YHWH THE PASSIONATE

THE MONOTHEISTIC MEANING AND ORIGIN OF

THE NAME YHWH
BY

S. D. GOITEIN
Jerusalem

The questions of the pronunciation, meaning and origin of the

name YHWH recently have been treated in great detail in A. MUR-
TorlEN's monograph Il Pbilological and Literary Treatise on the Old
Testament Divine Names etc. (Helsinki 1952), in which also the same
author's study on "The Appearance of the Name YHWH outside
Israel" 1), Studia Orientalia (Helsinki 1951) XVI: 3, is incorporated.
Nevertheless - as is natural and as Dr. MURTONEN himself emphasi-
zed - even this very extensive and fully documented work has not
exhausted the subject. Of the items not quoted in it I would like to
note GARDNER'S article in the Expository Times, 1908/9, to which
we shall have to come back later on, and two articles by M. H. SEGAL,
published in Tarbiz, IX, p. 123-162 (Jerusalem 1938) and ib. XII,
p. 97-108 2). Of the studies which have appeared since the publication
of MuRTO?N's book, mention should be made of E. SCHILD, On
Exodus iii 14 "I am that I am" in V.T. IV (1954), p. 296-302, J.
Philip HYATT, "YHWH as the God of my Father", V. T. V (1955),
p. 130-136, especially 136, G. R. DRIVER, "The Interpretation of
YHWH as a participle Form", JBL LXXIII (1954), p.125-131, and Z.
BEN-HAYYiM's careful study on the pronunciation of the tetragramma-
ton by the Samaritans in Eretz Israel, III (Jerusalem 1954), p. 147-154.
The present writer, an Arabist, dares to add his own findings to the
vast literature on the subject, not only because - as is perhaps natu-

1) A similar subject is treated by J. GRAY,"The God YW in the Religion of

Canaan", J.N.E.S., XII (1953), p. 278-83.
2) As a curiosity I would like to mention that the great Islamic scholar I.
GOLDZIHER also wrote about this topic: "Noch etwas uber das Tetragrammaton",
AllgemeineZeitung des judentums, XXXIV (1870), p. 928-30; "Ueber das Tetra-
grammaton", Ungarisch-]üdischeWochenschriftI (1871), p. 139-40. Owing to the
impossibility at present of using the Hebrew University Library on Mount Scopus,
Jerusalem, I was unable to see these articles. A bibliographical reference to them
is found in IgnaceGoldziherMemorial VolumeI, Budapest 1948, 420-1 (A. SCHEIBER).
2

ral - he believes to have found the right solution, but also for metho-
dological reasons. His explanation is based on a comparison with
an Arabic root. However, the meaning of that root is brought out
not so much by the dictionaries as by its actual use in Arabic litera-
ture. This shows that semantics should be based on familiarity with
the life of a word and not on its standardized meanings. In general,
it seems that the close connection between Biblical and Arabic
studies, which had existed so long to the benefit of both, has loosened
somewhat of late. This may be due to the great strain put on the
biblical scholar by the enormous output in his own field and in the
kindred subjects of the archaeology and the literatures of the Ancient
Near East 1).
The point of departure for our observations are those passages in
the OT which seem to indicate that the meaning of the name YHWH
was still fully understood. A verse like Hosea xii 6 "And YHWH,
the God of Hosts, His name (i. e.: reputation) is YHWH" makes
sense only, if the word YHWH still meant something to those for
whose ears the verse was intended. Therefore, Exodus xxxiv 14
"YHWH, His name is the Jealous" should not be understood as
simply implying that the nature of YHWH was that of a jealous God,
but that his very name actually meant this. The following discussion
of the roots qn' and hzvy will demonstrate that this is indeed the case.
The translation of qn' by "jealous" does not do justice to the rich
contents of the word, which conveys two meanings, characteristic
of the old Israelite and possibly of ancient man in general: the strength
of an emotion and the exclusiveness of its direction. It denotes com-
plete devotion either to one's own aims or to another person. There-
fore, the word can stand parallel either to Love, as in the Song of
Songs viii 6, or to Hatred and Anger, as in Deuteronomy xxix 19.
Similarly hwy expresses strong feelings and passion, mixed with the
idea of personal ambition and arbitrariness. "The mighty one says
whatever his soul desires" (Micah vii 3). "God does not let the soul
of the pious starve and repulses the desire of the wicked" (Proverbs
x 3). For reasons which will be discussed at the end of the article,
the root hwy has almost disappeared from Biblical Hebrew and is
used in it only in a pejorative sense, as indicated in the
examples adduced. In Arabic, however, the root had an extre-

1) A general discussion of the problem "Arabia and the Bible" is to be found in

the present writer's book Jews and Arabs : their Contacts through the Ages (New
York 1955), 19-45.
 3

mely rich life and in many respects resembled the Hebrew root qn'.
In the examples of Biblical Hin quoted above, the word appears in
connection with nefeš, soul, and the same is the case in Arabic, where
nafs, the soul, is the seat of hawä, passion 1). Hawa is the blind, strong
passion of a man which is often stronger than himself. Man should
not obey or follow his haw,72) , he should not make it his God 3).
In the first place, the root denotes the passion of love and as such is
most common in Arabic literature. It has preserved, however,
throughout also the notion of selfishness, of whim, of partisanship
and even partiality. Amara bil-hawd means "to give orders arbitra-
rily" 4); nataqa 'an il-hawa "to speak out what one likes and not
what one is told to say" 5). The plural ahwa- means prejudice and bias in
personal and political matters 6) and was indeed the usual word
denoting adherence to a party in the many civil wars which shook the
Arab kingdom of the Caliphs from its very beginning.
This short survey indicates that the basic meaning of the root hwy
is, on the one hand, passionate love, on the other hand, equally
passionate selfassertion or devotion to some aim. Both traits are
characteristic of YHWH as depicted in the OT. The name has the
usual form of an imperfect - as e.g. the names of Isaac or Jacob') -
and means therefore "He who acts passionately, the Passionate".
The derivation from a root corresponding to the Arabic ha?y has been
suggested already by GARDNER 8), who takes it, however, too narrowly
in the sense of "The Lover" and by G. A. BARTON, Semitic and Hamitic
Origins (Philadelphia 1934), p. 338, who regards it as a causative
and explains: "It apparently applied to a god of life and fertility
and characterised him as 'He who causes to love passionately' ". How-
ever, the ideas of procreation and fertility are entirely absent from
the root hwy, and there is no necessity to assume a causative meaning
for the name YHWH. Its transliteration by the LXX as laoue, I«fi«1

1) Many instances of this usage could be adduced from Arabic literature, cf.,
e.g., Koran ii 87; liii 23; lxxix 40. Kitab al-Aghani3, VI, p. 238, line 9.
2) Koran iv 135 and often. Aghani, ib., p. 66, 1. 1.
3) Koran xxv 43 etc.
4) E.g. Abr Yisuf, Kitab al-Kharaj (Cairo 1346/1927-8), p. 4, 1. 7.
5) Koran liii 3.
6) Aghani V, p. 138, 1. 9; X, p. 16, 1. 1.
7) Cf. M. NoTH, Die Lrraeliti,rcben Personennamenetc. (Stuttgart 1928), p. 27':"31.
8) Expositorj Times 1908/9, p. 92. I know this article only through,
Dictionaryof BiblicalHebrew. The reason for my inability to read it is
p. 1, note I
4

etc. 1), does not imply that the word has the feflil form, as we have
such transliterations as 0««yc for mnn Ps. xxv 28, or for jqj
1 Sam. vii 12 2). Indeed during the long history of the interpretation
of that name, it has mostly been assumed that it goes back to the im-
perfect form of Qal 3).
Our sources - and indeed the very nature of the problem studied
here - prevent us from attempting to state, when exactly the name
YHWH has come into being. It is, however, feasible to assume that
the verse Exodus vi 3, which says that God has not made himself
known to the Patriarchs by His name YHWH, reflects a real fact.
It seems that the very name YHWH originated at one and the same
time with the rudiments of the idea of Monotheism and with the
preparations towards a great act of deliverance. For the name implies
two things: that its bearer passionately demands exclusive devotion
and that he himself is passionately devoted to those that whorship
him. It is in the light of this definition that a new interpretation of
Exodus iii 14, the oraculum given to Moses from the burning bush,
is attempted here.
This oraculum can be understood properly only by comparing it
with another theophany granted to Moses, in which exactly the same
type of oraculum is used, namely Exodus xxxiii 19. The very essence
of that oraculum is the authentic interpretation of YHWH's proper
name in a heavenly apparition. God says there to Moses: I shall cause
all my bounty to pass before you and proclaim the name of YHWH in
your presence and
shall be gracious to whom I shall be gracious
and show mercy to whom I shall show mercy.

Clearly the meaning of this passage is that YHWH proclaims His

name in order to make manifest his nature: He is passionately devoted
to those whom he regards as worthy, i.e. to those that are devoted
to Him.
In the same vein and with an almost identical wording, the appa-
rition in the burning bush says (Ex. iii 14): rrnn -itom which is to
be understood as mnn fiVR mnn, and means : "I shall passionately
love whom I love" and in other words: I shall redeem the people of

1) See A. MURTONEN, op.cit., 43-4 and in particular p. 44, note 1.

2) Cf. Alexander SPERBER,"Hebrew based on Greek and Latin Translitera-
tions", H.U.C.A. XII-XIII (Cincinnati 1937-8), p. 218 and 203.
3) Cf. U. CASSUTO's detailed survey in the EncyclopaediaBiblica I (Jerusalem
1950), 307-11.
 5

Israel, who worship me. 'HWH, "I love passionately" (Ex. iii 14 b)
is the magic word destined to revive the spirits of the children of
Israel who were groaning under the yoke of Pharaoh.
The writing instead of HlUK can be explained in different
ways. It could be a phonetic variation, as the Qeri-Ketib lnl,-i and
,1),n from the same root in Job vi 2 1). It could be also a Tiqqun
Soferim, introduced because the root lrzvy was used in later Biblical
Hebrew only in a pejorative sense; with the Tiqqun Soferim possibly
was combined some theological speculation, deriving the name from
the root hyy. In any case, the striking parallel with Ex. xxxiii 19, as
well as the situation, in which this oraculum was given, leave little
doubt as to its real meaning.
There is nothing exceptional in the fact that the name of a god
expresses the idea of love. The names of the ancient south-Arabian
deities Wudd and Rahman are outstanding other examples. The word
YHWH, however - as we have seen - contains more than this.
It conveys also the notion of exclusiveness and jealousy, in other
words the emotional aspects of monotheism. Israel became the so-
called chosen people through an act of arbitrary, irrational love -
expressed by the verbs and 1fiR (Deut. x 15). If God's own name
means passionate love, it is natural that His worship should consist
above all in love: "You shall love YHWH, your God, with all
your heart and all your soul and all your might" (Deut. vi 5). As is
well known, the command to love God occurs in Deuteronomy no
less than ten times 2) and already in Deborah's Song the worshippers
of YHWH are simply called His lovers, Jud. v 31.
The proposed interpretation of the name YHWH can be accepted
only when the connection between it and the short forms attached
to other words: YH, YW and YHW and the divine name YH is
plausibly explained. While the attached forms may be either abbre-
viations of YHWH or adaptions of the shorter name YH, the latter
by no means can be regarded as an abbreviation of YHWH. For as
against 6823 times, in which YHWH occurs in the OT, the name
YH appears only 25 times and exclusively in poems or prayers 3),

1) The word should be translated not, as usual, by "my disaster", but by

"my emotion, my unhappiness", as parallel to 1017Dand in conformity with the
basic meaning of the root bavy.
2) Cf. the commentaries to Deut. vi 5, e.g. A. BERTHOLET (Freiburg 1899), p. 24.
3) It is found, e.g., in the ancient song, which is quoted three times in the OT
(Ex. xv 2, Is. xii 2, Psalms cxviii 14) and in the cryptic curse on Amaleq (Ex.
xvii 16).
6

but never in narrative and legislative and other prose texts. Both
the number and the circumstances of the cases in which the word
occurs clearly indicate that Yah cannot have originated by the shorte-
ning of the name YHWH. For in this case it should occur at least
as frequently as the full name and should be found particularly in
texts reflecting ordinary speech, i.e. in prose. On the other hand,
the very forms of the two names show that there existed some
connection between them. Therefore, if - as we have seen - Yah
is not derived from YHWH, the latter must have originated from Yah.
In the same direction points the fact that the name YH or YW ob-
viously was found also outside Israel, and must therefore be older
than YHWH, which is characteristic of the latter.
That this is indeed the case is evident from the very nature of the
names YH or YW. Obviously, these are primordial words, exclama-
tions expressing outmost excitement after a divine apparition had
been experienced. It is the feeling expressed by the Patriarch Jacob
with the words: "Indeed, there is YHWH in this place and I did not
know it" (Genesis xxviii 16). If the word originally was an ejaculation,
it is natural that it appears in different forms. Similarly, the vocative
is yd in classical Arabic, but wi in one of the dialects of Lower
Yemen, which has preserved many archaic traits 1). It is also highly
probable that the cry WHW, with which the altar in the Temple
of Jerusalem was circumambulated on the Feast of Tabernacles 2),
is connected with the forms of the ancient invocation of God. If
the name Yah is undoubtedly older than YHWH, a theory must be
offered to explain how the latter developed from the former.
For this purpose, the technique of the prophetic audition has
to be considered briefly. In an apparition granted to him, Amos sees
a basket of fruits Qajij (viii 2). Nothing is more suggestive of blessing
and prosperity than a sight of ripe, luscious fruits. However, Amos
knows with certainty that he has not been called to bless and to pro-
phesy happy tidings. He ponders. Suddenly, he understands: not
_Oayis., but Qëf, the End has come. Similarly, Jeremiah sees a rod of
almonds' blossoms. (i 11). Could there be a more beautiful picture
of comfort and hope than that? Jeremiah was of a family of priests.
He no doubt had learned about the staff of his ancestor Aaron, which

1) A detailed study of this highly interesting dialect (which knows, e.g., also
the use of Waw Consecutivum) will be published by the present writer in the
Scripta of the Hebrew UniversityIV, Jerusalem..
2) Mishna Sukkoth, ch. iv, section 5.
 7

was reputed to have produced blossoms and fruits like an almond

tree 1). However, Jeremiah knows that such an apparition is a test
- - indeed the test, whether he is a true prophet or a simple man who
follows the impressions of his senses - and he passes it successfully:
not Š äqëd, almond, but Šõqëd; God watches and hastens to fulfil
His word.
This shows that an audition or apparition granted to an ancient
"man of God" was interpreted by him according to the general trend
of his prophetical message. Bearing this in mind, we are able to explain
how the name YHWH originated out of the name Yah. We cannot
know who was the man who first pronounced the name YHWH,
although, as we have seen (cf. also note 2), there exists much likeli-
hood that it was Moses. We may assume that the Prophet - as we
may call the creator of the name YHWH for convenience sake - had
been in deep anguish for a considerable time. Should it have been
Moses, there were the sufferings of his people and his separation from
it to have accounted for this. At the same time - we may assume -
the Prophet came to the conclusion that his people could be redeemed
only if they worshipped exclusively the God of their Fathers. That
God, however, was known under different names, such as Pahad
Yisbiq or Abir Ya'aqjb, as well as by the name which probably
was not confined to the Prophet's people. For many nights the Prophet
had groaned: "Ydh, Suddenly, when the echo of his ejacula-
tions came back to him, he understood: not Ydh:ydh, but yahwd (or
however the imperfect of the root hwy was pronounced in those
- that is the name and the true nature of the God of
days) your
people: One who loves and redeems, but also demands for himself
exclusive adherence. Thus the name YHWH came into being as the
interpretation of a prophetical audition in a primitive monotheistic
sense, and - may I add - Biblical monotheism never abandoned
entirely the notions expressed by that root hwy.
As has been remarked above, the meaning of the word YHWH
must have been known for a long time, after it had become the name
of Israel's national God. The great theophany in Exodus xxxiv 6-7
can be understood properly only under this assumption. Moses asks
God to manifest Himself to him through His name 2). God grants

1) Whatever the age of the sources in which the account occurs, the motif
itself is old, and I wonder whether Jeremiah's first vision was not unconsciously
influenced by it.
2) Different versions of a story in which Moses seeks God's manifestation
8

this request and appears to Moses proclaiming- YHWH i s YHWH,

a God who is - on the one hand - merciful and gracious
namely
etc. and - on the other hand - visiting the iniquities of the fathers
upon their children etc., the stress being laid on the aspect of mercy
and forgivingness. The word YHWH is not repeated here, but the
name is explained by its meaning: YHVUH is the Passionate, a dis-
position which can work in two different ways 1).
In addition, I should like to suggest that the formula "I am
YHWH" 2) originally meant: I am the one who is passionately
extreme both in punishing and rewarding. As is well known, this
formula is particularly frequent in Leviticus (46 times) and Ezekiel
(73 times) and other late books. How far at that time the meaning of
the word YHWH was still alive, is a matter for further inquiry.
In any case, the formula may have originated far earlier than the books
in which it is so often repeated. However, I would not like to press
this point.
Why does the root hwy appear in the OT only in the nomen bawzva
and in the name YHWH ? Most probably, even at the time when the
name YHWH came into existence, the root was used less than the
semantically very similar qn'. Once YHWH had become the name of
the God of Israel, the use of the root was avoided, especially as there
was no need for using it, owing to the existence of the concurrent
root qn'. Similarly, in the whole OT the exclamation ydb never
occurs, obviously because of the existence of the divine name Yih.
In the late Midrash, when Y,7h had become completely obsolete, the
exclamation ydh was used without scruples, probably after having
been introduced into Hebrew from outside 3).

through his name are reflected in Ex. iii and xxxiii-xxxiv. This fact - as I may
note in passing - seems to corroborate the assumption that the discovery of the
name YHWH was attributed to him.
1) Such descriptions of the character of a person by the explanation of his name
is not infrequent, cf. 1 Sam. xxv 25 and Ruth i 20 (with which i 13 is to be com-
pared).
2) See MURTONEN, op.cit., p. 82 sq.
3) BEN IEHUDA,Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis, p. 1981. A third instance of the
disuse of a word because of its sacred connotations is perhaps qdf. Qdš originally
means "exclusive possession" and appears in Mishnaic Hebrew in this original
meaning, narrowed down to bringing a woman into one's exclusive possession by
a legal act. The word certainly had been used all the time in this sense in the dialect,
which, in Mishnaic times, became the literary language of the Rabbis. By
that time, various derivations of the root, qdf had acquired so many technic-
al meanings that one had no scruples any more to use it also for secular
purposes.
 9

In conclusion, I would like to recapitulate the main findings of this

article:
1) The name Yäh is older than YHVH. It is a primordial word and
most probably was in use also outside Israel. Precisely for this reason,
the need for a new and special name for the God of Israel made itself
felt.
2) The new name came into existence at the time of a great national
calamity through the conception of a rudimentary monotheism. It is
the reduplication of Ydh, interpreted as yahwä, the imperfect form of
hwy, which means: the One who loves passionately and helps those
that worship Him, while, at the same time, demanding exclusive
devotion to Himself.
3) The theophany at the burning bush is to be understood in the
light of Exodus xxxiii 19. Both theophanies are based on oraculums
showing the same syntactic form: "I love whom I love" (Ex. iii 14)
_ "I shall show mercy to whom I shall show mercy" (Ex. xxxiii 19).
4) Ex. xxxiv 6-7 is to be interpreted thus: "YHWH i s YHWH", i.e.
The Passionate, a disposition which may work in two different ways,
although love is its most conspicuous component.
5) Both inner reasons and literary indications make it plausible that
Moses was the discoverer of the name YHWH or at least was regarded
as such in Israel. Of course, there can never be certainty in this matter.