Theological Term of the Week: Tetragrammaton

tetragrammaton
The technical term for the four-lettered Hebrew name of God (יהוה). In English the letters are equivalent to YHWH, which is frequently rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah. In many English translations of the Bible, the all-capped LORD is used to represent the tetragrammaton.

• In scripture:

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD [this translates the tetragrammaton], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15 ESV)

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  It is especially in the name Yahweh, which gradually supplanted earlier names, that God reveals Himself as the God of grace. It has always been regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God, the incommunicable name. The Jews had a superstitious dread of using it, since they read Lev. 24:16 as follows: “He that nameth the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death.” And therefore in reading the Scriptures they substituted for it either ’Adonai or ’Elohim; and the Massoretes, while leaving the consonants intact, attached to them the vowels of one of these names, usually those of ’Adonai. The real derivation of the name and its original pronunciation and meaning are more or less lost in obscurity. The Pentateuch connects the name with the Hebrew verb hayah, to be, Ex. 3:13,14. On the strength of that passage we may assume that the name is in all probability derived from an archaic form of that verb, namely, hawah. As far as the form is concerned, it may be regarded as a third person imperfect qal or hiphil. Most likely, however, it is the former. The meaning is explained in Ex. 3:14, which is rendered “I am that I am,” or “I shall be what I shall be.” Thus interpreted, the name points to the unchangeableness of God. Yet it is not so much the unchangeableness of His essential Being that is in view, as the unchangeableness of His relation to His people. The name contains the assurance that God will be for the people of Moses’ day what He was for their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It stresses the covenant faithfulness of God, is His proper name par excellence, Ex. 15:3; Ps. 83:19; Hos. 12:6; Isa. 42:8, and is therefore used of no one but Israel’s God.

Learn more:

1. Compelling Truth: What is the tetragrammaton? What does YHWH mean?
2. Blue Letter Bible: Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah) 
3. Theopedia: Yahweh 
4. John Piper: “I Am Who I Am” 
5. Michael Marlowe: The Translation of the Tetragrammaton

Related terms: 

• Adonai
• Elohim
• names of God

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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Sunday's Hymn: Our God, Our Help in Ages Past

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downward by thy flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

—Isaac Watts

Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• How Firm a Foundation at The Happy Wonderer

Theological Term of the Week: Text Criticism

text criticism
“[T]he careful study of the ancient texts in an effort to establish what the original manuscripts of the Bible said”;1 also called textual criticism.

• From 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible by Robert Plummer:

We have historical records of extensive text criticism from at least as far back as Origen (A.D. 185-254), but the modern flowering of the discipline followed the introduction of the printing press in Europe (1454) and the revival of scholars’ knowledge of Greek and Hebrew at the time of the Reformation. Text criticism has flourished especially in the last two hundred years, with the many discoveries of ancient manuscripts and a growing scholarly consensus on methods.1

• From The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

  Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.

• From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham:

The originals were immediately inspired by God, and the text thereafter has been kept pure by special providential care… . God’s “singular care and providence”1 has never gone into remission. With the discovery of large numbers of new manuscripts in later years, it was not as if God had gone to sleep; the same “singular care and providence” was evident in the discovery and analysis of them. The distinction between the original documents and later copies is connected with the inevitability of errors in transmission through hand-copying. God’s “singular care and providence” does not exclude errors from all copies; it refers to the text as a whole… . Textual criticism has yielded a text that gets us as close to the original as it may be possible to come, a text more complete than possessed by anyone in the first century. 

Learn more:

1. Michael Kruger: The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts
2. Daniel Wallace: Inspiration, Preservation, and New Textament Textual Criticism
3. Michael Marlowe: Textual Criticism Is Nothing New
4. Jeff Spry: Textual Criticism 101 (pdf)

Related terms: 

• autographs
• Comma Johanneum
• longer ending of Mark
• inerrancy of scripture
• inspiration of scripture
• manuscript
• Pericope Adulterae
• redaction criticism

140 Questions About Interpreting the Bible by Robert L. Plummer, page 299.
2Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.8.

Filed under Scripture

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.