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Of all the names of God in the Old Testament, that which occurs most frequently is the Tetragrammaton, appearing 6,823 times according to the JewishEncyclopedia.com. According to Biblica Hebraica and Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the original texts of the Hebrew Scriptures, written in both Hebrew and Aramaic, contain the Tetragrammaton 6,828 times. In any event, it is evident that the Tetragrammaton was very extensively used in original language, ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts. This seems to indicate a much more personal reference to the special identity of the Almighty (as opposed to impersonal titles such as "God" or "Lord"), on the part of the Bible writers. Many Bible scholars view this as evidence that the Bible writers (and indeed, likely the ancient Hebrew and Israelite people) viewed the Name represented by the Tetragrammaton as very important, and commonly used it in their everyday speech and prayers.
In Judaism, the tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God. Its pronunciation was taboo for so long that it was lost. It is usually transcribed to English as Jehovah, but other transcriptions exist, including Yahweh, Yahwe, Yahveh, Jave and Yehowah.
According to one Jewish tradition, the Tetragrammaton is related to the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb ha·wah [הוה] (become); meaning "He will cause to become" usually understood as "He causes to become". Compare the many Hebrew and Arabic personal names which are 3rd person singular imperfective verb forms starting with "y", e.g. Hebrew "Yôsêph" = Arabic "Yazîd" = "He [who] adds"; Arabic "Yahyâ" = "He [who] lives".
A more popular Jewish belief is that the name comes from three different words all having the same root YVH. the letters YHWH comes from the word HYA [היה]: He was; Howey [הוה]: He is; and W'Y'hiye [יהיה]: He will be. This is supposed to show that God is timeless. Other Jewish interpretations include an interpretation of the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." Indeed, this last fits nicely with the admonition of the Burning Bush to Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM has sent you." Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM." This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists".
There is a theory that this name started as a god Yahu, whose cult may have started among the Hurrians; when it reached Judaea, it was treated as another name for the Hebrew God, and found a Hebrew meaning.
The Jewish taboo on the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was so strong that the original pronunciation was lost somewhere in the first millennium. Since then many scholars (particularly Christians) have sought to reconstruct the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the explicit name of God.
In Biblical Hebrew many of the vowels are not written or written ambiguously, and the vowel letters double as consonants (similar to the Latin use of V to indicate both U and V). See Matres lectionis for details. Therefore it is in general difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling only, and the Tetragrammaton is a particularly bad example: all its letters are vowels. Thus, Josephus in Jewish Wars, chapter V, wrote, "... in which was engraven the sacred name: it consists of four vowels." For similar reasons, an appearance of the Tetragrammaton in ancient Egyptian records of the 13th Century BCE sheds no light on the original pronunciation. 1 .
Josephus's teaching that the sacred name "consists of four vowels" may be valid in a Hebrew text that has no vowel points, but in a Hebrew Text that has vowel points [e.g. a Masoretic Text], there are Biblical Hebrew grammar rules that do not allow an "initial yod" in a Hebrew word to be used as a vowel letter! The "Yod" in YHWH is an "initial yod".
Josephus wrote that the sacred name consisted of four vowels. Many sacred name ministries who believe that YHWH consists of four vowels, pronounce these four vowels as “ee-ah-oo-eh” and believe that that indicates that God’s name was either “Yahweh” or “Yahuweh”. In an amazing coincidence, it can be demonstrated that the Greek name “ιαουε” can be pronounced “ee-ah-oo-eh”, using the same Greek pronunciation rules that James Strong used. 2
Gerard Gertoux also believes that YHWH consists of four vowels, and that it must be vocalized either “Yeho-ah” or “Yehou-ah” [e.g. Yehua”]. 3
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