When we are looking at the Great Falling Away, no greater place has deception started than with the very name of the Creator of the universe who has always existed, and created every single piece of matter that is in the universe and beyond. Names are extremely important and in Hebrew every name has meaning and yet we are to think that somehow the creator of the universe, the name above  all names, doesn’t have a name, and doesn’t care what we call him.

      I find it most interesting that every human is so prideful about his own personal name. If your name is Bill and someone kept calling you Fred, it would be quite offensive. It would not only be offensive, but hurtful, if someone that you know very well, such as your Pastor of 10 years, suddenly forgot your name. In Hebrew every name has meaning.

Eliyahoo (Elijah) means Yahweh  is my El,  Daniel  means Elohim is my Judge and so on. Most people believe  that  you can call Yahweh Kyrios, Theos, Zeus and even Baal or just about any other pagan name and that it is acceptable to him, but it is not according to scripture.

Exo 3:15 And Elohim said to Moses again, You shall say this to the sons of Israel, YaHWeH, the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial from generation to generation.

The third commandment tells us “You shall not take the name of YAHWEH, your Elohim in vain.” In vain means to change, falsify or to make common. A child could see that taking out the personal name of YaHWeH, or in Hebrew, it is the letters Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey, and replacing it with a generic title of lord or God is definitely breaking the third commandment.

Let’s use common sense and agree that the original scriptures were written in Hebrew. Deut 4:2 strictly tells us we are not to add or take away from the word of scripture. Yet, if you look in any interlinear bible, you will see that the personal name of our Creator, Yahweh, has been taken out of scripture almost 7,000 times from the original Hebrew, and replaced with generic titles such as lord or God. God is not a personal name of the Creator and I can prove it. In the preceding verse in Exo 3:13 Moses is speaking with the creator and listen to what he says to Him.

Exo 3:13 And Moses said to God, behold I shall come to the sons of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you; and they will say to me, what is his name, and what shall I say to them.”

First, Yahweh goes on to say that “He is that He is” and doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone, but then tells Moses his name for all generations is Yahweh, as we saw in verse 15. Clearly God or more correctly rendered Elohim in the Hebrew, was a generic title and was not his name because they asked “which God”. Going back to the Israelites and telling them that God appeared to him would have brought the question, “which God? Clearly God is not the personal name of the Creator.

God can mean any God. Allah is god to the Muslims, Vishnu is god to the Hindus, and the Hebrew word Elohim, which is being translated in most bibles as god, is a generic title for deity, as where Yahweh is a personal name. I stopped using the generic title God several years ago while in Israel, because once I was casting out a horrific demon from a man and when I said “I come in the name of Yahshua, the Son of God”, the demon asked me “which God.” When I commanded it to leave in Yahweh’s name, the demon left.

In such an ecumenical time as which we live, where Christian ministers pray together with Muslim clerics, and the Pope wants you to believe that we all worship the same “god”, can’t we see the need to use the proper name of our creator and not only generic titles. On the US dollar it states in God we trust, but which god? Would the US congress ever print money that says in Yahweh we trust; no of course not, because by saying in God we trust it can mean any god and we know our government does not obey Yahweh, the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

There is another very important point about the name “god” that must be brought up. As already stated, the original language of the bible was Hebrew. In Hebrew the generic word for deity is El or Eli and in plural Elohim. The English name “god” in Hebrew is only in one scripture when Yahweh is rebuking the Israelites for worshiping the false Babylonian deity. The personal name of the Babylonian deity is god or phonetically pronounced gawd.

Isa 65:11 But you are those who forsake Yahweh, who forget My holy mountain; who array a table for Gawd (god), and who fill mixed wine for Fate.

In your English bible it may have the word troop, but look in a concordance and it is the word 1408, gawd. Personal names are transliterated and except for phonetic changes from language to language, the name stays the  same. Listen to a news broadcast in a foreign language. You will hear dot, dot, dot, George Bush; in any language, his name stays the same. I also find it most interesting to a world that has been blinded to the true personal family name of our Heavenly Father Yahweh, that the name of satan is not lost  or contested in any language but is very clearly pronounced in his world, and since names are transliterated, isn’t it very suspect that the personal name of the Babylonian deity “god or gawd” has been used in English for the generic title to replace the personal name of Yahweh. This is even more important in the light of the following scriptures.

Exo 23:13 And be watchful in all that I have said to you. And you shall not mention another Elohim by name; it shall not be heard from your mouth.

This scripture in the Hebrew does not mean not to read the name of a pagan deity when you are reading scripture, but actually means praying to or making a vow by the name of a pagan deity. Also look at;

Exo 22:20 One sacrificing to another Elohim shall be destroyed, unless it is only to Yahweh.

Are you starting to see the picture? Clearly from scripture, the Elohim of  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob tells  us His personal name is Yahweh, and also clearly from scripture He says He is a jealous Elohim and will not give His glory to the names of pagan deities.

Isa 42:8 I am Yahweh; that is My name; and I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to engraved images.

With that being the fact, are we giving homage to Yahweh when we pray to god or gawd, the name of a pagan, Babylonian deity?

Let’s now list only the facts that we have discovered.

1) The original bible was written in the Hebrew language.

2) In the original Hebrew language the personal name of our Creator Yahweh has been taken out almost 7,000 times and replaced with generic titles and pagan names.

3) Names are transliterated, NOT translated and stay the same in any language.

4) Satan’s name is the same in every language and has never been in dispute.

5) God or gawd was the personal name of a Babylonian deity and is only used once in scripture in Isaiah 65:11 naming the Babylonian deity.

6) Yahweh states in the Torah that we shall not pray to the personal name of any other deity but Him, Yahweh.

7) Most people today calling themselves Christians have done away with our Heavenly Father’s Torah and also worship Him using pagan customs such as Christmas and Easter (the personal name of the nature goddess) and call him and pray to him by using the name of the Babylonian deity named gawd.

8) Many Sabbath covenant believers still pray to a deity called gawd or god and not to Yahweh even though scripture states this is clearly His NAME (Exo 3:15).

I am not judging the motives of why people are praying to the name of a Babylonian deity, I am simply stating the fact that it is being done. Some new believers believe the name of Yahweh is too sacred to be pronounced, but they are getting this incorrect teaching from Rabbinical Judaism and not from scripture. Read the Torah and the Psalms; Yahweh‘s name is there 7,000 times and you could not read the bible without saying His name. We are told to praise the name of Yahweh, to pray to His name and to uplift His name; you could not do any of these if you bring His name to nothing and never pronounce it when you are reading scripture or praying. Look how David exalted our Heavenly Father’s name.

1st Chron 16:8-9 O give thanks to Yahweh; call on His name; make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing  psalms to Him;  tell of all His  marvelous works.

1st Chron 16:10 Glory in His holy name; let the heart of those seeking Yahweh rejoice.

1st Chron 16:23 Sing to Yahweh, all the earth, proclaim His salvation from day to day.

1st Chron 16:25-26 For great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised; and He is to be feared above all gods. All gods of the peoples are nothing; yea, Yahweh has made the heavens.

1st Chron 16:28 Give to Yahweh, O families of the people, give to Yahweh glory and strength.

1st Chron 16:29 Give to Yahweh the glory of His name; bring an offering and come before Him; worship Yahweh in the adornment of holiness.

1st Chron 16:31 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; and let them say among nations, Yahweh reigns.

1st Chron 16:35 And say, O save us, Elohim of our Yahshua; and gather us, and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name, that we may glory in  Your  praise.

1st Chron 16:36 Blessed be Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, from everlasting even to everlasting. And all the people said, Amen, and gave praise to Yahweh.

Clearly, David knew and used the name of Yahweh. In scripture you will find that only Yahweh is the personal family name of our Heavenly Father and is used almost 7,000 times in the Old Testament alone; by far almost 70 percent of every reference made to our Creator is with his personal family name Yahweh.

The next most used name is Elohim, that is again not a personal name but a title, and the rest of the names used, El Shadai (Almighty El), Adonai, healer, deliverer, Omnipotent one, etc. are fine attributes of our Father, but are titles and not personal names. They are only used a handful of times except for the word Adonai, which is used about 408 times compared to our Father being called Yahweh 7,000 times.

Of course a name means more than just the letters that it is printed with. It means the character and authority  of the one who has the name, but let’s be honest, it also means the letters that make up the name, so we know exactly who we are talking about. In a day where the world council of churches in conjunction with the Catholic church and the ecumenical movement is trying to say that the god of the Muslims is the same god of the Hebrews, I will continue to honor my Heavenly Father by not only using titles to show his greatness, but giving glory to the personal name of the only one, Yahweh, who deserves that greatness. John 17:11 states that Yahshua said he would keep the congregations in the name of the Father.

Eph 3:14-15 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Master Yahshua Messiah, of whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named,

This subject on the name of the Creator is not meant to judge those who may out of ignorance have never known the true name of our Heavenly Father, but rather to enlighten all those to the truth of the wonderful blessing of being able to call on the name of Yahweh and reap the blessings that scripture tell us are to those who call on His name.

Mal 3:16 Then those fearing Yahweh spoke together, each man to his neighbor. And Yahweh gave attention and heard. And a Book of Remembrance was written before Him for those who feared Yahweh, and for those esteeming His name.

So our next question is how do we pronounce the name of YHWH? After the Babylonian captivity, the Rabbi’s felt this name to be too sacred to speak and started to hide the phonetic pronunciation of the name YHWH. The Talmud tells us that they even wrote it incorrectly so that if someone was reading the name they would not accidentally pronounce it.

What they started to do was take the vowels from Adonia, (Hebrew word translated as Lord), mix it with the consonants for YHWH, and come up with Jehovah. They only used Jehovah so no one could pronounce the name correctly. Very easily you could see that Jehovah would not be the correct pronunciation of the sacred name as there is no letter “J” in the Hebrew language and in Hebrew the name ”Hovah” comes from Strong’s Concordance #1943 and means ruin or mischief. The name of our Heavenly Father is not ruin or mischief. Also Jehovah or Yehovah is  grammatically impossible in the Hebrew language. Please refer to the many references at the end of this book.xvii

Another misconception on the pronunciation of the name of YHWH that has come up recently is Yahuah. In Hebrew a vav can be a consonant or a vowel but cannot be both at the same time. So pronouncing YHWH as Yahuah, you are using the vav first as a vowel, and then by putting another vowel after it, goes against the grammatical laws of Hebrew.

The argument for using Yahuah is because the name Yahudah (Hebrew for Judah) has the same letters as YHWH but adds a dalet. So some think  just  remove  the dalet, and that is how to pronounce YHWH. This is not the way the Hebrew language works and again goes against the grammatical laws of Hebrew. In Hebrew every word goes back to a 2 or 3 letter root, and then is vowel pointed.

Therefore, although in English it may seem that YHWH is simply Yahudah without the dalet, but in Hebrew, it does not even come from the same root. Check this out for yourself. In Strong’s concordance Yahudah is word number 3063 and comes from the root word 3034 Yadah, Yod, dalet, hay, whereas the name Yahweh is Strong’s 3068 and comes from the root 1961 hayah or in Hebrew hey, yod, hey. So you can see they do not even have the same root and certainly cannot apply a new rule of dropping the dalet and coming up with a new pronunciation.

Also the argument goes that since some names in Hebrew end with “Yahu” such as Eliyahoo, then Yahweh’s name must start as Yahu and then add another syllable “ah” at the end. Again, anyone who is thinking this way does not really understand Hebrew and Hebrew grammar.

There are quite a few references in scripture that refer to our Heavenly Father merely as “Yah”.

Isa 12:2 Behold, El is my salvation! I will trust and not be afraid, for my strength and song is Yah Yahweh; yea, He has become my salvation.

Psa 118:14 Yah is my strength and my song

The Aramaic Peshitta, which is also the oldest New Testament writing, has the form Mar Yah for YHWH in its Tanach almost 7,000 times. Mar Yah simply means Master Yah. Yahweh is a family name consisting of Yah Yahweh the Father and Yahshua Yahweh the Son. There is absolutely no question that the Father’s shortened name is Yah. Even Halleluyah, which means praise Yah, uses His shortened name. So nowhere in scripture does it ever have our Heavenly Father’s name in the Hebrew as Yahu.

Then where does the name Yahu come from in certain names such as Eliyahoo? In Hebrew, pronouns are added into the verb conjugation and Yahu simply means “He is Yah”. Just like if you were going to say our “Elohim” in Hebrew, instead of using the pronoun our, with the noun Elohim, you would simply say Elohenu, which is “our Elohim”. So having Yahu at the end of a name proves nothing and certainly would not justify a Yahuah pronunciation, as not all names have this ending, such as Nehemyah, which simply has the correct shortened name of Yah.

Now with the Yah part being 100% confirmed we go back to the second century historian Origen and see that he clearly pronounced the second syllable as “weh”, again dogmatically proving from History that Yahweh was the pronunciation in the first and second century by Jews and Christians alike.

Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost.

Theodoret of Cyprus (5th Century AD) said the Samaritans of his time spoke the sacred name clearly as Yahweh. I believe that from historical and archaeological evidence, the closest pronunciation of the Sacred name of YHWH is phonetically pronounced as YAHWEH.

In 1898 A.H. Sayce transliterated 3 cuneiform tablets dating back to the time of Hamurrabi that clearly said “Yahweh is Elohim”(see Haley’s bible handbook pg 62).

Also, the Lachish letters that  have  been  found in 1938 dating back to the 6th century B.C are the oldest Hebrew writing with the sacred name on record, again clearly proving that the sacred name was pronounced Yahweh. What is also very interesting about the Lachish letters is not only the fact that they are written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew, but that they are also vowel pointed, something that is very rare for a document that ancient, and the vowel pointing clearly shows the pronunciation of YHWH as YAHWEH.

After this, the Masoretes worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible from about the 6th to the 10th century AD, and replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai, or Elohim.

Thus, the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) (emphasis ours, ed.) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries, biblical scholars again began to use the true  form Yahweh. Josephus  stated that the pronunciation of YHWH is phonetically spoken like 4 vowels. EE  AHH  OOOH  AAA. (EE + AHH = Yah) (OOH + AAA = weh). So when you phonetically pronounce the 4 letters together they sound like Yahweh.

According to the Rabbi’s, who purposely write the name incorrectly so as not to be accidentally spoken, they only say the name once a year on the Day of Atonement and this only by the High Priest in the Temple, but later it was sanctioned by the Rabbi’s that the name could be said by all Jews, but again only once a year and this only at sunset at the ending of Atonement. Out of curiosity I went to the Wailing Wall where this is done as Atonement was ending and I clearly heard the pronunciation of YHWH as Yahweh over and over for about 5 minutes.

Some have mistakenly tried to connect the name of Yahweh to the false god Jupiter because Jupiter was also called IOUE which can phonetically be pronounced Yahweh. It should be noted that ancient pagans had many gods and  were not shy in accepting any new concept of deity as a god. This is one of the reasons that the Romans persecuted the Jews so heavily, because only the nation of Israel had a concept of a single deity. They were looked at as poor and weak because they only worshiped one deity. This is why the goddess Istar is also called Semeramis and Diana and Athena or Aphrodite.

Now, none of these names phonetically sound alike and none are transliterations of the other name. It was just the common practice of pagan cultures to accept any new god and call him or her by the name of one of their old gods.

So, could pagan cultures when they saw the power of Yahweh, have used his name  and called him  also by  the name of their other pagan deities? Logic and history tells us yes, they did. Does that change the name of Yahweh? Logic and history and archaeology tell us emphatically, NO! The way we know that our Creator’s name is phonetically pronounced Yahweh is by the fact that Israel only had one deity and every credible scholar and every historical, biblical, and archaeological evidence distinctly points to the pronunciation of the only true deity, the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as YAHWEH.

When we are discussing the name of Yahweh, we should make reference to the fact that our Savior, Yahshua (meaning Yahweh’s Salvation) also had a Hebrew name and not a Greek one. Jesus could not be the name of the Savior as there was no letter “j” in any alphabet until the 16th century and there is still no letter “j” in Hebrew today. Look at the following scripture to prove this point.

Act 26:13 at midday along the highway, O king, I and those with me saw a light from heaven shining around me above the brightness of the sun.

Act 26:14 And all of us falling to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew dialect, Saul, Saul why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the prods.

Act 26:15 And I said, Who are you, Sir? And He said, I am Yahshua, whom you persecute;

If the Savior was speaking in the Hebrew language, then He could not have said His name was Jesus, as there is no such name in Hebrew, neither no such letter J. Jesus is a Greek hybrid name without meaning, yet Yahshua is the Hebrew name of our Hebrew Savior from the tribe of David, and means Yahweh’s Salvation. I have yet to find any biblical, archaeological, or historical proof that would back up either a Jehovah or Yahuah pronunciation.