Fear of the Name

The Jews have had a strange fear of speaking or writing the sacred name. We may well call it strange, for it has led to a perverse alteration of the text of Scripture and even to a deliberate mispronunciation of the name itself. In their rendering of the prophets, a more ordinary word has been used instead of the name by which God made Himself known to Moses. Surely this may well be called a strange fear. Among men the deliberate mispronunciation of a name is regarded as offensive. No man would ever be offended by the correct use of the name he had proclaimed asi properly belonging to him. It is surprising that the Jews should fear to utter the name God had chosen for Himself and still more surprising that they should dare to mutilate it.

In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament we find the rendering of Jeremiah 23:6 the most unsatisfactory of all the prophecies concerning Messiah. Instead of “The LORD our righteousness” we read that his name should be “Josedec among the prophets.” If we turn to chapter 33 we see where the covenant name is applied to the city, “This is the name whereby she shall be called ‘The LORD our righteousness’.” In the Septuagint, however, we do not find the passage at all. From chapter 23 onward the Hebrew and the Greek chapters do not correspond, the numbering being different and with some parts missing. The first thirteen verses of our chapter 33 can be found in chapter 40 of the Septuagint, but there is nothing of this chapter after verse 13. Thus one of the most inspiring of Jeremiah’s prophecies is cut out.

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Author: Islip Collyer

Keywords: Lord our righteousness, Adon, Adonai, YHWH, Jehovah, Yahweh, Jewish superstition, Josedec amonth the prophets

Bible reference(s): Jeremiah 23:6, Jeremiah 33:14-26

Source: “The Messiah,” The Testimony, Vol. 22, No. 254, February 1952, pp. 37-9.

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