past. The brackets [ ] are not part of the name. I have not inserted the Hebrew pronunciation marks (known as diacritic markings) in the tetragrammaton, because I have found that depending upon the scholar or the school of thought those diacritic marks are not universal. Opinions, unfortunately, varying on the proper diacritic marks to be used. The MT has widespread support in Christian and Jewish circles as being the authoritative translation of the Old Testament. The MT was constructed circa 500 to 900 AD, although some estimates place the beginnings of this translation from prior copies as early as the second century AD. Some Bibles will have explanations in their introductory sections about the MT. You can go online to wikipedia.org and find additional information. But please beware, wikipedia (and online in general) is a fluid and changing database of references, using sources that frequently cannot be verified or authenticated - much discernment and additional study is needed to supplement online information.
2.a. Who is it that God will deliver? Who is it that God will set on high? According to Psalm 91:14 it is the one who has known his name. Who is it for which God wrote a book of remembrance? According to Malachi 3:16 it is the ones who often spoke to one another about God and that thought upon his name. Who is it that will belong to God; who is it that will be a jewel, a special treasure to God; who is it that God will spare? According to Malachi 3:16-17 it is the one who fears God and thinks upon his name. Who is it that will be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked; who is it that will be able to discern who serves God and who does not? According to Malachi 3:16-18 it is the one that thought upon his name. Who is it that will be healed; who is it that will be grown up and spring about as a calf, in God? According to Malachi 4:2 is it the one that fears the name of God.
2.b. So, if you want to be delivered; be set on high; be put in God's book of remembrance; belong to God; be a jewel of God's - a special treasure; be spared; discern between the righteous and the wicked; discern who serves God and who does not; be healed; be grown up - mature in יהוה; and spring about as a calf; then you should know His name. If you do not care about any of these things, or believe that you already have all of them, then you may not care to read any further. My hope is that the Scriptures you have read thus far, will motivate you to read further and will have placed a desire in your heart to know His name.
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3. Why do not the Scriptures just say "he who knows Me is the one?" Why, instead, do the Scriptures constantly refer to "the one who knows His name?" First, there is obviously a difference between knowing Him and knowing His name. Jeremiah 10:6 KJV, "Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O [ יהוה ]; thou art great, and thy name is great in might." Second, God considers it very important that one know His name. Besides, common sense tells us, that if you know someone, really know them, at a minimum you know that person's name. Besides, there are a lot of gods with a lot of different names floating around in various societies and cultures around the world and throughout history. How can you distinguish between the false gods and the One true God, unless you know His name? Simple answer, you can not.
4. Psalm 96:2 KJV, "Sing unto [ יהוה ], bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day." Psalm 96:8 KJV "Give unto [ יהוה ] the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts." Psalm 99:3 KJV "Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy." How can you bless His name if you do not know His name? How can you glorify His name if you do not know His name? How can you praise His name if you do not know His name? His name is holy. What is this holy name?
5. Exodus 20:24 KJV, "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." Here is another promise from our Father. The first half of this Scripture is very important, but we will only explore the last half. Where does our God record His name? In Jerusalem? Yes. But Scripture does not record that He had done this yet at this point in history. He may have, and I suspect that He had, it is just not recorded. He records His name in the hearts and minds of His children - those who are born again. Can you be born again without His name being recorded there? Yes. Not all who are born again know His name. But to those God did record His name in, those have received two more promises here in Exodus 20:24: He will come to us and He will bless us. His name is very important.
6. God has told us His name and that He expects us to use it. Exodus 3:15 KJV, "And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, [ יהוה ] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." It cannot get more explicit than this. God has given us His name and said that it is His name forever. Unfortunately, you cannot find this name in most translations of the Bible. It is not even in the King James Bible. Also, the Christian teachings I have heard repeatedly stop at Exodus 3:14 and never get to verse 15. Everyone walks out of these teachings and starts calling God the great "I AM". This is an erroneous teaching. God did not tell us to call Him "I AM". יהוה is not pronounced "I AM", in fact in Hebrew the spelling is even different. God tells us His name in Exodus 3:15, not Exodus 3:14. Besides, His name has already been used repeatedly in the Bible prior to Exodus 3:14.
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7.a. Perhaps you believe you already know His name. After all, has not Christendom been using His name for hundreds, even thousands of years? Or, perhaps you think that if no one knew His name that when the Messiah came, He would have told everyone His name if it was so all fired important. I have no doubt that Christ did use His Father's name. John 17:6,26 KJV, "6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." And, I have no doubt that the translations have been corrupted since that time and that His name has not been properly translated. His name has been lost before. His name has been obliterated from common usage in the distant past and by the very people, the Hebrews, who were given this precious and holy name.
7.b. Look at Hosea 2:16 KJV, "And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali." Baal or Baali means Lord in Hebrew, but it is also used as the name of a pagan god. The Hebrews had starting calling the one true God by the title of Baal. They had forgotten His true name. So, just as the Hebrews forgot His name, so we have forgotten it today, and have been doing so for centuries. We have forgotten God's name and we call Him Lord instead. More needs to be said about Hosea 2:16. We know that Baali means lord, and we see that the King James translators have inserted the word LORD into this text. Does this make any sense? He is being called lord and admonishing us to stop calling Him lord. Instead, He says we will call Him Ishi, which means husband. At a minimum, this Scripture should read, "And it shall be at that day, saith [ יהוה ], that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali." And in the Masoretic text, it does say this. The current day translations we commonly use, do not say this.
8.a. LORD or Lord or God is not His name, these are only titles. Then what is His name? Is it Elohiym? No. Elohiym in the Hebrew is properly translated as God - another title. Is it the Holy One or the Alpha and the Omega or Lamb of God or Redeemer or Adonai or El Shaddai or any of another half dozen descriptors? No. These are descriptions of His attributes or his titles, but they are not His name. Oh, we use these titles as if they are His name. But that is no different than calling the President of the United States the President. Calling him the President does not tell us which president we are talking about: Is it George Washington or Donald Trump or someone inbetween? We do not know, because the President is not his name. Did you notice that I had to use "the" in front of President. "The" is commonly used in front of "Lord". That is because Lord is not a name, it is only a title.
8.b. His name is also not Jehovah or Yahweh. Jehovah is the English translation of His name from Hebrew to English. But He already has a name, why translate it? Exodus 3:15 does not tell us to translate His name. Yahweh is a translation as well, and no more accurate than Jehovah. They are very close, but they miss the mark. There seems to be a concerted effort by some to convince the world right now that Yahweh is His name. Was this pronunciation used in centuries past? If it was, then why is this pronunciation so new? I believe this is just the latest effort by some who do not want the pronunciation of His name to be widely known. Yet, God did not seem to want to keep His name hidden since it is reported to be in the Masoretic text 6,519 times. The Masoretic text was heavily used by the King James translators. Think of the name of several world leaders. Are those names translated from country to country? No, they are not. Mikhail Gorbachev is his name in Russia and the U.S., George Bush is his name in the U.S. and in Iraq. Do we extend a courtesy to our world leaders, using their names, that we are unwilling to extend to the God of all that is seen and unseen? Sadly, we do.
9. God's name in Hebrew is יהוה . It is read from right to left. The letters are yodh, hey, waw, hey. Depending on the Hebrew instruction manual, sometimes the names of these letters are depicted slightly different than I have shown. Also, I have found that some software programs, during transmission over the internet or in an email, will reverse these four letters to a left to right sequence: הוהי. The letter yodh looks a little like an apostrophe, it does not reach down as far as the other three letters. It should be the first letter on the right. The next letter hey is repeated twice and it should be, starting from the right, in the second and fourth spot. That leaves the waw which should be in the third position from the right.
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10.a. One can determine the proper pronunciation of His name from the Scriptures. I would assume that a person literate in Hebrew could also possibly give the correct pronunciation, if it has been taught to them correctly. And of course, the diacritic marks that I have omitted would need to be properly used and placed. I have not been able to verify if these diacritic marks are properly placed in the Masoretic text. After all, the correct pronunciation of God's name has been hidden from us by the Hebrews for at least two and one-half thousand years, maybe longer. Those who consider the pronunciation to be sacred, the Jews, are not about to begin sharing its correct pronunciation even now at this time in history. Also, the Hebrews are not the only ones who have attempted to hide or obscure the correct pronunciation of God's name. There are those who are afraid of His name. There are those who hate His name. There are those who are prejudice against using the Hebrew language for pronouncing God's name. God's name has a multitude of enemies, some even claim to be His. So, even if I studied Hebrew to the extent of becoming an accomplished scholar, I would still not have full confidence that I have arrived at the correct pronunciation when taught by men. After all, many Christians are now being taught that Yahweh is His name, when it is not. So, if I cannot trust them to give me the correct name, how can I trust them to give me the correct pronunciation? Nevertheless, the correct name and pronunciation is available to us in the Bible. The Holy Ghost has not hid anything that He has previously made known, from those who really want to know the truth.
10.b. To learn how to derive God's name from the Bible and its pronunciation, you will need to read the treatise I wrote called "His Name, Part III - How It Is Pronounced".
11. We welcome constructive input supported by Scriptures from the Bible. Please contact us by our email address rickdmauck@gmail.com. Copyright © 2010/2019 Richard Douglas Mauck and/or Sandra Faye Mauck. All rights reserved. This material is copyrighted to protect the integrity of this work. Permission is hereby granted to copy this treatise in its entirety as long as no editing is done, no charge is made to those with whom it is shared, and full credit is given to the authors.