When Yahweh gave His 613 Laws to Mosheh to teach to the Children of Israyl, He vowed an oath saying that those who would truly obey His voice and walk in all his ways would be a "special treasure"' to Him. He also promised that He would establish these Law-abiding people as his holy people.
Exodus 19:5-6—
5 Now therefore, if you will truly obey My voice, by keeping My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation...
9 Yahweh will establish you as His Holy People unto Himself, as He promised you on oath, if you will keep the Laws of Yahweh your Father, and walk in all His ways.
10 Then all the people on the earth will see that you are called by the Name of Yahweh, and they will fear you.
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you would show forth the praises of Him Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
These Scriptures show that all the people of the earth will see that Yahweh's holy people (those who walk in all of Yahweh's Ways) are known by the name of Yahweh. There has never been an inspired Scripture written in the Torah or by the prophets telling us that Yahweh's holy people would ever be called (known) by any other name. In fact, the Prophet Yahyl was inspired to write a wonderful prophecy concerning everyone who calls with the name of Yahweh.
And whoever will call with the Name of Yahweh will be delivered; for in Mount Zion in Yerusalem there will be deliverance, as Yahweh has said, among the remnant who has escaped of those whom Yahweh calls.
And it will come to pass that whoever calls on the Name of Yahweh will be delivered.
For Whoever calls with the Name of Yahweh will be saved.
Why is it that we do not call with the Name Yahweh? Do we not desire blessings? Do we not desire acceptance from our Father? Holiness? Salvation? Could it be that we've accepted traditions that our teachers have inherited from their teachers, and then taught to us as doctrine—doctrine that cannot be supported by the inspired Scriptures?
We are not called by the Name of Yahweh, in fact Yahweh's Name is not even uttered, because we have been taught that it is not acceptable to do so. We are taught that we must not pronounce the Holy Name of our Creator and Father, Yahweh, the Name the chosen of Yahweh will be known by, the Name those who are delivered will call upon! We are instructed by our teachers that Yahweh's Name is too holy to pronounce; therefore, we are to call Him "Adonai" and "Elohim".
This
teaching has been fully
ingrained in
the
minds of nearly all Israylites to the point that extreme hatred is
shown toward anyone who openly speaks or writes the one and only true
Name of the Creator. Remember this, because the holy prophets both
spoke and wrote the true Name. As a result, the Name of Yahweh has
almost been forgotten (in effect, profaned or brought to nothing), and
Baal's name is remembered and proclaimed worldwide.
As we will read from authoritative sources, there was a time when the Name Yahweh was pronounced by all of Yahweh's people, in prayers, in blessings, and in greetings. However, by the third century B.C.E., our teachers began teaching that Yahweh, the true Name of our Creator, was too holy to pronounce. This teaching is a practice that was not inspired by our Father, but one that gradually came about due to pagan influence.
At first, the practice was to just pronounce the name Adonai instead of the Name Yahweh, wherever Yahweh's Name was written in the Holy Scriptures. However, as time went on, changes were made to the original writings. Vowel points (which were not originally part of the text) were added to Yahweh's Name, causing the reader to pronounce the names Adonai and Elohim instead, and in many places these alternate names were actually written in place of Yahweh's Name altogether. We'll show you the many sources verifying these facts, but The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 7, pages 680-682, sums it all up rather well, as you can see for yourself.
YHWH. The personal name of the God of Israel is written in the Hebrew Bible with the four consonants yhwh and is referred to as the "Tetragrammaton". At least until the destructions of the First Temple in 586 b.c.e., this name was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the *Lachish Letters, written shortly before that date. But at least by the third century b.c.e., the pronunciation of the name yhwh was avoided, and Adonai, "the Lord", was substituted for it, as evidenced by the use of the Greek word Kyrios, "Lord", for yhwh in the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was begun by Greek-speaking Jews in that century. Where the combined form *Adonai yhwh occurs in the Bible, this was read as *Adonai *Elohim, "Lord God". In the early Middle Ages, when the consonantal text of the Bible was supplied with vowels points to faciliate its correct traditional reading, the vowel points for 'Adonai with one variation - a sheva with the first yod of YHWH instead of the hataf-patah under the aleph of 'Adonai7 were used for YHWH, thus producing the form Yehowah. When Christian scholars of Europe first began to study Hebrew, they did not understand what this really meant, and they introduced the hybrid name "Jehovah". In order to avoid pronouncing even the sacred name *Adonai for YHWH, the custom was later introduced of saying simply in Hebrew ha-Shem (or Aramaic Shemc, "the Name") even in such an expression as "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of YHWH" (Ps. 118:26).
THE PROHIBITION OF USE OF THE NAMES OF GOD. The prohibition applies both to the pronunciation of the name of God and its committal to writing, apart from its use in sacred writings. The prohibition against the pronunciation of the name of God applies only to the Tetragrammaton, which could be pronounced by the high priest only once a year on the Day of Atonement in the Holy of Holies (cf. Mishnah Yoma 6:2), and in the Temple by the priests when they recited the Priestly Blessings (Sot. 7:6; see also Ch. Albeck (ed.), Seder Nashim (1954), 387). As the Talmud expresses it: "Not as I am written am I pronounced. I am written yod he vav he, and I am pronounced alef dalet" (nun yod, i.e., Adonai; Kid. 71a).
Authoritative
scholars, such as the
one
shown above, point out that the original, personal name of our Creator,
written 
in the Hebrew tongue spoken by all the patriarchs and
prophets, is correctly written and pronounced Yahweh in
English.
In
ancient times, the Hebrew words
were
written without vowels in what is called the unpointed script, so that
each word consisted of a group of consonants whose vowel sounds were
supplied from memory by the reader. In other words, Hebrew words were
pronounced with vowel sounds even though the vowels themselves were not
written. The Hebrews knew, from oral teaching and practice, which
vowels were associated with the different words. Yahweh's Name is
written yod-heh-waw-heh in
Hebrew,
transliterated YHWH
in English, but is written and pronounced with the proper vowels YAHWEH
as these sources show. Notice what The
Jewish Encyclopedia
of
1901, Volume 12, page 119, states.
It thus becomes possible to determine with a fair degree of certainty the historical pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the results agreeing with the statement of Ex. iii. 14, in which YHWH terms Himself
. "I will be", a phrase which is immediately proceeded by the fuller term "I will be that I will be," or, as in the English versions, "I am" and "I am that I am." The name
(=
), and is regarded as an imperfect. This passage is decisive for the pronunciation "Yahweh"; for the etymology was undoubtedly based on the known word.
The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced "Yahweh". This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names.
YAHWEH, the proper name of the God of Israel; it is composed of four consonants (YHWH) in Hebrew and is therefore called the Tetragrammaton...
Of the names of God in the Old Testament, that which occurs most frequently (6,823 times) is the so-called Tetragrammaton, YHWH (
TETRAGRAMMATON: The quadriliteral name of God, (
The
Jewish Encyclopedia,
Volume 9, pages 162-163, also shows us that while the rabbis recognized
only
one proper name for the Creator, they also considered other names as
titles for the Creator. As you read this excerpt, notice and remember
the title (Adonai) that was used in place of the Creator's Name:
...The Rabbis as well as
the cabalists
steadfastly maintained their belief in monotheism. Hence they
recognized only one proper name for the Deity, considering the other
names as appellations or titles
signifying divinity, perfection,
and power, or as characterizing His acts as observed and appreciated by
mankind...The
name YHWH is
considered as the
Name
proper; it
was known in the
earliest rabbinical works simply as the
Name; also as Shem ha-Meyuhad ("the Extraordinary Name"; Sifre, Num.
143): as Shem ha-Meforash ("the Distinguished Name"; Yoma vi. 2); as
Shem ben The Name. Arba' Otiyyot ("the Tetra-grammaton" or
"the Quadrilateral Name"; Kid 71a); and as Yod He Waw He
(spelling letters of YHWH).
It is recorded that the pronunciation of the Name Yahweh began to be suppressed in earnest upon the death of a man named Simeon the Just, a High Priest who served in this office in the time span of 310-199 B.C.E., or about 200 years before the nation of Israyl came under the rulership of the Roman Empire. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901, Volume 11, page 353, points out that this was the turning point, namely the exact time when it became a practice in Israyl to no longer pronounce the Name Yahweh.
SIMEON THE JUST (
): High priest. He is identical either with Simeon I. (310-291 or 300-271 b.c.), son of Onias I., and grandson of Jaddua, or with Simeon II. (219-199 b.c.), son of Onias II... After Simeon's death men ceased to utter the tetragrammaton aloud (Yoma 30b; Tosef Sotah. xiii.).
The Babylonian Talmud,
Tractate
Yoma, page 39b, also verifies that it was upon the death of Simeon the
Righteous, that all Israyl began to no longer pronounce the Name
Yahweh.
...When Simeon the Righteous died, with many indications that such glory was no more enjoyed, his brethren no more dared utter the Ineffable Name...
The
Jewish
Encyclopedia
Volume
9, pages 162-163, not only confirms this fact, but it shows the strict
prohibition and warning to all those who do not adhere to it.
The
restriction upon communicating
the
Name proper
probably
originated in Oriental etiquette; in the East
even a teacher was not called by name. For naming his master Elisha,
Gehazi was punished with leprosy (II Kings viii. 5; Sanh. 100a). After
the death of the high priest Simeon the Righteous, forty years prior to
the destruction of the Temple, the priests ceased to pronounce the Name
(Yoma 39b). From that time the pronunciation of the Name was
prohibited. "Whoever pronounces the Name forfeits his portion in the
future world" (Sanh. xi. 1).
Hananiah ben Teradion was punished
for teaching his disciples the pronunciation of the Name (`Ab.
Zarah 17b).
The
Babylonian Talmud,
Tractate
Kiddushin, page 71a, openly admits, however, that the Name Yahweh was
pronounced by all the children of Israyl, both small and great, before
the death of Simeon the Just.
Our Rabbis taught: At first [Yahweh's] Name used to be entrusted to all people. When unruly men increased, it was confided to the pious of the priesthood
Many teachers in Israyl came to believe that the Name Yahweh was too holy to be pronounced, so they began teaching the nation that only the High Priest should utter this Name, once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Century Bible, by Adeney and Bennett, Volume 1, pages 90-91, shows us this information.
Some time after the return from the Captivity, and before the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews came to believe that the Name YHWH was too sacred to be uttered on ordinary occasions. It was said to be pronounced by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.
Please note the time period in which the Name of our Heavenly Father was suppressed, some time after the return from the captivity, and before the beginning of the Christian Era (approximately 310-199 B.C.E.). This means that up to this time, the prophets, and in fact all the people of Israyl, used the great Name of Yahweh when they walked through the waters of the Red Sea; when they ate manna which came directly from Yahweh; when they saw their enemies expelled from in front of them; when they took the lands from their enemies; and all the while, they were becoming a healthy nation. It was only in turning from Yahweh to idolatry, as we are doing today, that caused Yahweh to hide His face from Israyl and give their enemies advantage over them.
The Jewish Encyclopedia contains additional information about the pronunciation of Yahweh's Name being confined to the temple and spoken only by the priests. Volume 9, pages 162-163, states: The pronunciation of the written Name was used only by the priests (Num. vi. 22-27); outside the Temple they used the title "Adonai" (Sotah vii. 6; p. 38a)...
Volume
1, pages 201-202,
shows us
this:
...In the
early period
of the Second
Temple the Name was still in common use, as may
be learned
from
such proper names as Jehohanan, or from liturgical formulas, such as
Halelu-Yah. At the
beginning
of the Hellenistic era, however, the
use of the Name was reserved for the Temple. From
Sifre to
Num. vi.
27, Mishnah Tamid, vii. 2, and Sotah, vii. 6 it appears that the priests
were allowed to pronounce the Name at the benediction only in the
Temple; elsewhere they were obligated to use the appellative name (kinnuy)
"Adonai"'
...
...Pronunciation
of the Name by the
Temple
priests... also gradually fell into disuse. Tosef.,
Sotah,
xiii. 8
quoted Menahot, 109b, and Yoma 39b, relates that "from the
time
Simon the Just died [this is
the traditional expression for the
beginning of the Hellenistic period], the
priests
refrained from
blessing the people with the Name"__in other
words,
they pronounced it indistinctly, or they mouthed or mumbled it. Thus
says Tosef., Ber. vi. 23: Formerly
they used to greet each other
with the Ineffable Name; when the time of the decline of the study of
the Law came, the elders mumbled the Name. Subsequently also the solemn
utterance of the Name by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, that
ought to have been heard by the priests and the people
according to
the Mishnah Yoma, vi. 2, became
inaudible or indistinct.
R. Tarfon (or
Tryphon) relates (Yer. Yoma,
iii. 40d): "I was standing in the row of young priests, and I
heard the high priest mumbling the Name, while the rest of the priests
were chanting."
...But
while even
among these the right
pronunciation was forgotten in the course of time, and the hope was
expressed
by Phinehas b.
Jair, "the Saint", that
the
knowledge and the correct use of the Name, so wondrously efficacious in
the blessed days long goneby, would again be restored in the Messianic
age
(see
Pes. 50a, Midr. Teh.
to Ps. xxxvi. and to Ps. xci.)...
Volume
11,
page 263,
shows us more:
...the
Mishnah
(Sotah vii. 6;
Tamid vii. 2)
says, in conformity with this interpretation: "In the
Sanctuary
the
name of God [in the three blessings, Num. vi. 24-26] is to be
pronounced in the Priestly Benediction as it is written [];
but
outside the Sanctuary it must be given the paraphrastic pronunciation
[
]."
The high priest spoke the
name of God on the
Day of Atonement in his
recitation of Lev. xvi. 30 during the
confessions of sins; and when the priests and the people in the great
hall heard him utter the "Shem ha-Meforash", they prostrated
themselves and glorified God, saying: "Praised by the glorious name of
His kingdom for ever and ever" (Yoma vi. 2). When a very young priest,
the well-known tanna Tarfon witnessed this ceremony; and he declares
that the
high priest uttered
the holy name of God so that his voice
was merged in the song of priests (Yer.
Yoma 40d,
below; Kid. 71a;
Eccl. R. iii. 11), although
it was believed that when, at this
point in the ritual, the priest pronounced the name of God he was heard
as far as Jericho (Tamid
iii.
7; comp. Yoma 39b). Tarfon's account,
that the voice of the high priest was drowned by the song of other
priests, also confirms the synchronous statement (Yer. Yoma 40b) that
in former times the high priest uttered the Name with a loud voice, but
that subsequently, when immorality had become more and more prevalent,
he lowered his voice lest the Name should be heard by those unworthy to
hear it...
The Shem
ha-Meforash as an
object
of the
esoteric knowledge of scholars appears in the statement of Johanan
(Kid. 71a): "Once each
week
the sages give their pupils the
Four-Lettered Name." A tannaitic passage in Yer. Yoma 40d, however,
says: "In former times the Name was taught to all; but when immorality
increased it was reserved for the pious,"
although this
statement
refers, according to the baraita in Kid. 71a, to teaching the Name to
the priests.
The Name of Yahweh Engraved on an Ivory Pomegranate Decoration
Biblical Archaeology Review. Jan.-Feb. 1990, page 49- "BAR recently published a beautiful carved ivory pomegranate with an important inscription on it. As partially reconstructed, the engraved inscription around the neck of the pomegranate reads as follows: "Belonging to the House of Yahweh Holy to the Priests." Based on this reading, many scholars have concluded that the ivory pomegranate originally came from the Jerusalem Temple constructed by King Solomon."
Immorality came among the people because Yahweh and His Laws were not being taught or practiced. So without authority from the inspired words of the prophets, our forefathers removed the name of Yahweh from the memory of our people. Instead of teaching Yahweh's Laws, they turned to the traditions of the Gods of earth and heaven!
Volume
9,
page 163,
further
states:
It
appears that a majority
of the
priests
in the last days of the Temple were unworthy to pronounce the Name,
and a combination of the letters or of the equivalents of the letters
constituting the Name was employed by the priests in the Temple. Thus
the Twelve-Lettered Name was substituted, which, a baraita says, was at
first taught to every priest; but with the increase of the number of
licentious priests the Name
was revealed only to the pious ones,
who "swallowed" its pronunciation while the other priests were
chanting.
Another
combination, the Forty-two-Lettered Name,
Rab says, was taught only to whomever was known to be of good character
and disposition, temperate, and in the prime of life (Kid. 71a; comp.
Rashi to `Ab. Zarah 17b). Maimonides, in his "Moreh,'' thinks that
these names were perhaps composed of several other divine names.
The
Incommunicable Name was
pronounced
"Adonai", and where Adonai and yhwh occur together the later was
pronounced "Elohim".
Volume
12, page 119,
states:
The
avoidance
of the original name
of
God both in
speech and, to a
certain extent, in the Bible was due
according to Geiger ("Urschrift," p. 262), to a
reverence
which
shrank from the utterance of the Sublime Name; and it
may well
be
that such
a reluctance first
arose in a foreign, and hence in an
"unclean" land, very possibly, therefore, in Babylonia.
According
to Dalman (l.c. pp. 66 et seq.), the
Rabbis forbade
the utterance of the Tetragrammaton, to guard against desecration of
the Sacred Name; but
such an
ordinance could not have been
effectual unless it had met with popular approval.
We
have seen, from these well-known
and
accepted sources, the following facts:
a.Yahweh is the ancient, original,
distinctive, personal, proper name of the Creator;
b.The rabbis recognized yahweh as
the proper Name for the Creator;
c. The rabbis considered names other
than the true Name as names for the Creator;
d.The pronunciation of Yahweh's
Name began to be suppressed in the third century B.C.E.;
e.The Name of Yahweh was
considered
to be too holy to pronounce;
f.The pronunciation of the written
Name was used only by the priests; and that,
g.Those who were not priests, and
priests when outside the temple, used the titles Adonai and Elohim when
referring to the Creator.
The fact still remains that although
the pronunciation of Yahweh's Name was prohibited from being
spoken (beginning around the third century b.c.e.), Yahweh
has not
allowed the true pronunciation of His Name to be lost.
And, the
scholars do admit this fact. Notice what The
Jewish Encyclopedia
of 1901, Volume 12, page 119, states:
It thus
becomes possible
to
determine
with a fair degree of certainty the historical pronunciation of the
Tetragrammaton, the
results
agreeing with the statement of Ex. iii.
14, in which YHWH terms
Himself . "I will
be", a
phrase
which is immediately preceeded by the fuller term "I will be that I
will be,'' or, as in the English versions, "I am'' and "I am that I
am.'' The name is
accordingly
derived from the root (=),
and
is regarded as an imperfect. This
passage is decisive for the
pronunciation "Yahweh"; for
the etymology was undoubtedly based
on the known word.
The Encyclopedia
Judaica,
Volume 7, page 680, further states this fact:
The
true pronunciation of the name
yhwh
was never lost.
Several early
Greek writers of the Christian Church
testify that the
name was
pronounced "Yahweh."
This is
confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by
the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex.
15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as
the final
syllable in very many Hebrew names.
Process Of Elimination Developed And Implemented
In
order to implement the
avoidance
of
pronouncing Yahweh's Name (), a system of vowel points
was developed
and added to the Hebrew language.
The
Jewish
Encyclopedia,
Volume
12, pages 118-119, tells us more about this:
TETRAGRAMMATON: The
quadrilateral
name of God, ().
The
Tetragrammaton is the ancient
Israelitish name for God. According to actual count, it occurs 5,410
times in the Bible, being
divided among the books as follows:
Genesis 153 times, Exodus 364, Leviticus 285, Numbers 387, Deuteronomy
230, (total in Torah 1,419); Joshua 170, Judges 158, Samuel 423, Kings
467, Isaiah 367, Jeremiah 555, Ezekiel 211, Minor Prophets 345 (total
in Prophets 2,696); Psalms 645, Proverbs 87, Job 31, Ruth 16,
Lamentations 32, Daniel 7, Ezra__Nehemiah
31,
Chronicles 446 (total in Hagiographa 1,295).
In
connections with ()
the
Tetragrammaton is pointed with the vowels of "Elohim" (which
beyond doubt was not pronounced in this combination); it occurs
310
times after (),
and five times before it
(Dalman, "Der
Gottesname," etc., p.91), 227 of these occurrences being in Ezekiel
alone. The
designation "YHWH
Zeba'ot," translated "Lord of
hosts," occurs 260 times, and with the addition of "God" four times
more. This
designation is met
with as follows: Isaiah 65 times,
Jeremiah 77 times, Minor Prophets 103 (Zechariah 52; Malachi 24),
Samuel 11, Kings 4; but it does not occur, on the other hand, in the
Pentateuch, in Joshua, in Judges, or in the Hagiographa. Adding
these 264 occurrences and the 315 just noted to the 5,410 instances of
the simple Tetragrammaton, the word "YHWH" is found to occur 5,989
times in the Bible. There is no instance of it, however, in Canticles,
Ecclesiastes, or Esther; and in Daniel it occurs 7 times (in ch.
ix.)__a fact
which in
itself shows the late
date of these
books, whose
authors lived
at a period when the use of the
Tetragrammaton was already avoided, its utterance having become
restricted both in the reading of the Bible and still more in
colloquial speech. For it was substituted adonai; and the fact that
this name is found 315 times in combination with "YHWH" and 134 times
alone shows that the custom of reading the Tetragrammaton as if written
"ADONAI" began at a time when the text of the Biblical books was not
yet scrupulously protected from minor additions. This
assumption
explains most of the occurrences of "ADONAI" before "YHWH"; i.e.,
the former word indicated the pronunciation of the latter. At the time
of the Chronicler this pronunciation was so generally accepted that he
never wrote the name "Adonai." About 300
b.c.,
therefore, the
word "YHWH'' was not pronounced in its original form. For
several
reasons Jacob ("Im Namen Gottes," p. 167) assigns the "disuse of the
word "YHWH" and the substitution of "ADONAI" to the later decades of
the Babylonian exile."
The Interpreters Dictionary of
the
Bible, Supplementary
Volume, page 717, tells us
more about the
devices used to hide Yahweh's Name:
Qere
perpetuum.
The
earliest
instance where a word in the biblical text was not read, but another
was pronounced in its stead, is that of the TETRAGRAMMATON (YHWH). The
prohibition of pronouncing "The Name," and the obligation of
substituting in perpetuity a term that expresses the divine majesty,
are explicitly recognized in the Babylonian Talmud (Pes.
50a):
"Said the Holy One, blessed be He: not as I am written, am I read. I
am written
(yodh-he, i.e.,
the
Tetragrammaton), but I am read
(aleph-daleth,
i.e., Adonai)." The antiquity of this prohibition is evident from the
fact that the Hebrew Tetragrammaton was not translated in the most
ancient recensions of the lxx, where it appears only in Hebrew script.
Later it was rendered into Greek by 
(Lord), which conveys the
sense of the Hebrew Adonai. In the Greek text, at the beginning, the
same procedure was followed as in the Hebrew, namely, the equivalent of
the divine name was first abbreviated, through reverence, into the
form 
,
then, in later texts and under Christian influence, it came to be
written out fully. In the same way, the Babylonian Targ. on the
Pentateuch (Targ. Onkelos) systematically renders the Tetra-grammaton
into Aramaic by the abbreviation 
(the
arithmetic equivalent of which __26__ is the
same as that of the
Tetragrammaton fully written in its Hebrew form).
This
ancient
prohibition of
pronouncing
the divine name persisted orally until the introduction of the Hebrew
vocalic system, where the vowels written under the Tetragrammaton are
those of the substitute word Adonai. Its
antiquity
clearly shows
that it originated
in the
oldest Jewish oral traditions that
accompanied the transmission (masora) of the sacred
text from
the beginning. In
contrast to
the qere
perpetuum,
substituted orally for the Tetragrammaton, the
Masoretic
tradition,
as a precautionary measure, indicated in the margin of later mss, in
the form of a statistical note (
=134), the
number of times
in the
text where God is explicitly designated
by
the title (cf. Gen.
18:3 and passim).
In this
way, they sought to forestall
any
change in the form of
the
sacred text that might be made by an overhasty scribe.
Robert
Pfeiffer, in his Introduction
to the Old Testament,
supplies
more information:
To
avoid the utterance of the name
Yahweh,
both before and after the adoption of the qere, other devices were
employed.
In some cases adonay
was written in the
text (so in Dan. 9:9 where the Babylonians wrote YHWH); in Pss. 42-83
elohim
(deity)
is substituted
for Yahweh; in Am.
5:16 adonay (missing
in the
lxx) and in Ps. 59:5
(H. 59:6);
80:4, 19 (H. 80:5, 20); 84:8 (H. 84:9) elohim are interlinear
substitutes for yhwh, which were mechanically copied into the text
(see W.R. Arnold, Ephod and
Ark,
pp.
31, 38, 145-147). We
even find in the text late substitutes for Yahweh:
"Heaven" (Dan.
4:26 [H. 4:23]; cf. Is. 14:13, lxx; the Kingdom of "Heaven" in
Matthew) and "the Name" (Lev. 24:11, 16). In the Aramaic portions of
Daniel 2-7, not only are substitutes
for Yahweh regularly employed,
but the verbal form YeHeWeH (he is
or will
be), which occurs
regularly in the Elephantine papyri, to avoid confusion with the
ineffable name YHWH was
changed to
LeHeWeH
(similarly
the plurals lehewon,
lehewyah).
Long after the
introduction of
the qere
"Lord" for YHWH (6,823 times
in the Old Testament according to
the Masora), but before a.d. 500, vulgar expressions in the text, as we
have seen, were removed by substituting a euphemism in the reading
(qere). Equally ancient are the instances of "read but
not
written" and "written but not read" listed
above.
Vowel points were placed among the
letters of Yahweh's Name
as a code
telling the reader to
pronounce another
name
(or title) in
place of
the Name Yahweh .
The
Century Bible, by Adeney and Bennett, Volume 1,
page 91,
chronicles
the establishment of this doctrine.
Hebrew
was
originally written
without
vowels,
but when
the vowel points
were added, the vowels of Adonay or Elohim
were
written with yhwh, as a direction that these
words were to be read instead of the word whose consonants were YHWH.
Thus we find the combinations YeHoWaH and YeHoWiH.
We
have already seen
that the two
names
chosen to take the place of the Name Yahweh are Adonai and Elohim. When
the vowel points of Adonai or Elohim were placed
among the
letters of the Name Yahweh ,
Yahweh's
Name was changed to look
like the following: 
++ or 
++.
Then, when a reader saw
the Name Yahweh with the vowel points, the reader would know to say
Adonai when he saw the form +,
and
Elohim when he saw the form ++.
The Babylonian
Talmud,
Tractate Kiddushin, page 71a,
openly confirms that this became the standard practice of all Israyl,
as it still is to this day.
...R. Abina opposed [two verses]: It is written, 'this is my name'; but it is also written, 'and this is my memorial'?__The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I am not called as I am written: I am written with yod he, but I am read, alef daleth.7
7. The Tetragrammaton is yod he waw he; but it is read adonai = alef daleth nun yod...
We have plainly seen that due to the devices of our teachers and leaders, the rabbis, the Name of Yahweh fell into disuse. What started out in speech, also was transferred into writing. The Name of Yahweh was replaced with the name Adonai so that down through the years, especially in the translation from Hebrew to other languages, The Holy Scriptures do not contain the Name of yahweh at all, but rather the title Lord.
The
Encyclopedia Britanica,
Volume 23, page 867, confirms the fact that the proper, original Name
Yahweh was replaced with common substitutes:
YAHWEH,
the proper
name
of
the God of Israel; it is composed of four consonants (YHWH) in Hebrew
and is therefore called the tetragrammaton...
The
name
Yahweh
later ceased to be used
by
the Jews for two somewhat contradictory reasons. As
Judaism began
to become a universal religion, the
proper name
Yahweh tended to be
replaced by the common noun Elohim, meaning "God," which could apply
to foreign deities and
therefore could be used to demonstrate the
universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others. At the same
time, the
divine name was
increasingly regarded as too sacred to be
uttered, for fear of profanation, and in the synagogue ritual it was
replaced by Adonai ("my
Lord"), which was translated Kyrios
("Lord") in
the Septuagint.
The occurence of the four sacred
letters in the text of the Bible itself could not be thus replaced,
but the same fear of profanation caused Masoretes
(6th-8th
centuries a.d.) to change the pronunciation by replacing the vowels
(which in Hebrew are marked beneath or above the consonants if not
omitted altogether) with the
vowels of Adonai (or,
more
rarely,
the vowels of Elohim).
The
Jewish Encyclopedia,
Volume
1, pages 201, 203, also points out this fact.
ADONAI
(
&,
literally "my
Lord," the plural form of Adon, that is, "Lord" or "Lordship"): This
word occurs in the Masoretic text 315 times by the side of the
Tetragram YHWH (310 times preceding and five times succeeding it) and
134 times without it. Originally an appellation of God, the word became
a definite title, and when the Tetragram became too holy for utterance
Adonai was substituted for it, so that, as a rule, the name written
yhwh receives the points of Adonai and is read Adonai, except in cases
where Adonai precedes or succeeds it in the text, when it is read
Elohim. The vowel-signs e, o, a,
given to the
Tetragrammaton in the written text, therefore, indicate this
pronunciation. Adonai,
while
the form Jehovah, introduced by a
Christian writer about 1520, rests on a misunderstanding. The
translation of yhwh by the word Lord in the King James and in other
versions is due to the traditional reading of the Tetragrammaton as
Adonai, and this can be traced to the oldest translation of the Bible,
the Septuagint...
...No
wonder, then,
that the Greek
translators of the Bible,
even though some scribe might now and
then write the Tetragrammaton in the archaic Hebrew form on the margin,
II
I II I, as
found by
Origen (see facsimile
attached to article
AQUILA), took
great care to
render the name II I II I regularly Kupios,
Lord, as if they knew of no other reading but Adonai. Translations
dependant upon the Septuagint have the same reading of the Name.
You have just read proof after proof
that the words Adonai and Elohim have come to be substituted for the
Name Yahweh, whether in speech or in writing, throughout The Holy
Scriptures so that Yahweh's Name is forgotten. However, the simple fact
remains, in the very earliest writings, known as the J or Yahwist
manuscripts, the Name of Yahweh is used exclusively. So then, how did
these words come to be accepted as suitable substitutes for the Name
Yahweh?
The following is a photo of Psalms 119:59-64 in the Dead Sea Scrolls which ar a collection of Hebrew Scriptures that date back 2000 years. Note Yahweh's name in the ancient Hebrew script while the rest of the text is in a more modern Hebrew that was used at the time.
The Four Main Manuscripts
The general consensus among scholars is that there are four main sources or manuscripts of The Holy Scriptures named J, E, P, and D. The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 13, page 234, gives us this fact.
Sources. The opinion accepted in contemporary biblical research is that the pentateuchal literature is composed of four major sources: J, E, P, and D.
This information concerning the major sources of the Scriptures is also shown to us in The Encyclopedia Brittanica, Volume 2, page 194:
BIBLICAL SOURCE, any of the original documents that, in compilation, constitute the Bible. Most of the writings in the Old Testament are of anonymous authorship, and in many cases it is not known whether they were compiled by individuals or by groups. Nevertheless, by careful evaluation of internal evidence and with the aid of various schools of biblical criticism (q.v.), scholars have been able to identify certain sources and to arrange them chronologically in order of composition.
The means by which the basic sources of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) were distinguished and their chronology established provided the first clear picture of Israel's literary and religious development. The names by which these sources are now known, in chronological order, are: the Yahwist, or J, source, so called because it employed as the Lord's name a Hebrew word transliterated into English as YHWH (called J from the German: JHVH) and spoken as Yahweh; the Elohist, or E, source, distinguished by its reference to the Lord as Elohim; the Deuteronomist, or D, source, marked by distinctive vocabulary and style; and the Priestly code, or P, source, which contains detailed ritual instructions.
Our main concern will focus on the J and E sources. It is very important to note that the oldest source, the J exclusively. Yes, in the oldest manuscript of the Scriptures, Yahweh is never referred to by the titles El, Elohim, or Adonai—but only by His Name, Yahweh! (Yahwist) source, used the Name of Yahweh
The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 13, page 234, gives us these facts:
...The distinction between J and E is based primarily on the different usage of the divine name in these sources: YHWH in J and Elohim ("God") in E. P is the Priestly Source and D the Deuteronomic. The different usage of the divine name is not only a matter of form but relates to the type of attitude taken to the history of the religion of Israel. According to J, YHWH, the Lord of Israel, was worshipped as early as the time of Enosh (Gen. 4:26), while according to E, YHWH, i.e., the true name of the God of Israel, was first revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:6ff.).
...J notes a religious continuity beginning with the time of Enosh and continuing through the period of the Patriarchs to Moses. In contrast, E and P, while admitting that the God who was revealed to the Patriarchs is the God who was revealed to Moses, maintain that the Patriarchs did not know Him by His true name, and there is doubtless theological significances to this lack of knowledge. Furthermore, P, which places great emphasis on the religious chasm between the period of the Patriarchs and that of Moses, does not consider the possibility of legitimate worship of God (sacrifices) before the revelation in the time of Moses.
J and E Sources. This difference between J and E is most evident in Genesis, where it is based on an explicit criterion: YHWH in J as opposed to Elohim in E...
The J (Yahwist) Source
...(usually symbolized as J): The name given in modern Bible criticism to the supposed author of those portions of the Pentateuch (or of the Hexateuch) in which the name yhwh is used for God in preference to the name "Elohim," which latter is employed by the Elohistic writers.
..it is natural to suppose that J was written as its counterpart, and as an expression of the view that yhwh ruled all things from the beginning, and that the faith and worship cherished in Jerusalem were also those of the Fathers.
J. One of principal narrative sources or strata of the Pentateuch. The symbol is derived from the personal name of God, Jehovah (or more accurately Yahweh, from
...J traced back the name Yahweh to the dim past, while E and P attributed the usage to Moses, both views may be justified depending on the point vantage. The worship of Yahweh was in all likelihood confined at first to a small body of searchers under the aegis of the patriarchs; it was this movement that found a worthy recorder in J. When Moses set out to fashion a nation out of an amorphous conglomerate of sundry ethnic and tribal elements, he had to concentrate on three major features of nationhood: a territorial base, a body of laws, and a distinctive religion. The last was normative in more ways than one; it was necessarily the faith of the same forefathers who had already tied it to the Promised Land, with Yahweh as its fountainhead. To that extent, therefore, Yahweh revealed himself to Moses: and it is this personal revelation that both E and P celebrate. To J, however, who chronicled the progress within the inner circle of the patriarchal pioneers, the personal participation of Yahweh had been the dominant fact from the start.
According to the documentary hypothesis, the literary sources in the Pentateuch known as the Elohist and the Priestly Document never use the name Yahweh for God until it is revealed to Moses (Ex. 3:13; 6:2-3); but the Yahwist source uses it from Genesis 2:4 on, thus implying that it was at least as old as Abraham. If the name is really so old, then Exodus 6:2-3 must be understood as meaning that from the time of Moses on, Yahweh was to be the personal name of the God who brought the people of Israel into existence by bringing them out of Egypt and established them as a nation by His covenant with them at Sinai.One must wonder, if Abraham and Mosheh had followed the same teaching we today have known from birth, the Name of our Heavenly Father would have never been known to us today. It is my opinion that we should praise Yahweh for giving Abraham and Mosheh the great wisdom to call upon, and write for us, His Name.
The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 2, page 409, confirms the fact that the earliest manuscripts used only the Name Yahweh.
...The Yahwist narrative (see Pentateuch) traces the worship of Yahweh far back beyond the period of Moses and affirms that in the time of Enosh, the grandson of Adam, men first began to invoke the name of Yahweh (Gen. 4:26). This narrator's consistent use of the name from the story of Creation onward represents a theological attempt to view the whole of human history in the light of the covenant faith and to demonstrate that Yahweh is not just the God of Israel but of all mankind (Enosh means "man")...
...Although the name was given new currency in Mosaic circles, the J account (Gen. 4:26) may preserve a dim recollection that it was known in the pre-Mosaic period....
...However, the latest Pentateuchal tradition, the priestly writing (P), gives a completely different view in Exod. This conjecture is confirmed by a third Pentateuchal tradition, E, which avoids using Yahweh in the book of Genesis...
...In the earliest Hebrew the sacred name appeared as a four-letter word or tetragrammaton: YHWH -
Knowing the time in which the blinded scribes began to replace Yahweh's Name with titles of gods and Lords, and then reading the rebuke given to them by the Prophet Yeremyah (Chapter 23) for making Yahweh's people forget His great Name, we see the pieces of an historical puzzle start falling into place. After rejecting and hiding Yahweh's Name, it's obvious that the next step was to reject and deny Yahweh's great laws.The translation of the Holy Scriptures from Hebrew to Aramaic, the Targums, are known for their literal adherence to the original Hebrew Scriptures which used the Name Yahweh. The Chumash with Targum Onkelos and Rashi's Commentary, shows us that in Genesis 1:1, where Elohim is used in the Masoretic text, the Targum Onkelos uses the Aramaic abbreviation for Yahweh.
Masoretic Text: The word ELOHIM is circled
Targum Onkelos: The Name YAHWEH is circled
The E (Elohist) Source
The E or Elohist source is derived from the word elohim, god, the use of which is characteristic of this source. Please remember, the J (Yahwist) source is the oldest source, meaning the Elohist source came after the Yahwist source. The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 2, page 1, tells us:
E (ELOHIST) -. One of the principal narrative sources or strata of the Pentateuch. The term is derived from a Hebrew word for "God" (, Elohim; see GOD, NAMES of, § 3c), the use of which is characteristic of this source.
...The use of "Elohim" for "God" is the most notable characteristic of E. ...the symbol J (=Jahvist) applying to passages in which the name "YHWH" is predominant. "Adonai" and "El" occur occasionally (Gen. xx. 4, xxx. 20, xxxv. 7, xliii. 14).
ELOHIST, The author or compiler of the E source of the Pentateuch (see E), which is commonly associated with the N kingdom and dated to the eighth century b.c.
The fact that the E document in the Pentateuch shows evidences of origin in North Israel after the division of the kingdom at Solomon's death, but follows the outline of the Judean J document which it later was used to supplement, indicates that both stem from a common source before the kingdom split in two.
Do you grasp the significance of this? This says that both the Yahwist and the Elohist sources stem from a common source before the kingdom split in two. This actually means they used the same work, however, while one retained Yahweh's Name in the Holy Scriptures, the other replaced Yahweh's Name with the title Elohim.
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 9, page 160, gives us more proof that Yahweh's Name appeared in the original writings, and Adonai and Elohim were added later.
Of the names of God in the Old Testament, that which occurs most frequently (6,823 times) is the so-called Tetragrammaton, YHWH (
This name, according to the narrative in Ex. iii. (E), was made known to Moses in a vision at Horeb. In another, parallel narrative (Ex. vi. 2, 3, P) it is stated that the name was not known to the Patriarchs. It is used by one of the documentary sources of Genesis (J), but scarcely if at all by the others. Its use is avoided by some later writers also. It does not occur in Ecclesiastes, and in Daniel is found only in ch. ix. The writer of Chronicles shows a preference for the form Elohim, and in Ps. xliii.-lxxxiii. Elohim occurs much more frequently than YHWH, probably having been substitued in some places for the latter name , as in Ps. liii. (comp. Ps. xiv.).
The Ancient And Honored Name Of Yahweh
The very oldest Scriptural text ever found, dating back almost 2,600 years, was found in a tiny silver amulet which contains a Seventh Century b.c.e. extract from the Book of Numbers (6:24-26), the priestly blessing. The rolled up amulet was part of a treasure hard found by a Tel Aviv University archeologist in a First Temple Period family tomb in Yerusalem, Israyl. When this amulet was written, the Temple of Solomon still stood, the heirs of King David still ruled on the throne, and the Dead Sea Scrolls would not be written for another 400 years.
It was three years after its discovery before this fragile amulet could be unrolled by technical experts at the Israyli Museum. On this amulet the Name of Yahweh could be clearly read. Complete details of this magnificent find can be read in the 6-28-86 and 8-9-86 issues of The Jerusalem Post and the 6-87 issue of The Readers Digest.
The following excerpt was taken from an article in the November/December 1997 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, pages 28-32. We see here that the Creator's work during the time of Solomon was known by the same Name as it is today—The House of Yahweh. It was Solomon who built the Temple where this tithe was given. You can read of this in I Kings 6.
Three Shekels For The Lord
Ancient Inscription Records Gift To Solomon's TempleTwo extremely important Hebrew inscriptions have recently surfaced on the antiquities market. One appears to be a receipt for a donation of three silver shekels to the House of Yahweh, pursuant to an order of the Israelite king. This is the oldest extra-Biblical mention of King Solomon's Temple ever discovered. The other inscription records the petition of a widow for some portion of her late husband's property. Both inscriptions, apparently by the same scribe, are written in Old Hebrew, or paleo-Hebrew, the script used before the Babylonian Exile. Both are on pieces of pottery, called ostraca because they bear an inscription.
Only one other extra-Biblical source mentions Solomon's Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E...
The text on the first ostracon, which measures about 4 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall (10.9 by 8.6 cm), is only 5 lines and 13 words long. All the words are complete and readable. See the box for the text and translation.A TEMPLE RECEIPT
Text:
1. K'SR SWK. 'SY
2. HW.HMLK.LTT.BYD
3. [Z]KRYHW.KSP TR
4. SS.LBYT YHWH [.]
5. S3Translation:
1. Pursuant to the order to you of Ashya-
2. hu the king to give by the hand
3. of [Z]echaryahu silver of Tar-
4. shish to the House of Yahweh
5. Three shekels.
*Brackets indicate that the letter or word has been reconstructed. Half-brackets indicate that part of the leter or word has been reconstructed.Most of the words are separated from one another by dots acting as word dividers. However, sometimes the word dividers are omitted, such as between LBYT and YHWH, which together are pronounced Beit Yahweh and mean "House of Yahweh."
The Temple is designated by the Hebrew term BYT YHWH, many times in the Bible. (Temple only refers to the building, Beit—House refers also the people of Yahweh). But BYT YHWH had been found complete in only one extra-Biblical inscription, a faded ostracon from Arad with an obscure context, until this newly published ostracon was revealed.
BYT YHWH has been reconstructed on the inscribed ivory pomegranate that served as the head of a priestly scepter in Solomon's Temple... divine name would mean "he causes to be, or exist," i.e., "he creates." Amorite personal names after 2,000 B.C. lend support to the Haupt-Albright view, demonstrating that the employment of the causative stem yahwe "he creates" was in vogue in the linguistic background of early Hebrew.
YAHWEH—The vocalization of the four consonants of the Israylite name for the Creator, which scholars believe to approximate the original pronunciation.
The Name par excellence for the Creator of Israyl is Yahweh, found 6,823 times in the OT. Through Israyl's deliverance from bondage in Egypt, adoption as a nation, and guidance to the Promised Land, the Redeemer-Creator is especially known by THIS NAME. (Emphasis ours).
James Moffatt, in his translation, The Bible: A New Translation, 1935, Harper and Brothers, informs us in his introduction:
Strictly speaking this ought to be rendered Yahweh which is familiar to modern readers in the erroneous form of Jehovah. Were this version intended for students of the original, there would be no hesitation whatever in printing Yahweh.
Although Moffatt substitutes the title, The Eternal in the place of the Name of Yahweh, he fully admits a distinct loss of meaning in this.
The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 7, page 680 states emphatically:
The true pronunciation of the Name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the Name was pronounced Yahweh.
+m. (abbrev. of the Tetragrammaton) Targ. Ps. 1, 2 (ed. Lag.
).
The book The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible page 164 tells us that in these original writings the Name Yahweh stood alone.
Actually this practice was much earlier, for one of the frequent discrepancies between the Massoretic text and the presumed Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint is whether to read in a given passage Yahweh alone, or Yahweh Adonai. This inconsistency was occasioned by the fact that originally Yahweh did stand alone, but that Adonai tended to be introduced alongside the Tetragrammaton by way of making explicit the surrogate. This was not understood by the Massoretes, however, who felt compelled to vocalize both words. Neither was it understood by the scribes of the Qumran Scrolls, nor even by still earlier translators of the LXX. That Yahweh originally stood alone in most passages is supported by the fact that, in Hebrew poetry, the double designation of the Deity usually adds excessive length to the poetic stich.
So not only do we have proof that the Name Yahweh was written in the original Holy Scriptures, we have proof that it was spoken by all of Yahweh's people as well.
Yahweh's Name is written yod-heh-waw-heh
It thus becomes possible to determine with a fair degree of certainty the historical pronunciation of the tetragrammaton, the results agreeing with the statement of Ex. iii. 14, in which YHWH terms Himself
The personal Name of the Father of Israyl is written in the Hebrew Scriptures with the four consonants YHWH, and is referred to as the Tetragrammaton. At least until the destruction of the First Temple 586 B.C.E., Yahweh's Name was pronounced regularly with its proper vowels, as is clear from the Lachish Letters, written shortly before that day. However, at least by the third century before our Messiah was born, the pronunciation of the Name Yahweh was avoided, and Adonai, the Lord, was substituted for it.The Century Bible, Volume 1, pages 90-91 tells us:
Some time after the return from the Captivity, and before the beginning of the Christian Era, the Yahdaim (Jews) came to believe that the Holy Name YAHWEH was too sacred to be uttered on ordinary occasions. It was said to be pronounced by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. At other times, when any one read or quoted aloud from what is called the Old Testament, the word Adonay, Lord, was usually substituted for Yahweh, and similarly the LXX (Septuagint Version) has Kurios, the Vulgate dominus, and the E.V. Lord, where the Hebrew has Yahweh. Hebrew was originally written without vowels, but when the vowel points were added, the vowels of Adonay or Elohim were written with Yahweh, as a direction that these words were to be read instead of the word whose consonants were Yahweh; thus we find the combinations YeHoWah and YeHoWiH. At the Reformation, the former being the more usual, was sometimes used as the Name of the (Mighty One) Of Israyl, and owing to ignorance of its history was misread as Jehovah, a form which has established itself in English, but does not give the pronunciation of the Holy Name it represents.
Three-shekel receipt provides evidence of King Solomon's Temple
NEW YORK (AP)- Talk about holding on to a receipt.
A recently discovered piece of pottery recording a donation to the "House of Yahweh" may contai the odest mention outside the Bible of Kingd Solomon's Temple.
The 3-1/2 by 4-inch artifact is nearly 3,000 years old, dating to a time when kings sent messenges inscribed on pottery. - 11/3/97
(AP Photo)
The Hiding Of Yahweh's Name
In the Hebrew manuscripts, the religious scholars conclude there are three major texts of Scripture; the oldest and the original being the Yahwistic works, which use the Name of Yahweh exclusively. These works are referred to as the J writings because they contain only the Name of Yahweh without the pagan titles of El, Elohim or Adonai. In these first manuscripts, everyone knew instantly the Name of the Creator of all things, because the minds of those who read it were not confused by reading titles of pagan Gods (Elohim).
The next text of the Scriptures, coming about 100 years later, incorporated the use of pagan titles, which were adopted from the Canaanites after the children of Israyl entered the promised land, even though Yahweh had strictly warned them to stay away from the Godworship of the people they would come in contact with (Deuteronomy 7:1-5). In direct violation of Yahweh's commandment not to worship hinder Gods (Elohim) only 100 years later the Holy Scriptures became polluted with the pagan titles of Elohim, Adonai, God and Lord.
The pagan word God comes from the word El (singular—God) or Elohim (plural—Gods).
From The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 1, page 817, we find the information that El or Elohim simply means demon.
A. In The OT. 1. Daimonism. a. Daimon. The Hebrew equivalent of "demon" (daimon) in the original sense is simplyor
The words El-Elohim, like the words Baal-Adonai came from the Canaanite vocabulary and worship. These Canaanite words were accepted into the Hebrew language many years after the Yahwist writings of the Holy Scriptures.
The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 7, page 674 tells us:
Most of these terms were employed also by the Canaanites to designate their pagan gods. This is not surprising; since on settling in the Promised Land the Patriarchs and early Israelites made "the language of Canaan" their own (Is. 19:18), the Hebrew language would naturally use the Canaanite vocabulary for terms designating their own Deity.These names of the Canaanites' Gods (Elohim) were accepted before and during the time of Yeremyah the prophet began his prophesying.
