It has been maintained by some recent scholars that the word Jehovah dates only from the year 1520 (cf. Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible”, II, 1899, p. 199: Gesenius-Buhl, “Handwörterbuch”, 13th ed., 1899, p. 311). Drusius (loc. cit., 344) represents Peter Galatinus as the inventor of the wordJehovah, and Fagius as it propagator in the world of scholars and commentators. But the writers of the sixteenth century,
Catholic and
Protestant (e.g. Cajetan and Théodore de Bèze), are perfectly familiar with the word. Galatinus himself (“Areana cathol. veritatis”, I, Bari, 1516, a, p. 77) represents the form asknown and received in his
time. Besides, Drusius (loc. cit., 351) discovered it in Porchetus, a
theologian of the fourteenth century. Finally, the word is found even in the “Pugio fidei” of Raymund Martin, a work written about 1270 (ed. Paris, 1651, pt. III, dist. ii, cap. iii, p. 448, and Note, p. 745). Probably the introduction of the nameJehovah antedates even R. Martin.
No wonder then that this form has been regarded as the
true pronunciation of the Divine name by such scholars as Michaelis (“Supplementa ad lexica hebraica”, I, 1792, p. 524),
Drach (loc. cit., I, 469-98), Stier (Lehrgebäude der hebr. Sprache, 327), and others.
- Jehovah is composed of the abbreviated forms of the imperfect, the participle, and the perfect of the Hebrew verb “to be” (ye=yehi; ho=howeh; wa=hawah). According to this explanation, the meaning of Jehovah would be “he who will be, is, and has been”. But such a word-formation has no analogy in the Hebrew language.
- The abbreviated form Jeho supposes the full form Jehovah. But the form Jehovah cannot account for the abbreviations Jahu and Jah, while the abbreviation Jeho may be derived from another word.
- The Divine name is said to be paraphrased in Apocalypse 1:4, and 4:8, by the expression ho on kai ho en kai ho erchomenos, in which ho erchomenos is regard as equivalent to ho eromenos, “the one that will be”; but it really means “the coming one”, so that after the coming of the Lord, Apocalypse 11:17, retains only ho on kai ho en.
- the comparison of Jehovah with the Latin Jupiter, Jovis. But it wholly neglects the fuller forms of the Latin names Diespiter, Diovis. Any connection of Jehovah with the Egyptian Divine name consisting of the seven Greek vowels has been rejected by Hengstenberg (Beitrage zur Einleiung ins Alte Testament, II, 204 sqq.) and Tholuck (Vermischte Schriften, I, 349 sqq.).