The Significant Name of God (12)
Still used by the Jews in the sixth century BC
André H. Roosma
27 May 2020 (NL original: 1 May 2015)
While virtually browsing through some old documents (via
the Internet) I came across the Lakhish letters again. These are letters written during the early
sixth century BC (Biblically: the time of the last kings,
shortly before or already during the Babylonian exile) on potsherds and excavated in
Lakhish (Hebrew: לָכִישׁ; identified with Tel ed-Duweir) in 1935.
An example:
Lakhish letter 23 |
The script used is a late, rapid handwriting variant of the Paleo-Hebrew
script.1
What stands out in these letters is the use of the glorious Name of God,
YaHUaH.2 Several begin with a salutation along the lines of:
“To my lord Ya’ush (or
Yo’ash), may YaHUaH cause my lord to hear tiding(s) of peace
today, this very day! ...”
The same picture emerges in the letters that were exchanged one to two centuries later between
Isra’elites in Judea and in Elephantine, an
island in the Nile near Aswan, southern Egypt, where an important Isra’eli
enclave was established at that time. They were written in Aramaic and on
papyrus, and here too we find many references to the God of the Bible,
through a slightly shortened version of His glorious Name: YaHU (יהו). We also encounter this form a lot at that time,
among the other nations around Isra’el, who were all familiar with the God of
Isra’el.
What is evident from these archaeological finds is that the rabbinic
prohibition on the use of the glorious Name of God arose only during (or shortly after) the Babylonian exile, that is, in
syncretistic Babylon, as I will demonstrate in another article in this series.
In the centuries before, the Jews still used the glorious Name of God in their
daily lives, such as in praise and blessings.4
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
For more on this old pictographic Semitic script, see:
André H. Roosma, ‘The Written Language
of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic roots and
basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical script’
 , Hallelu-YaH Draft Research Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011). |
| 2 |
The names in the Bible have meaning. That is why I
transliterate them carefully so that they remain recognizable. Especially
the glorious Name of God I represent here as accurately as possible from the
oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand personal Name of The
Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’. For more background
information see:
André H. Roosma, ‘Life, security and belonging in joyful adoration,
from the hand of God’ , brief Hallelu-YaH article about the Biblical Name of God in the earliest
Hebrew (old Semitic) script, January 2011.
André H. Roosma, ‘The Shema‘
– the First Testament declaration of faith (1)’, Hallelu-YaH! web article, February 2012.
André H. Roosma, ‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’ , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009. |
| 3 |
Shmuel Achituv, in Echoes from the Past (CARTA
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 2008; p.60) translates this letter into English as
follows: “To my lord, Yaush, may YHWH cause my lord to hear tiding(s) of peace
today, this very day! Who is your servant, a dog, that my lord remembered his
[se]rvant? May YHWH make known(?) to my [lor]d a matter of which you do not
know.” |
| 4 |
Even the well-known Jewish scholar Maimonides argued in
1190 to simply use the glorious Name of God in blessings to one another. In
his Arabic book The Guide
for the Perplexed (دلالة الحائرين -
Dalálat
al-Chá’irïn from 1190, written in Yemeni script; translated into Hebrew
in 1204 under the title: מורה נבוכים - Moreh
Nebhukhim; Part I, esp. ch. 60-65), he remarked, among other things, that
the pronunciation of the glorious Name ‘according to the letters’ is simply
possible and that pronouncing the Name, as in the ’Aharonic blessing, is even
commanded according to Numbers 6: 23-27. Here the Name is not used
magically or supernaturally, but for a spiritual purpose, which is legitimate
and okay, according to Maimonides. Unfortunately, this is unknown to many
Jewish and Christian theologians. |
|
