Yahweh

English

Etymology

The usual form of the ancient West Semitic (Hebrew) יהוה used in scholarship. Used especially in discussions of the religion of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The spelling Jahweh was used in German since the 1850s. The spelling Yahweh in English (ensuring the pronunciation of the initial consonant as /j/) first appears in the 1860s.

As early as 1860 in the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come edited by John Thomas, founder of the Antipas Christadelphians (vol. X. no. 1, Westchester, New York, January 1860). Also used in some Bible translations for the Tetragrammaton, in the Emphasized Bible (1902), and since the 1950s in Bibles published by the "Sacred Name Movement", a current in US Adventism.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈjɑːˌweɪ/

Proper noun

Yahweh

1. (history of religion) the name of the God of Israel worshipped by the Jahwist prophets in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in antiquity
   • 1913 "No certain evidence for the pre-Mosaic use of the form Yahweh [...] seems yet to have been brought forward." (H. W. Robinson, Religious Ideas of Old Testament, 3.53)
   • 1998, Rice, Anne, The Vampire Armand, New York: Knopf, ISBN 9780679454472, OL 354828M, page 273:

     We are too much men and women; we are yet formed in the image of the Creator, and what can we say of Him with any certainty except that He, whoever He may be—Christ, Yahweh, Allah—He made us, did He not, because even He in His Infinite Perfection could not bear to be alone.

2. (biblical) in "Sacred Name Bibles", translating the Tetragrammaton
   • 1985 "At the time when Yahweh God made earth and heaven" (New Jerusalem Bible, Genesis 2:4)

Translations

personal name of God

• Arabic: يَهْوَه‎ m (yahwah)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 耶和華, 耶和华 (je⁴ ho⁴ waa⁴), 雅威 (ngaa⁵ wai¹)

  Mandarin: 耶和華 (zh), 耶和华 (zh) (Yēhéhuá), 雅威 (zh) (Yǎwēi)

  Min Nan: 耶和華, 耶和华 (Iâ-hô-hoa)

• Finnish: Jahve (fi)
• French: Yahweh (fr) m
• German: Jahwe (de) m
• Hebrew: יהוה‎ (he) m
• Japanese: ヤハウェ (Yahawe)

• Korean: 야훼 (ko) (Yahwe)
• Persian: یهوه‎ (fa) (Yahve)
• Polish: Jahwe (pl) m
• Portuguese: Javé (pt) m
• Russian: Я́хве (ru) m (Jáxvɛ)
• Spanish: Yahvé (es) m
• Swedish: Jahve
• Tatar: Йәһвә (Yähwä)
• Thai: พระยาห์เวห์ (prá yah-weh)

Jehovah — see Jehovah

Alternative forms

• Jahaveh
• Jahve
• Jahveh
• Jahweh
• Yahve
• Yahveh
• Yahwe

Synonyms

• Yahuwah
• Jah
• Jehovah
• יהוה (YHVH)

See also

• hallelujah
• Tetragrammaton

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Spanish

Proper noun

Yahweh m

1. Alternative form of Yahvé