דרשו יהוה בהמצאו קראהו בהיותו קרוב׃

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The Correct Pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name

Questions about the correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name keep popping up. I have a real advantage. When Yahweh led me to write His Name is Yahweh, He simply told me to write the book. There was no confusion about the correct pronunciation of His Name.

Later as I was well into the writing process, I started asking Yahweh if I had the pronunciation right. He simply said, “Keep writing.” Not once did He even hint that the correct pronunciation of His Name wasn’t Yahweh.

As quickly as I published His Name is Yahweh, other names for Yahweh started gaining traction. Yehovah and Yahuah (sometimes spelled Yahuwah) are the two most prominent examples.

Below are 2 videos. This first video shows me being interviewed by Torah Life Ministries at a Sukkot gathering in Texas several years ago. The person interviewing me had learned about the other names, and he wanted me to talk about them. My explanation in the video is sufficient for the time being. The second video shows Andrew Gabriel Roth being interviewed by Torah Life Ministries. He, too, explains that Yahweh is the correct pronunciation. Andrew really is a Bible scholar and a linguist. He is fluent in English, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and he is the author of the Aramaic English New Testament. Andrew knows what he’s talking about.

Jim Hutchens

Many years ago, I got to know Jim Hutchens. He headed up The JerUSAlem Connection. One day I was watching Jim’s latest video at that time in which he said that he had made a mid-course correction. He had switched from Yahweh to Yehovah. He cited convincing research that he had learned about as the reason for his change.

That so-called “research” is fatally flawed. It comes from a guy named Nehemia Gordon, and it was promoted by Gordon and a guy named Michael Rood.

After I watched Jim’s video, I called him and asked him to do some digging and to pray about his decision. I told Jim that he was mistaken. The correct pronunciation of Elohim’s Name is Yahweh. Jim followed my advice and reversed course. In the video below, Jim explains what he did to confirm the correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name.

Nehemia Gordon

Nehemia Gordon is the so-called “scholar” who discovered “ancient Hebrew manuscripts” with vowel markings showing that the correct pronunciation of Elohim’s Name is Yehovah. Gordon is wrong. Here’s why:

After Antiochus Epiphanes died in 164 BC, rabbis forbade ordinary Jewish people from saying Yahweh’s Name, but they never stopped using the Name Yahweh themselves. Thus, Yahweh’s Name was never “lost”. At that time, the rabbis made up the name Yahowah and taught Jewish people to say Yahowah instead of Yahweh.
Yahowah was formed by combining the 4 consonants in Yahweh’s Name (Y, H, W, H) with the 3 vowels in Adonai (a, o, a). That produced the name YaHoWaH.
“Ya” was pronounced colloquially as “Ye”, but the “Ya” sound is correct.
Hebrew was Germanized in the 9^th century AD, and the letter “waw” became a “vav”. The name that the rabbis made up has been pronounced YeHoVaH only since the 9^th century AD.
The process of creating vowel markings in the Hebrew language didn’t begin until about 500 AD. That’s roughly 650 years after rabbis made up the name Yahowah. It ended in about 1000 AD. That’s roughly 1,150 years after rabbis made up the name Yahowah and more than 100 years after the “waw” in Hebrew was changed to “vav”.

Nehemia Gordon is Wrong, Period

This is an interesting question for Nehemia Gordon and his “YeHoVaH” devotees: Since the “vav” sound didn’t enter the Hebrew language until the 9^th century AD, how could “Yehovah” be the correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name?

The answer: That’s a linguistic impossibility. Putting it bluntly, it’s patently absurd.

1,150 years was more than enough time to erase the correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name from the memories of most Jewish people.

Once the vowel marking system was completed and in place in about 1000 AD, manuscripts of the Torah and the Tanach were produced with vowel markings indicating that YeHoVaH is the pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name. That was done to make the manuscripts comply with the rabbis’ prohibition against saying “Yahweh”.

The rabbis should have left Yahweh’s Name alone. They made a tragic mistake.

In a nutshell, Gordon’s so-called “proof” that Elohim’s Name is Yehovah is actually proof that the rabbis in the mid-second century BC accomplished their objective. I don’t want to sound trite, but this isn’t rocket science.

As I said, rabbis have known the correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name all along, but they kept it a not-so-closely guarded secret. Today, most of them will tell you the correct pronunciation if you ask them.

Nowhere in the Torah or the Tanach did Yahweh tell us not to say His Name. In fact, Yahweh commanded us to declare His Name to the world. Read His Name is Yahweh for details. Also, see the website His Name is Yahweh.

Below is a video of Michael Rood, a prominent Yehovah devotee, explaining his eureka moment when he switched from Yahweh to Yehovah.

The Gordon-Rood Connection

Nehemia Gordon and Michael Rood became business partners in a manner of speaking after Rood’s eureka moment, but they had a big falling out and eventually a big split-up. Today, it’s fair to say that they are bitter enemies. I know a lot more about their split-up than I am going to discuss in this editorial.

Nehemia Gordon is part of the great deception. So is Michael Rood. They have cult followings that are willing to stick with them through thick and thin, but they are way off the mark on the pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name. See the SnyderTalk editorials below:

I won’t delve into the details here, but Gordon and Rood are way off the mark on the location of Yahweh’s Temple, too. See “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount (Part 1)”. Also, see “The Pope and Me: A True Story”.

The correct pronunciation of Yahweh’s Name and the true location of Yahweh’s Temple will become extremely important in the days ahead. If you read His Name is Yahweh, The Trilogy, and “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount (Part 1)”, you will understand why.

Two Videos About Yahweh’s Name

Below are 2 videos about the pronunciation and the meaning of Yahweh’s Name. Don’t be deceived. Our Creator’s Name is Yahweh.

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“I pray…that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one. I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 21-24)