Just another way of looking at things from the viewpoint of
a Jew (who was a Jehovah’s Witness for a few years as a teenager and into his
20s due to weird decisions his parents made for a while).
Anyway, in Semitic culture the existence of something doesn’t
always include the validity of its use. For Jews the more that something is used,
the more common the same thing becomes; the more people who use it, the more
mundane the object.
In Hebrew the word for “name” (shem) means “handle.” It
refers to something by which you can grasp, hold and control another like a bit
placed in a horse’s mouth. In Semitic culture the uttering of a name meant you
had a handle on another. You could call the attention of the person and thus
had some control over them. Naming something, like a child or object, implied
ownership and control over the same. Thus naming a god or uttering its name was
often reserved to prophets or priests or magicians who could wield power due to
knowing the “handle” of the god upon whom they called. (“Handle” was also the
popular term for pseudonyms used by persons during the C.B. radio craze that
swept through the United States in the 1970s.)
The name YHWH doesn’t exactly mean what the Jehovah’s
Witnesses claim it means, at least not to Jews. The name YHWH means “I am
defined by myself,” thus the popular English rendition of “I Am What I Am.”
When Moses asks God’s name there is a possibility it was not actually known by
the children of Abraham until this time or they wanted to know it to exercise
the kind of power that heathens did with their deities.
Regardless if they knew it before or not, God’s offering the name YHWH is a defiant reply to Moses. It
is a “name” with a circular meaning. God’s name means Who God happens to be
now, in the past, and who and whatever God chooses to be and act as in the
future. It is circular reasoning at its best in that it actually is not a “shem”
or handle. In explaining himself by an ineffable formula, God was in essence
saying that no one could have a “handle” on him. "What's my name? My name is something I don't need to have because everything is nameless by comparison with Me."
God’s name is like the Ark of the Covenant and the inner
Holy of Holies found in the Tabernacle and later the Temples of Jerusalem:
rarely used and by few. The reason is that Hebrew custom followed an ancient
practice regarding sacred things: that which is holy is the opposite of that
which was mundane. Mundane things are commonly employed, used by anyone, always
being handled. But holy things are the opposite. Holy things are not commonly
employed, used by a few, almost never handled, if at all.
Holy things may always be present, but using them like they
were everyday things turned them into mundane things, even profaning them.
While the Holy of Holies and its contents was constantly in the center of
Israel, it use and function was rare.
The same goes for the “shem” of God. It is always there in
Scripture, but it is not a common name or handle. You can say my name over and
over again: Caleb, Caleb, Caleb. You can name other people or things “Caleb.”
You can even name a dog “Caleb” (though that would be redundant since the name “Caleb”
basically means “dog”). But if you do that with God’s name, then it isn’t special
anymore. It becomes mundane, even profane since it is a mishandling of a holy
thing. This is why Jews don’t pronounce it. In fact we often say “HaShem”
instead, meaning “The Name” instead of uttering YHWH in whatever form you
prefer.
Finally a note how Jesus “handled” the Divine Name. Non-Jews
often read Matthew 6.7 in a very un-Jewish way: “When you are praying, do not
repeat [babble] empty phrases…” And they leave it at that, claiming that Jesus
is talking about being repetitive in prayers.
Non-Jews tend to leave the part out about themselves, for it
reads in its entirety: “When you are praying, do not repeat empty phrases like the
Gentiles do.”
In Jesus’ day, pagans believed that gods would only answer
prayers if you called them by their name. In fact, some of the heathen taught
that unless one properly uttered a divine name one could not expect to even get
the attention of a deity in prayer. So what did they do? They created long
lists of phrases which offered various pronunciations of divine names, sometimes
to ensure that they aroused the attention of their gods and sometimes to
possibly attract a new god who was known by that “accidental” utterance. Some
lists had just one proper name of a deity but included all the titles the deity
also had, and it was believed by some Gentiles that it was required of the
deity that one repeated the names and all the proper titles for the prayer to
be accepted or the attention of a deity to be aroused.
Jesus contrasts this with: “Don’t be like them, for your
Father knows what you need even before you ask him.” (Mt 6.8) In other words
the God of Abraham did not need his name uttered as if one needed to get his
attention or use a formula to get a prayer through to God. God’s attention is
always upon his creation and knows the needs of people before their asking, let
alone the use of a name. Names can’t control God or arouse his attention or
ensure your prayers are heard or accepted. The God of Abraham isn’t a God that
requires such pagan trappings. God's not defined by human spellings or utterances. God defines and names us.
So while I understand and can appreciate where those who choose to use the Name are coming from, realize that its regular use is not what was meant by its frequency of appearance by the Jews who inscribed it.
