the special and significant name (not merely an appellative
title such as Lord [adonai]) by which God revealed himself to
the ancient Hebrews (Ex. 6:2, 3). This name, the Tetragrammaton
of the Greeks, was held by the later Jews to be so sacred that
it was never pronounced except by the high priest on the great
Day of Atonement, when he entered into the most holy place.
Whenever this name occurred in the sacred books they pronounced
it, as they still do, "Adonai" (i.e., Lord), thus using another
word in its stead. The Massorets gave to it the vowel-points
appropriate to this word. This Jewish practice was founded on a
false interpretation of Lev. 24:16. The meaning of the word
appears from Ex. 3:14 to be "the unchanging, eternal,
self-existent God," the "I am that I am," a convenant-keeping
God. (Compare Mal. 3:6; Hos. 12:5; Rev. 1:4, 8.)
The Hebrew name "Jehovah" is generally translated in the
Authorized Version (and the Revised Version has not departed
from this rule) by the word LORD printed in small capitals, to
distinguish it from the rendering of the Hebrew "Adonai" and the
Greek "Kurios", which are also rendered Lord, but printed in the
usual type. The Hebrew word is translated "Jehovah" only in Ex.
6:3; Ps. 83:18; Isa. 12:2; 26:4, and in the compound names
mentioned below.
It is worthy of notice that this name is never used in the
LXX., the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Apocrypha, or in the New
Testament. It is found, however, on the "Moabite stone" (q.v.),
and consequently it must have been in the days of Mesba so
commonly pronounced by the Hebrews as to be familiar to their
heathen neighbours.
Jehovah
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