There is only One Name for the Messiah.

I have decided to write this article because of so many people who ignorantly claim that their pronunciation of the Name of the Messiah is true, and yet, they do not consider any of the facts or evidence available. These people go by their own opinions and speculations without any knowledge of the Hebrew language. The true Name of the Messiah is based only on facts and evidence and NOT on opinions whatsoever.

One false opinion that I recently heard is that no one knows for certain what the true pronunciation of the Name of the Messiah is. This opinion is due to pure ignorance. How can the Messiah say that He came to restore the Name of His Father, and then ignorant people claim that we do not even know the Messiah’s Name. It just does not make any sense.  

Contrary to Christian beliefs, the Name of the Messiah is NOT “Jesus”. I have covered this issue in another article explaining this. You can go to the article by clicking on the name “Jesus”.

Now contrary to the Messy-anic belief, the names “Yashua”, “Yahushua”, “Yeshua”, “Yahusha”, “Yasha”, “Yahuw”, “Yehosha” and “Yahuwshua” are all incorrect and are NOT the names of the Messiah. This article will also prove all these to be incorrect too.

Let us start off with some Hebrew grammar rules.

With just a little knowledge of Hebrew grammar, you can know that many of the above pronunciations are absolutely impossible. We are going to have a quick look at a specific Hebrew grammar rule, and then apply it to the above names and see if they are legit or not.

Many Messy-anic leaders like to think that names, especially the Name of the Messiah, must start with either “Yah” or “Yahu.” These people probably mean well but do not have any knowledge of the language of the Almighty. They then teach thousands of their follower’s the false pronunciations because of their own ignorance on the subject. They base their teachings upon their own opinions or what they have learned from other ignorant teachers, rather than upon facts. Let us now get to the facts and see what the Hebrew grammar teaches us.

A composite word or name in Hebrew is made up of two words that are joined together to create a single word or name. The Hebrew language teaches us that the suffix (the end of the word) ALWAYS keeps its original form and pronunciation. However, the prefix (which is the beginning part of the word) ALWAYS shortens its syllables. There are no exceptions to this rule at all.

Now let us have a look at the practical side to this rule.

If we put “Yahu” in the front of a name, then we get the following:

Yahu + Nathan = Yehonathan (יהונתן) (which means, “YHWH has given”) (Jonathan in the KJV)

Yahu + yada = Yehoyada (יהוידע) (which means, “YHWH knows”) (Jehoiada in the KJV)

Yahu + shaphat = Yehoshaphat (יהושׁפט) (which means, “YHWH has judged”) (Jehoshaphat)

You can see that whenever the Name of the Almighty gets put in the front of a name, as Yahu, then its syllables ALWAYS shorten to become, “Yeho….” just as the Hebrew language rules teach us.

But if we now put the Name, “Yahu” at the end of a composite name or word, then we get the following:

Yasha + Yahu = Yeshayahu (ישׁעיהוּ) (which means, “YHWH has saved”) (Isaiah in the KJV)

Yaram + Yahu = Yirmeyahu (ירמיהוּ) (which means, “whom YHWH has appointed”) (Jeremiah in the KJV)

Banah +Yahu   = Benayahu (בּניהוּ) (which means, “YHWH has built”) (Benaiah in the KJV)
Please take note that when the prefix "Yahu" changes to Yeho THE MEANING DOES NOT CHANGE. It is only the syllable sounds that do. The meaning STAYS THE SAME.

Here we can see, once again, that the prefix (beginning of the word) always shortens its vowels as the Hebrew language demands (which is even evident in the KJV Bible), but the suffix (end of the word) ALWAYS retains its original form and pronunciation. Keith Johnson just happens to forget to share this piece information in His book on the Name of the Almighty, supporting the false pronunciation of “Yehovah”, but I will cover this in another article in the future.

Now I challenge everyone to go and research this for yourselves and try find even one case or name that does not work according to this Hebrew grammatical rule. There are many more examples of the names of people in the Scriptures that prove this to be true, I only picked a few to give a practical example.

So as you can see, the name (yud hey waw shin ayin) cannot be pronounced with the beginning of the name as “Yahu…” as its syllables must be shortened when joined to another word. So all the supposed pronunciations that start with “Yahu…” or “Yah…” are NOT correct according to the language of the Almighty. This disqualifies the majority of the pronunciations mentioned above. Anyone claiming that the name of the Messiah starts with “Yahu...” or “Yah….” Is ignorant in this subject and does not know what he or she is talking about.

Now for the most common pronunciation, “Yeshua”

Although the name Yoshua is a shortened form of the correct Name of the Messiah, it is not His full Name. Yeshua is used 78 times in the Tanakh and is the passive participle of ‘yasha’ (save or savior), which is used 205 times. “I have waited for your yeshua (salvation, deliverance), O YHWH” (Gen 49:18). Yeshua means “salvation” or “deliverance” it is however NOT the Name of the Messiah.

The Messiah comes in His Fathers Name. The question therefore is, “where is the Name of YHWH in the name Yeshua?” It is not there, and this point alone disqualifies the name “Yeshua” as being the Name of the Messiah. Although the Messiah did come to save and deliver us, His Name is much more than that.

So what then is the Name of the Messiah?

Let us start off with some evidence given to us by the Greek Septuagint LXX and the Greek manuscripts of the Brit Chadashah (New Testement or more correctly, Renewed Covenant). In the Greek New Testament, the Name of the Messiah is “Iesous”, which is translated as “Jesus” in the English bibles.

Now we find the name “Iesous” which is the exact same name that was used for the name of the Messiah in the Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint LXX too. The name of Joshua son of Nun was also translated as “Iesous” in the Septuagint LXX. This is because he has exactly the same name as the Messiah and was even a Messiah (saviour) in his own right.

Because of this reason, it is easy to know what the Name of the Messiah is. His Name has never been hidden at all. It also fits all the requirements for the Name of the Messiah. It has the Name of His Father the Almighty in it combined with the word meaning “saves”.

Let us go have a look at the name of Joshua in the Hebrew Tanakh. I have copied and pasted it here directly out of the Hebrew Tanakh and it is R§[]D¥I and is pronounced “Yehoshua” or “Y’hoshua”. The Name “Yehoshua” means, “YHWH is salvation”

Yehoshua is the Name of the Messiah, there is no other Name that is correct.

What then about “Yehosha” or “Yahusha” instead of “Yehoshua”?

Many people believe that the name of the Messiah ends with a “…sha” instead of “…shua”. This is because they say that it ends with a “shin ayin” and not a “shin waw ayin”. They say that the “waw” is necessary to give the “u” sound in “…shUa”. This however could not be further from the truth.

If you ever come into contact with a Hebrew magazine or newspaper, the first thing that you will notice is that there are no Masoretic markings in them whatsoever. This is because it is not necessary for native Hebrew speaking people to understand it. To understand it is actually a relatively simple process. Without the Masoretic markings, certain words have the same letters, but have a different pronunciation and even a different meaning.

In order to know what the word is without having the Masoretic markings, you have to read it in the context of the sentence or even paragraph. Let me give you an example:

If I give you the word “cr”, the first word that probably comes to mind is “car”. However, if I give you a sentence to put that same word into, for instance, “I have to take cr of my grandmother” then we can know for certain that the “cr” is the word “care” and not “car”.

Now when a Hebrew speaking person comes across the Hebrew word יהושׁע, they immediately know that it is pronounced “Yehoshua” and NOT as “Yehosha” or “Yahusha”. This is because there is no need for a “waw” for the “u” sound in Hebrew.

Let us look at the photo above which we find in the Hebrew Sh’mot/Exodus 1:22. we find the word that is circled (tashlichuhu). Notice that there are two ‘u’ sounds “…..chuhu” but there is only one ‘waw’ at the end of the word giving the ‘u’ sound for only the final letter. Where then does the first ‘u’ sound come from? If you take away the Massoretic markings, how would you pronounce the word? (It cannot be pronounced “tashlichhu”)

In this second photo in which we find in Sh’mot/Exodus 3:3 in the Hebrew Tanakh, is the word “asurah.” Once again, there is the ‘u’ sound but no ‘waw.’ We have to again ask ourselves how would we pronounce it if the Massoretic markings were not there. We would then try to pronounce it as "asrah" but that would be totally incorrect and would either change the meaning of the word or there would be no such ronunciation of the word in Hebrew. So there has to be a vocal sound inserted when speaking it out.

Another thing to remember is that the name of the Messiah has a specific meaning. It means YHWH saves, or YHWH is our salvation. You cannot get this meaning from Yehosha or Yahusha as the ending “…..sha” does not have any meaning and there is no such word in Hebrew, and certainly does not mean save(s).

The end part of the name of the Messiah “…shua” can be spelled with the (shin waw ayin) but can also be spelled with the two letters (shin ayin) without the ‘waw’ but with the added “qubbuts” under the ‘shin’, as you can see in the photo provided below that was taken of page 172 of the Benjamin Davidson Hebrew Lexicon. It still retains the “…shua” sound.

So it is very clear that the Name of the Messiah does NOT end with, “….sha”. Those people who teach this false pronunciation are once again ignorant of the Hebrew language and do not have any knowledge on this topic. Also, these people do not read the Hebrew Torah at all. If they did, then they would have noticed that the name of Joshua is also spelled with "yud hey vav shin vav ayin" in Deut 3:21. I would love to see how they explain this one.

Now I need to put a note here that the name can also be shortened. Yeho... becomes Yo according to Hebrew grammar. So the shortened version of his name is Yoshua. Yeshua is a verb which means "salvation". Yeshua is also the Aramaic form of his name.

So the correct pronunciation of the name of the Messiah is undoubtedly Yehoshua, or Y’hoshua, if we stick to the facts, rules and regulations of the language of the Almighty and do not use our own opinions and speculations. It cannot ever be Yahushua or Yahusha.

Yehoshua is the Messiah