Trinity Journal 1 NS (1980) 5-20
Copyright © 1980 by
EXODUS 3:14 AND THE DIVINE
NAME:
A CASE OF BIBLICAL PARONOMASIA
BARRY J.
BEITZEL
I. The Device of Paronomasia in the
Old Testament
In its broadest definition, paronomasia is
a comprehensive term first
employed
by ancient Greek scholastics when referring to rhetorical devices
designed
to engage and retain the attention of an audience. This extremely
persuasive
literary embellishment was so-called because one word was "brought
alongside"
(lit. "to name beside") of another which appeared or sounded
similar
or identical--thus producing an aura of literary ambiguity--but which
was
actually quite different in origin and meaning.1
Paronomasia is a common ancient Near
Eastern phenomenon, specimens of
which
are preserved in Mesopotamian,2 Egyptian3 and Arabic4
literatures. It is
also
attested in the New Testament5 and post-Biblical6
corpora.
1 adnominatio in Latin; tajnis in Arabic.
2 The reader is referred to M. Fishbane,
"The Qumran Pesher and Traits of Ancient
Hermeneutics,"
Proceedings of the VIth World Congress of
Jewish Studies (
World
3 Examples have been collected by L.
Peeters, "Pour une interpretation du jeu de
mots,"
Semitics 2 (1971-72) 127-42.
4 Consult the discussions of G. M. Redslob,
Die Arabischen Worter mit
entgegengesetzten
Bedeutungen
(Hamburg: Meissner, 1873); W. C. F. Giese,
Untersuchungen uber die
‘addad auf Grund von Stellen in altarabischen Dichtern (
S.
Calvary, 1894); T. Noldeke, "Worter mit Gegensinn," Neue Beitrage zur semitischen
Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: Trubner,
1910).
5M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3d ed.;
1967)
160-85; E. Bullinger, Figures of Speech
Used in the Bible (
Spottiswoode,
1898 [repr.,
an
important New Testament example of paronomasia is not cited by Bullinger. The word
Greek
transliteration of the Old Testament Aramaic form, whereas the latter reflects
the
word
hieros, "holy,"
representing an instance of Hellenistic paronomasia, but having
correspondence
neither with the Semitic root nor with the city's historical reality.
6Cf. F. Domseiff, Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie (2d ed.; Leipzig/Berlin: Teubner,
1925);
R. Marcus, Alphabetic Acrostics in the
Hellenistic and Roman Periods," JNES
6
(1947)
109-115; S. Lieberman, Hellenism in
Jewish
Theological
Society, 1950); M. Steinschneider, Jewish
Literature (2d ed.;
Olms,
1960); Jewish Encyclopedia 1.424-25; EncJud 2. §§ 229-32, 7. §§ 369-74.
5
6 TRINITY
JOURNAL
Though
regarded by contemporary Westerners only as an appropriate form
of
comedy, paronomasia is characteristically utilized in the Old Testament to
arouse
curiosity or to heighten the effect of a particularly solemn or important
pronouncement,
in this way permanently and indelibly impressing the
proclamation
upon the memory of an audience.7 This essay will consider the
two
foci of paronomastic types--visual and oral--and advance a paronomastic
explanation
of Exodus 3:14.
Visual paronomasia, tending to be
intellectual, if not esoteric, includes the
following
varieties: (1) Gematria. In Biblical Hebrew, a numerical equivalent
existed
for each letter of the alphabet (e.g. ' =1, b=2, etc.). Gematria normally
defines
a cryptograph in the form of a word or cluster of words which, through
the
calculation of their combined numerical values, discloses an otherwise-
concealed
meaning. For instance, David, whose
gematria is 14, is listed 14th in
the
genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1) and the employment of his gematria is
reinforced
by the prominent role which the number 14 plays later in this
chapter
(v 17). Gad, with a gematria of 7, is
reckoned 7th in the tribal listing of
Genesis
46, where 7 sons are ascribed to him.
The first collection of Solomonic
Proverbs
(10:1-22:16) is introduced with the expression misle selomoh, the
gematrial
total of which is 375. Hence, it is not
surprising that one discovers
precisely
the same number of Proverbs comprising this section of the book.8
Some
writers see in the "318" servants of Abraham (Gen 14:14) a gematria
for
Eliezer,
the servant of Abraham (15:2), and in the "603,550" people delivered
from
7 Studies devoted to the
paronomastic phenomenon in the Old Testament include the
following:
G.
B. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names
(London: Black, 1896); E. W. Bullinger,
Figures of Speech; H. Reckendorff, Uber Paronomane in den semitischen Sprachen.
Ein
Beitrag zur allgemeinen
Sprachwisrenschaft
(Giessen: Topelmarm, 1909); A. Murtonen, A
Philological and
Literary Treastise on the Old Testament Divine Names (StudOr 18;
“Wortspiele
in Alten Testament," Opera minora
(1953) 11-25; A. Guillaume,
"Paronomasia
in the Old Testament," JSS 9
(1964) 282-90; A. F. Key, "The Giving of
Proper
Names in the Old Testament," JBL
83 (1964) 55-9; M. Noth, Die
israelitischen
Personnenamen im Rahmen
der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung (
1966);
D. F. Payne, "Characteristic Word Play in 'Second Isaiah': A
Re-appraisal," JSS 12
(1967)
207-29; W. Wilson, Old Testament Word
Studies (2d ed.;
[repr.,
49,"
JBL 88 (1969) 435-44; J. J. Gluck,
"Paronomasia in Biblical Literature," Semitics 1
(1970)
50-78; W. L. Holladay, "Form and Word-Play in David's Lament Over Saul and
Jonathan,"
VT 20 (1970) 153-89; I. H. Eybers,
"The Use of Proper Names as a stylistic
device,"
Semitics 2 (1971-72) 82-92; L.
Peeters, "Pour une interpretation;" J. F. A.
Sawyer,
"The Place of Folk-Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation," Proceedings of the Vth
World Congress of Jewish
Studies
(Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1973)
109-13;
J. M. Sasson, "Wordplay in the OT," IDBSup 968-70.
8According to the count of
codex Vaticanus. For this reference, I am indebted to my
colleague,
Professor Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
BEITZEL:
EXODUS 3: 14 AND THE DIVINE NAME 7
(2) Atbash.
Atbash is an oratorical device according to which letters of one
or
more words, counted from the beginning of the alphabet, are exchanged for
corresponding
letters counted from the end of the alphabet (e.g.' = t, b = s, etc.).
Embedded
in Jeremiah's grim oracle of doom directed against
king
of
that
is, until one recognizes that the letters which comprise the word ssk are
actually
atbash for bbl, "
Jeremiah
describes the inhabitants of
mysterious
lb qmy which, through atbash, becomes
ks'dym, "Chaldeans,"
known
to have been contemporary inhabitants of the great city. It is suggested
that
the hapax legomenon kbwl of 1 Kings
9:13, traditionally transliterated
"Cabul,"
is to be understood as atbash for lspk,
"worthless land."10
(3) Acrostic. Biblical literature displays a paronomastic
device in which
successive
or alternating verses, or cluster of verses, begin with the letters of the
Hebrew
alphabet in sequence. A complete acrostic sequence may be found in
Psalms
111, 112, 119, 145!;11 Proverbs 31:10-31 and Lamentations 1, 2, 3,
4.12
(4) Notrikon. This term defines the concept in which
letters of a word are
considered
as abbreviations for a series of words.
Hence, 'yk, "how"
(Jer 3:19)
is
said to represent a notrikon for '[amen]
y[hwh] k[i], "Amen, O Yahweh
for,"
and hmh, "this" (Jer 7:4)
is a notrikonic representation for h[am]
m[aqom] h[azzeh] , "this place."
(5) Acronymy. The opposite of notrikon, an acronym is
formed when the
initial
letter of each of the successive words in a series is extracted to form a
separate
word. Acronymy is beautifully
illustrated in Esther 5:4. In context,
the
heroine has just risked her life to plead the case of her betrayed people.
The
dramatic suspense reaches a climax when, in response to the king's query,
Esther's
first sentence of intercession includes the words y[abo] h[ammelek]
w[ehaman] h[ayyom], "let the king and Haman
come today." Now the
writer,
realizing full well that the book inevitably would be translated into
9 Cf. EncJud 7. § § 369-70. The
use of letters to signify numbers was known to other
Semitic
peoples. An inscription of Sargon II (722-705) states that this king extended
the
wall
of his capital city to 16,283 cubits, which corresponds to Sargon's personal
gematria.
Rabbinic
scholarship also indulged in this oratorical device; based upon a gematrial
interpretation
of the phrase 'elleh-haddebarim,
"these are the words" (Exod 35:1), they
argue
that there were 39 categories of work forbidden on the sabbath. One recalls that the
painstaking
statistical work undertaken by Massoretes, including the counting of verses,
words
and letters for each book of the Old Testament, was recorded in the Massorah
finalis,
where such detailed data was somewhat unsusceptable to textual corruption,
owing
to
the employment of gematria.
10Variations of atbash advanced
by others include atbah (i.e. t is substituted for ', h for
b,
etc.) and cipher (i.e. reversing the letters of a word and then suggesting that
the
following
letter in the alphabet was actually intended).
Using the latter method, some
writers
suggest that the intended subject of the prophecy of Ezekiel 38-9 is
and
that Magog [mgg] is to be interpreted
in the text only as a cipher for
11 The nun verse, omitted in the MT, is attested at
Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca: Cornell
University, 1967) 66, lines 2-3.
12Partial acrostics occur in Psalms 9-10,
25, 34, 37; and Nahum 1.
8 TRINITY
JOURNAL
Persian,
and wishing to preserve the divine name from Persianized profanation,
wrote
the entire book without its inclusion. However, in this critical passage,
the
Lord is present, if oratorically by way of the acronymic reference yhwh, in
a
form which cannot possibly be distorted by a Persian writer.13
(6) Anastrophe. In this type of paronomasia, the usual syntactical
order is
inverted
for oratorical effect or emphasis. Though examples of this device
abound
in the Scriptures, it is poignantly employed in Gen 1:2. Here one
observes
that, after verse 1, the chapter is decidedly geocentric. And it is the
anastrophic
function of weha'ares at the beginning of verse 2 which
rhetorically
signals this orientation for the balance of the chapter.
Alternatively,
the name of the patriarch Noah is purposely placed at the end of
a
verbal sentence in order to underscore a relationship with the admired
ancestor
Enoch. One reads 'et-ha'elohim hithallek-noah, "and Noah walked
with
God," (Gen 6:9), and observes that the last three radicals, read backwards
[hnk], spell the name Enoch, known also
for walking with God (Gen 5:22-4).14
(7) Epanastrophe. Here the final syllable of one word is
reproduced in the
first
syllable of the word which immediately follows. For example, takossu
'a1-hasseh / seh tamim, "you should
compute for the lamb / (your) lamb
should
be whole" (Exod 12:4-5); bene-yisra'e1
beyad ramah le ‘ene kol-
misrayim / umisrayim
meqabberim ‘et . . . kol-bekor, "the children of
went
out triumphantly before all the Egyptians / while the Egyptians were
burying.
. . all (their) firstborn" (Num 33:3-4); welir’ot sehem-behemah
hemmah lahem, "to show them
that they are but beasts" (Eccl 3:18); or the
constantly
recurring phraseology, paras reset
leraglay, "he has spread a net for
my
feet" (Lam 1:13; Prov 25:13; cf. Ezek 18-20); and finally ‘oyaw ‘albis
boset, "I will clothe
his enemies with shame" (Ps 132:18; cf. Job 8:22).15
Oral paronomasia depends upon the
similarity of sounds to provide a
meaning
or to draw an image other than that expected in the context. The
terminology
is adopted from Gluck.16
(1) Equivocal. This type of paronomasia depends on the
literary paradox of
homonymy,
that is, the similarity of sound between varying words, illustrated
in
the mene, mene, teqel, parsin passage
of Daniel 5. Daniel announces,
"mene’, God has numbered [menah] . . . your kingdom," "teqel, you have
been
weighed [teqiltah] . . . and found
wanting," "peres, your
kingdom is
divided"
[perisat]. Other eloquent expressions of equivocal
paronomasia
include
yhwh seba’ot . . . wehayah . . . ulsur
miksol . . . te’udah,
"Yahweh
Seba'ot . . . will become a rock offense. . . / (therefore) bind up the
testimony"
(Isa 8:14, 16); wehahemar hayah lahem
lahomer, "and they had
bitumen
for mortar" (Gen 11:3);17 and beti ‘aser-hu’ hareb . . . wa’eqra’
13 Cf.7:7.
14 The reader will fmd a fuller discussion
in J. M. Sasson, "Word-Play in Gen 6:8-9,"
CBQ 37 (1975) 165-66; cf.
Bullinger, Figures of Speech,
699-700.
15 It is sometimes suggested that lahem hallbenah le’aben, "they had
brick for stone"
(Gen
11 :4), illustrates the epanastrophic principle.
16J. J. Gluck, Semitics 1 (1970) 50-78.
17Cf. G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (rev. ed.;
BEITZEL:
EXODUS 3: 14 AND THE DMNE NAME 9
horeb ‘al-ha'ares, "my house is a
desolation. . . I have called a drought on the
earth"
(Hag 1:9, 11); and watta ‘as ha’ares
beseba’ hassaba’ leqmasim,
"during
the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth abundantly" (Gen 41:47).
Sometimes homonymy that allows for such
punning occurs when
consonants
which are phonemically disparate in proto-Semitic fall together in
Hebrew,
e.g. hereb 'al-kasdim . . . horeb
'el-memeha, "a sword (HRB) upon
the
Chaldeans . . . a drought (HRB) upon her water" (Jer 50:35, 38); we’anah
‘iyyim be’almenotaw . .
. weqarob laba' 'ittah, "hyenas will cry (GNH) in its
towers
. . . its time (‘NH) is close at hand" (Isa 13:22; cf Jer 51:14, 18; Pss
88:1,
10; 119:153, 172).18
(2) Metaphony. Metaphonic wordplay is facilitated by the
occurrence of
verbal
forms in which a change in stem conjugation does not affect the
consonantal
root but introduces a vowel mutation which alters, sometimes
radically,
the nature of the act described. maqqel
saqed 'ani ro’eh. . . /
ki-soqed ‘ani, "I see a rod of almond. . . / for I am
watching" (Jer 1:11, 12);
kelub qayis . . . / ba’
haqqes 'el-'ammi;
"a basket of summer fruit . . . / the
end
has come upon my people" (Amos 8:1, 2); 'im lo’ ta’aminu ki lo'
te’amenu, "if you do not
believe, then you will no longer be established" (Isa
7:9);
wahasimmoti ‘ani ‘et-ha 'ares wesamemu
'aleha ‘oyebekem hayyosebim
bah, "I will devastate
the land, so that your enemies who settle in it will be
astonished
at it" (Lev 26:32). A somewhat more
sophisticated instance of
metaphonic
wordplay is to be found in Gen 26:8. Isaac's name, which in Gen
17:17,
19; 21:6 had been associated with its cognate verb "to laugh" (SHQ),
is
read
here as follows: wehinneh yishaq mesaheq 'et ribqah 'isto, "Isaac was
fondling
Rebekah his wife."
(3) Parasonance.
This type of paronomasia involves the use of verbal and
nominal
roots which differ in one of their three radicals. This device is
profusely
illustrated in Judg 5:19-21. Here the
kings of
fought
and the stars fought [nilhamu] (LHM)
against Sisera while the torrent
Kishon,
the mighty onrushing torrent [nahal]
(NHL) swept him away. The
Lord
frequently promises, "I will bring again [sabti] (SWB) the captivity
[sebut] (SBY) of my people.19 Parasonancy is artfully employed elsewhere:
"Yahweh
seba’ot looked for justice [mispat],
but there was only bloodshed
[mispat],20 for righteousness
[sedaqah], but there was only a cry [se’aqah]
(Isa
5:7); qamah 'en-lo semah beli ya
‘aseh-qqemah, "standing grain has no
heads,
it will yield no meal" (Hos 8:7); haggilgal
galah yigleh, "Gilgal will
surely
go into exile" (Amos 5:5); kime
noah. . . me noah, "like the days of
Noah
. . . the water of Noah" (Isa 54:9); wesama
‘ta yisra’el wesamarta
La’asot, "hear therefore,
O Israel, and be careful to do [my commandments]"
(Deut
6:3); weteben lo’-yinnaten lakem wetoken
rebenim tittenu, "no straw
shall
be given you, yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks" (Exod
18 C. Fritsch, "Homophony in the
Septuagint," Proceedings of the VIth
World Congress
of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union
of Jewish Studies, 1977) 115-20.
19 This formula is recorded some 26 times
in Scripture.
20 This word is a hapax legomenon.
10 TRINITY
JOURNAL
5:18).21
But perhaps the most widespread use of
parasonancy is to be found in
word plays
upon proper names. Very often,
assignment of the names of Biblical
characters,
tribes, places and episodes is made to suggest a characteristic
attributed
to them or an important event associated with them.22
[babel]
(BBL) received its name because it was the place of confusion, [balal]
(BLL) (Gen
11:9); the first female was called woman ['issah] ('NS) because
she was
taken from man ['is] ('YS) (Gen 2:23);23 Cain [qayin]
(QYN) was
so named
because his mother claimed to have gotten [qaniti] (QNY) a man
with the
help of the Lord (Gen 4:1).24
At times, double parasonancy is
employed
with proper names. Gad [gad] was named at birth because of his
mother's
good fortune [bagad] (Gen 30:11), and later in life he is called a raider
[gedud]
(Gen 49:19). Because Jacob took hold of
Esau's heel [ba 'aqeb] (Gen
25:26) he
was named Jacob [ya 'aqob] , but later Esau claimed that Jacob had
been named
aright because he had beguiled [wayya' qebeni] (Gen 27:36) his
older
brother. Though examples of punning
proper names could be multiplied,
it should be
clear from these cited that one is dealing with words which exhibit
a
paronomastic relationship, and not an etymological one.
A more complicated form of parasonance is
the type in which radicals of
one word are
found in another word in a differing order:
"He delivers
(yehalles)
the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ears by adversity
(ballahas)"
(Job 36:15); "All my enemies shall be ashamed (yebosu) and sorely
troubied, they
shall turn back (yasubu) and be put to shame (yebosu) in a
moment"
(Ps 6:10 [H 11]); "Noah (noah) found grace (hen) in the eyes
of the
Lord"
(Gen 6:8). One is tempted to see an
example of this type of
parasonancy
in Genesis 32:24 [H 25]: "And Jacob
(ya'aqob) was left alone,
and a man
wrestled (ye'abeq) with him until daybreak."
(4) Farrago. This form of paronomasia defines somewhat
confused and
often
ungrammatical wording which gains meaning only because of context. A
characteristic
of farrago is that some of the elements display a tendency to
rhyme (e.g.
"hodge-podge," "helter-skelter"). Farragonic examples from the
Scripture
include maher salal has baz, the son of Isaiah (Isa 8:1, 3); tohu
wabohu "without form and void" (Gen
1:2); 'et-ha'urim we'et-hattummim,
"Urim
and Thummim" (Exod 28:30); uben-meseq beti hu' dammeseq
'eli'ezer, "the heir of my house is Eliezer of
Damascus" (Gen 15 :2); ben sorer
umoreh, "a stubborn and rebellious
son" (Deut 21: 18, 20).
(5) Assonance. Words may be strung together primarily for
oral effect
rather than
furthering the meaning of the phraseology.
Isaiah seems to have
21Parasonance becomes the vehicle to convey the poignant outpouring
of Micah's grief (1:10-5).
22J. Pedersen, Israel: Its
Life and Culture (2 vols.;
1954])
1.245-59. He succinctly states: "To
know the name of a man is the same as to
know his
essence. . . the name is the soul" (245).
230ne observes that
"man" and "woman" do not derive from the same root. Moreover,
it should be
pointed out that the character of the shin in these 2 words is phonemically
different in
proto-Semitic: in the former case it is
a proto-Semitic and * and in the latter
case a
proto-Semitic *S.
24The petros/petra passage
in Matthew 16 closely resembles this classification.
BEITZEL: EXODUS 3: 14 AND THE DNINE NAME 11
been
particularily fond of this rhetorical device: wa'omar razt-li razi-li 'oy li
bogedim
bagadu ubeged bogedim bagadu / pahad wapahat wapah 'aleka yoseb
ha'ares.
"But I say, 'I pine away, I pine away. Woe is me, for the
treacherous
deal very
treacherously.' / Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, 0
inhabitants
of the earth" (Isa 24: 16-7); hakkemakkat makkehu hikkahu
'im-kehereg
harugaw horag, "Did
he smite him with the same blows as his
smiters
smote him? Was he slain in the same way as those he had slain?" (Isa
27:7); hitmahmehu
utemahu hista 'as 'u waso'u, "Tarry and be astonished,
blind
yourselves and be blind!" (Isa 29:9).
Other instances of assonantic
paronomasia
include yitten yhwh 'et-metar 'arseka
'abaq we'apar, "Yahweh
will make
the rain of your land powder and dust" (Deut 28:24); sam sepatam
'aser lo'
yisme'u 'is sepat re'ehu, "there [confuse] their language,
that they
may not
understand one another's speech" (Gen 11 :7); gad gedud yegudennu
wehu/yagud
'aqeb,
"raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels"
(Gen 49:19).
(6) Onomatopoeia. This term involves the formation and use of
words in
imitation of
natural sounds, beautifully illustrated by the gibberish of foreign
tongues in
Isaiah 28:10, 13: saw lastaw saw lasaw qaw laqaw qaw laqaw ze'er
sam ze'er
sam,
"precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line,
line upon
line, here a little, there a little."25 Other examples of onomatopoeia
include: 'az halemu 'qqebe-sus middahot daharot
'abbiraw, "then loud beat
the horses'
hoofs with the galloping, galloping of his steeds" (Judg 5:22);
welo' hayah
noded kanap uposeh peh umsapsep, "and there was none that
moved a wing or opened the mouth or
chirped" (Isa 10:14).
(7) Antanclasis. The same word or words, when repeated,
sometimes
requires
different renditions: "I saw the
tears of the oppressed, and there was
no one to
comfort them [we'en lahem menahem], strength was on the side of
their
oppressors, and there was no one to avenge them [we'en lahem
menahem]"
(Eccl 4:1); hitrapptta beyom sarah sar kohekah, "If you faint in
the day of
adversity, your strength is small" (Prov 24: 10); 'en qol 'anot
geburah we'en
qol 'anot halusah qol 'annot 'anoki somea, "it is not the
sound of the
shout of victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but it is the
sound of
singing that I hear" (Exod 32:18).
The Biblical narratives also benefit from
paronomastic displays extending
beyond the
confines of an immediate context. A few
such wordplays, called
extended
paronomasia, deserve mention here.
Launching a propaganda assault
calculated
to demonstrate the ineptitude of Hezekiah, the emissaries of
Sennacherib
charge, in effect: Hezekiah had to pay tribute (NS') to us, don't
let him
deceive (NS') you with words! (2 Kgs 18:14, 29; cf. 19:4, 22). The
text of
Genesis 3 supplies further expressions of this paronomastic device. A
clever ['arum, 1] serpent leads the couple to sin
and become naked
['erummim, 7] and to be cursed ['arur, 14]; because the woman had eaten
from the
tree ['es, 6] she must experience
pain ['issabon, 16] in childbirth.
25Casanowicz, 105, incorrectly limits paronomasia to the oral
dimension and rules out
this passage
from consideration.
12 TRINITY
JOURNAL
Cassuto26
points out a skillful contrivance of extended paronomasia in the
flood
narrative, playing on the radicals in the name Noah: "This one shall
bring us
relief [yenahamenu, 5:29]; "Yahweh was sorry" [wayyinnahem,
6:6]; "The
ark came to rest" [wattanab, 8:4]; "A restingplace to set her
foot"
[manoah,
8:9].
This discussion in no way attempts to
exhaust the possibilities of Old
Testament
paronomasia, either in function or in form. The concept was
resorted to
most frequently by the prophet Isaiah, and it may be found
frequently
in the books of Proverbs and Job. In the
historical books,
paronomasia
is largely found embedded in poetic passages and in the assigning
of proper
names.
II. An illustration of Paronomasia in
Exodus 3:14
The Exodus discourse between Moses and his
God bristles with a number of
virtually
insoluble philological and theological problems, and one is not
surprised at
the inability to forge a common scholarly concensus regarding the
linguistic
and theological meaning of the ineffable tetragrammaton. Though a
veritable
kaleidoscope of etymological speculation has been set forth,27 three
prevalent
viewpoints will be distinguished in this essay.
These outlooks
commonly
share and express the belief that the relationship between the verb
hayah and the divine name yhwh is one of
etymology.
(1) An
Ejaculatory Cry. Since the writing
of G. R. Driver,28 a number of
scholars
have embraced the opinion that the divine name, when first it arose,
did not have
a readily intelligible form, instead being an emotional cultic
outburst,
such as dervishes might cry out ecstaticly.
In the main basing his
26U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (2 vols.;
1972)
1.288-89.
27 A Sumerian etymology [ia-u5,
"seed of life"] has recently been theorized by J. M.
Allegro, The
Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970) 20,
130, 215, n.
1. An Egyptian etymology [Y-h-we3,
"moon one"] has been proposed by N.
Walker, The
Tetragrammaton (West Ewell, England: privately published, 1948) [volume
unavailable
to author] 10-4; "Yahwism and the Divine Name 'Yhwh'," ZAW 70
(1958)
262-65. An Akkadian etymology [ia-u, "noble
one"] has been suggested by F. Delitzsch,
proposed an
Indo-European etymology [*Dyau-s, which became Zeus in Greek, Jupiter in
Latin, and
Yah in Hebrew]. A Hurrian etymology [ya,
"god" (plus a prinominal suffix)]
has been
offered by J. Lewy, "Influences hurrites sur
Semitiques, 1938) 55-61. Finally, it has been suggested by B. Hrozny,
("Inschriften und
Kultur der
Proto-Inder von Mohenjo-Daro und Harappa," ArOr 13 [1942] 52-5) that
Yahweh is to
be related etymologically to a god Yaue, apparently mentioned in a yet
unpublished
3rd millennium inscription found in the
28G. R. Driver, "The
original form of the name 'Yahweh': evidence and conclusions,"
ZAW 46 (1928), 7-25, esp. 23-5. This view was also mentioned by H. Tur-Sinai,
Die
Bundeslade
und die Anfange der Religion
Kuhn,
"Uber die Entstehung des Namens Jahwe," Orientalische Studien Enno
Littmann
zu seinem
sechzigsten Geburtstag uberreicht (Leiden: Brill, 1935) 25-42; M. Buber and F.
Rosenzweig, Die
Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung (Berlin: Schocken, 1936); A. Schleiff,
"Der
Gottesname Jahwe," ZDMG 90 (1936) 679-702; B. D. Eerdmans,
"The Name Jahu,"
OTS 5 (1948)
16; R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (2d. ed.;
1973]
190-91; E. Auerbach, Moses (Amsterdam: Ruys, 1953) 44-7.
BEITZEL: EXODUS 3:14 AND THE DNINE NAME 13
conclusions
upon extra-Biblical evidence, Driver affirmed that the antique form
of the deity
worshipped by some pre-Mosaic Hebrew ancestors was the
digrammaton
Ya, a form whose origin was a kind of numinal exclamation.
Conclusive
for Driver was the fact that whereas Hebrew compound proper
names were
never formed with Yahweh, many were formed with Ya. Now over
a period of
time, such primitive ecstatic ejaculations tend to become
prolonged. Thus, taken together with Driver's belief
that the genius of the
Exodus event
lay in the creation of a new national Hebrew deity, the evolution
from Ya to
Yahweh was easily effected. At once,
this new form was recognized
on the basis
of popular etymology as closely resembling the verb hayah, therein
facilitating
its general acceptance and interpretation by the Mosaic community.
Elmslie29 accepted the
reasoning of Driver, but he extended the argument
by
suggesting, on the analogy of Tunisian cult shouts, that the ejaculation Ya
was
originally associated with the cult of the moon deity Sin, whom the
Hebrew
ancestors obviously adored and from one of whose centers the great
patriarch
emigrated.
In 1961, Mowinckel30 sought to
advance this hypothesis by asserting that
the divine
name was to be understood as ya-huwa, being composed of the
Arabic
interjection and the third person independent personal pronoun, and
translated
"Oh He!" Though such a form
was originally a cultic cry of
exclamation
and invocation, it gradually developed into a symbolic designation
("He
whose inmost essence and being we cannot see or understand") and
finally came
to be understood as a proper name.31
As to these suppositions, it must be
asserted that it would be unprecedented
for a
Semitic divine name to originate as a religious exclamation. Driver cited
Greek
analogies and Mowinckel relied heavily on Norwegian analogues.
Furthermore,
leaving aside the problem of how Ya developed into Yahweh and
not some
other form, Semitic proper names normally begin with transparent
appellations
or sentences and shorten or disintegrate. They do not become
prolonged,
as supposed by adherents of this view.32
(2) A
Triliteral Verbal Form. By a large
margin, the opinio communis has been
one which
treats the tetragrarnmaton as a triliteral verbal form, deriVing from
29W. A. L. Elmslie, How Came
Our Faith (London: Cambridge, 1948 [repr., 1958)
119-21,214.
30S. Mowinckel, "The Name
of the God of Moses," HUCA 32 (1961) 121-33, esp.
that
131-33. A similar view had been espoused
by J. P. Brown and H. S. Rose, The Dervishes
yet (London:
Milford, 1927) 275; A. Vincent, La religion des Judeo-Arameens d'Elephantine
(Paris:
Geuthner, 1937) 46. More recently M.
Reisel, (The Mysterious Name of Y. H. W.
H. [Assen:
Van Gorcum, 1957] 48) arrives at this conclusion.
31Psalm 102:27 [H28] we'attah-hu' was luminous with meaning
for Mowinckel
32For convincing discussions in
support of this contention, the reader may consult D.
D.
Luckenbill, "The Pronunciation of the Name of the God of
277; W. F.
Albright, "The Name Yahweh," JBL
42 (1924) 370-78; L. Waterman, "Method
In the Study
of the Tetragrammaton," AJSL 43 (1926) 1-7; M. Noth, Personennamen
143-44; A.
Murtonen, Treatise 58-61; P. M. Cross, "Yahweh and the God of the
rep;.,
Patriarchs," HTR 55 (1962) 252-55; R. de Vaux, "The Revelation
of the Divine Name,"
Proclamation
and Presence (London:
SCM, 1970) 50-1; EncJud 7. § 680.
14 TRINITY
JOURNAL
the
root HWY.33 (a) Causative
Participle. J. Obermann34
attempted to show that
Yahweh
need not represent a finite verb. As a
finite verb, it would be, of necessity,
one
of the third person. Yet the solemn
formula ‘ani yahweh, occurring with
high
frequency
throughout the pages of the Old Testament, would present one with the
enigma
of a third person imperfect having as its subject or agent a first person
pronoun.35 For Obermann, such a construction was
manifestly impossible unless
one
assumes either that the meaning of the appellation had been lost by the time
this
formulation developed, or that the form yahweh
does not represent a finite
verb. On the other hand, arguing on the analogy of
the Karatepe inscription of
Azittawadd,
where numerous expressions of the same type occur, Obermann
submitted
that yahweh represented a peculiar
type of causative participial
formation
with a y instead of a m preformative. Therefore, as a lexeme, yahweh
should
be translated "Sustainer, Maintainer."
Against Obermann's view it must be argued
that demonstrably participial
forms
with y preformatives are non-existent
in Semitic. Even in the unlikely
event
that the Phoenician examples cited by Obermann should eventually
prove
to be participial in form and function,36 their appearance only in
relatively
late inscriptions cannot be used to support the antiquity of the
phenomenon. Moreover, the caus