Yeah, I know you were expecting some Thanksgiving Day message, but there are so many of them out there, I didn’t want to get lost in the crowd.

So let’s talk about God’s (alleged) name …or maybe we shouldn’t mention it, at all?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.
(This one is a little longer than usual).

What is God’s name? Is it Jehovah? Yahweh? Adonai? HaShem? Lord? God? Harry? Oy-ving?

Maybe what we should be asking, before trying to figure out how to pronounce

יהוה

is whether or not we are supposed to figure out how to pronounce it, at all?

The third commandment says: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain”, so what does it mean to use it in vain? According to the Internet dictionary, the term “use in vain” means…”without success or a result.” I guess that means that if we ever use God’s name, we should only use it in a way that produces something, or has some result.

Before we figure out how to use God’s name where it results in, or produces, something, how about we see what God said his name is?

In Exodus, Chapter 3, verses 14-15, God tells Moses what his name is (CJB):

God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be],” and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.’” God said further to Moshe, “Say this to the people of Isra’el: ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai], the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation.

So God says his name is “I Am“, but he adds that the way we are to refer to him is as “the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”.

Hmmm… not Jehovah, not Yahweh, not Adonai, not any of the typical names that we see being thrown around like a hot potato, without any respect or admiration shown for the majesty and power of the entity that name represents.

God really doesn’t give a name, anywhere, to himself, but rather he refers to himself in terms that are descriptive of who and what he is, and I believe that is because he is above the need for a name.

What do I mean by that? Well, simply enough, we give each other names to identify ourselves as someone who is uniquely different from everyone else. Many people have the same first name, so the addition of a middle and/or last name separates them: for example, there are many Stevens in the world, and some Steven Roberts, as well. But there is only one, or (at least) very, very few Steven Robert Bruck’s in the world.

But how many gods are there? To be honest, as many as people want to create. According to the Bible Gateway site, there are about 8,747 false gods. Besides the ancient names, such as Amon, Molech, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Ba’al, etc., there are other gods from other religions, such as the many gods in Hinduism, there is Buddha, the many Roman and Greek gods, and they all have a real name. Each one of them is uniquely identified by a name, but the one, true God has no name, to speak of, but tells us who he is by referring to a title and a description.

And what does it mean when, in the Bible, someone refers to “the name of the Lord”? Most of the people I have met and read posts from are adamant that they MUST use whatever pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (that’s the fancy term for those 4 letters God said to Moses) they have been taught represents the God of our fathers, the God of… well, you know who I mean. But I am certain, from reading the Bible many times, that “the name of the Lord” doesn’t mean an actual name, like Steve or Harry or Oy-ving (you have to pronounce that last name with a Jewish accent to really get the humor in it), but rather it represents his reputation and his renown throughout the world.

When God referred to himself in Exodus 34, passing by Moses, he announced himself this way (CJB):

Adonai passed before him and proclaimed: “YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH!!! Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh  is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth;  showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents’ offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations.

He did mention the Tetragrammaton, but then told us about himself in descriptive terms. He always refers to his name in a way that refers not to a specific pronunciation, but what that “name”, those 4-letters, represent! The Y-H-V-H is not to be pronounced, but to be recognized as God, the one who is the God of our fathers; as God, the one who brought us out of Egypt; as God, the one who promised we would dwell in the Land he told Abraham about; as God, the one who will send the Messiah; as God, the one who created the earth and the heavens; as God, the one and only.

When God mentions himself, he doesn’t dwell on the 4-letters, he specifies who and what he is, what he has done, and what he is capable of doing.

God doesn’t need a name because he is defined by what he has done!

There are those who are called “Holy Namers” (not meant to be complimentary), and they are so adamant about how to pronounce the 4-letters that they throw God’s alleged “name” around like it was your name or mine, without the proper respect for who and what that name represents.

I am sorry, but God is not my drinking buddy or someone I can just scream “Yo, Yahweh! Over here, Man!” when I want to get his attention in prayer. He is the one and only true creator of everything, and he is so holy that the angels call him the holiest of all holies!

And when was the last time you read in the Bible an angel calling God by his “name”?

I know that there are many who will say I am wrong, and that it isn’t a sin to use the 4-letters anytime we want to, pronouncing it any old way we want to, and that – in fact!- it would be a sin not to pronounce God’s name, and using any other name (than the one they like) is praying to a false god.

Yeah, I have seen many take it that far off base, refusing to remember that we are saved by faith, not pronunciation.

I use God or Adonai (Hebrew for “Lord”) because it is what I have used my whole life, and as a Jew I also have great respect for God’s Holy Name, so I don’t use it.

I almost forgot to mention how we use God’s name in a way that produces a result or has a purpose, which is, after all, the definition of not using it in vain. You know what? I am not sure about how to do that! If I use it when swearing or cursing, that should have a result, for sure, but then again, doesn’t the bible tell us not to do that? (Matthew 5:34-37 and Deuteronomy 5:11)

I suppose the only way to use his name which would have a purpose and/or result in something, would be in prayer. But that means when we are writing or talking about him, or referencing him in a story or post, we should NOT use the Tetragrammaton because the purpose or result of what we are writing about doesn’t need to have the Holy Name of God used in order to get the point across. What I mean is that the point of my message can have the same exact purpose using “God” or “Adonai” or even “HaShem” (Hebrew for “the name”) as it would if I used the 4-letters. And because of this, I believe using a pronunciation of those 4-letters, other than in prayer, is a violation of the 3rd Commandment.

I hope this message causes some of you to reconsider just how you refer to God in the future. Think of it this way: if you met the President of the United States, would you shake his hand and say, “Hi, Donnie, How are ya?” Or, if you met the King of England, would you say “Yo, Chuckie! How’s it hangin’?”

No? Then what makes you think you can refer to God using his first name?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even the non-believers- you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!