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| Lord, Language, & Liturgy | | Date Created: Nov 14, 2005, 01:46 PM |
 In our liturgy we read "Yahweh" when the Hebrew text uses the Tetragrammaton YHWH to refer to God. Most of our English translations continue to translate YHWH as LORD, distinguishing it from the Hebrew word adonay ("lord") by the use of small or large caps formatting. I am convinced that this perpetuates a very unhealthy tradition and makes for a muddled reading of Scripture. It's time to break that tradition and restore the divine covenantal name given to Israel to the public reading of Scripture.
It is better for us to read Yahweh rather than LORD in our translations, Scripture reading, and preaching for these reasons:
1. YHWH was given to Israel as God's "memorial name" (Exod. 3:15). This personal name of God was revealed so that the Israelites might use it in prayer and thus remind God of his covenant so he would act for them. God's personal name for Israel was not "Lord" but "Yahweh." As Psalm 20 says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we will memorialize the name of Yahweh our God." The name of the God of Israel was not "Lord" or "LORD" but Yahweh.
2. "Lord" is a title not a name. You can make the word "Lord" into all caps, italicize it, bold it, or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that it means "Master" or "Sir" and is not a name, certainly not God's revealed personal name. So when one translates passages like "Let them praise the name of Yahweh" as "Let them praise the name of the LORD" you muck up the meaning badly. His name is not "Lord" or "LORD" but YHWH.
3. The abbreviation YAH is not replaced with LORD in our English translations. We still say and sing "hallelujah," which means "praise Yah[weh]." Why don't we sing "hallelu-LORD"? Silly, you say? Just as silly as replacing YHWH with Lord. If saying the whole name is so spiritually hazardous, why isn't saying part of the name just as dangerous? But YAH was not even replaced by superstitious Jews who refused to say the whole name for fear of judgment. In addition to Hallelujah we still have all the proper names that include Yahweh in them, like Joshua (Heb: Yah-shua - "Yahweh saves"). The best we can say is this is inconsistent; the worst is that it's evidence of how stupid this superstitious avoidance of the name Yahweh really is.
This essay is too long to post in one entry — read the rest here . . . |
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