YHWH vs. Yahweh

[peter_kirk at SIL.ORG]

Dear Rolf,

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I realise that we are talking speculatively here. Someone suggested 
that the form Yahweh could be explained as the hiphil of the root HWH. 
My point was to extend this suggestion to show that -yahu could also 
come from the hiphil of HWH, and need not imply a U or O vowel in the 
original pronunciation of YHWH.

Well, if we don't know the pronunciation of YHWH, we might as well say 
we don't know the pronunciation of Hebrew at all. As you recently 
pointed out in connection with wayyiqtol, one of our earliest sources 
(a problematic one) for the general pronunciation of Hebrew is Origen; 
but Origen's teacher Clement of Alexandria already gave us the form 
IAOUE for the pronunciation of YHWH - in which I and OU probably 
represent the semivowels Y and W not found in Greek. So the 
pronunciation "Yahweh" is not late and artificial but a scholarly 
reconstruction from evidence such as Clement's, and Theodoret's IABE. 
But I accept that we cannot be sure that Clement was not trying to 
reproduce something like YAHUWE.

As for the Hebrew and Aramaic roots, well, the root HWH is attested 
rarely in Hebrew (see BDB) as a synonym for HYH and was probably the 
original form as in Aramaic and Arabic (HWY). There seems to have been 
a general tendency in Hebrew for original Semitic W root consonants to 
assimilate to Y in most but not all forms. Analogous roots to HWH have 
survived in Hebrew in CWH "command", QWH "wait" and RWH "drink", see 
GKC 72gg. Of these only RWH has hiphil forms, and then only the 
perfect HIR:WFH (also some suffixed forms) and the participle MAR:WEH, 
but these forms are enough to confirm that the hiphil of HWH would 
probably have been YAH:WEH . (By contrast, XYH "live" has an original 
Y middle consonant as in Arabic, and so its hiphil perfect is 
HEX:EYFH, infinitive absolute HAX:AY"H, again unfortunately no 
imperfect but presumably it would have been YAX:AYEH.)

So I would suggest that we do know the root, the early Hebrew HWH 
which later assimilated to HYH - or is there any other possibility? We 
do more or less know the language, archaic Hebrew or perhaps dating 
back to common west Semitic. Within that language, or at least the 
rather later form still extant, we have good evidence that there could 
have been a 2-syllable pronunciation of YHWH.

Is there evidence for a 3-syllable pronunciation of such words? 
Limited, I think. The analogies might be feminine nouns from roots 
with final W . Extant forms include $AL:WFH, GA):AWFH, XED:WFH, 
(ER:WFH (GKC 84a c epsilon). But I cannot find any four letter forms 
ending in -WH with 3-syllable pronunciation - do you know of any?

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: YHWH vs. Yahweh
Author:  furuli at online.no at internet
Date:    29/04/1999 10:21


Peter Kirk wrote:

<snipped>

Dear Peter,

It was not my intention to enter this discussion, but what you wrote above 
needs some comment.

As a matter of fact, we *know* next to nothing about the old pronunciation 
and meaning of YHWH. It has correctly been stated in this thread that 
"Jehovah" is an artificial construction based on the masoretic punctuation, 
and that "Yahweh" is late and artificial as well. This does not rule out, 
however, that king David, pronounced the name, either close to "Jehovah" or 
to "Yahweh". The many names in the Bible beginning with "Jeho/u opt for 
something closer to "Jehovah", and the abbreviation "yah" and a similar 
ending in many names opt for something closer to "Yahweh". The Elephantine 
papyri are open for either YEHU/O or YAHU/O. But the correct pronunciation 
we do not know!

I am surprised, however, that nobody has brought Aramaic into the 
discussion (or at least an older dialect of Hebrew), because HYH is Hebrew 
while HWH is Aramaic. A hiphil form of the Hebrew HYH is not attested, but 
if one existed, would it not be YA:HAYE or YAHYE (compare )EHYE in Ex 3:14) 
rather than YA:HAWE or YAHWE? In Daniel 5:12 we find a haphel form of HWH 
written as YE:HAHA:WE, and an aphel form could have been YAHWE. Jussiv in 
Aramaic is expressed by elision of the final N and is, except that, similar 
to imperfect. I therefore find your suggestions above about a Hebrew 
jussive meaning speculative.

The number of syllables and whether waw is a consonant or a vowel may be 
discussed, but as long as we do not know the language/dialect, and the 
particular root and its meaning we are groping in the dark.



Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo









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