Olive Tree Congregation

Question From My Friend Michael

“Can anyone who is Jewish, Messianic or not doesn’t matter, give me a historical accurate explanation why YHVH name is not said, but say HaShem or Adonai instead. I do Not Accept the old simple reply that it is the way Jews prevent from violating the second commandment. The God of the Universe stated His name and wanted it known to the world. He said not to utter names of other gods. Now we utter the names of other gods and don’t say the Name of our Creator.”

Answer by Paul J Rico

There are many words and names to represent the “Creator of the Universe” (which is one also). The Hebrew Scriptures calls HIM “Elohim” (God) and “Adonai” (Lord or Master) and “YHVH” (Who is, Who was and Who is to Come) and also various combinations of the above and in conjunction with other words to describe HIS attributes and how HE fills the needs of HIS people.

Adonai (plural) is the word for Master or in most English translations “Lord”. Elohim is the word for God, as in the office of God. A person could address the President of the United States by saying “Mr. President”, but they would not have used the President’s personal name, but by his office. Calling the Creator Elohim is to refer to HIM by HIS office as God and not HIS personal name. These names can be use together like referring to the Creator as “Adonai Elohim” or “Lord God”

The personal name of the Creator is represented by the letters YHVH it stands for the words in Hebrew that mean “Who is, Who was and Who is to come” a name referring to Yahshua in Revelation chapter one. It means the One Who is eternally existent, Who has no beginning, no end and is simultaneously existent in the present, past and future. This name YHVH is referred to as the “Tetragrammaton” is transliterated in several ways but no one can be sure which transliteration is absolutely correct. So why is this since The Name (Hebrew: HaShem=The Name) was revealed and used throughout the Tenach (Old Testament)?

Right or wrong, the Jews of the first millennium (AD/CE) stopped pronouncing the personal name of the Creator YHVH. THEY did this as a response to the command to not take the Name of God in vain. Right or wrong that’s the situation. We now don’t know what the proper vowels and pronunciation should be. We know that in order to not say the name of God in vain, the Jews (Massorites) used the vowels for Adonai with the letters YHVH. So when the KJ translators came to it and not understanding the situation came up with the translation “Jehovah”. So we know that translation is incorrect. If you use it, you are mispronouncing the personal name of the Creator. It’s disrespectful to mispronounce a person’s name and if so how much more disrespectful to mispronounce the Creator’s personal name?

Since no one at this point can know for sure what the vowels should be, instead of mispronouncing the personal of God, some of us including the Orthodox Jewish community (from where I attended for over 15 years) use the Hebrew for “The Name” = HaShem. If you think this is disrespectful don’t use it. I use it out of respect for the Creator because I don’t want to be disrespectful. If your name is Michael and I called you Mochul instead of Michael intentionally, it would be disrespectful to you as a person, how much more so when we are talking about our Creator and God? HaShem is a designation of respect and one of the many names and titles of the Creator, Master of the Universe Whose name is above every other name and to Whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that HE is ADONAI (Lord). HaShem is my Adonai Elohim.