Nehemia Gordon and the Name of Yehovah

We are living in the information age, with the internet giving the opportunity to anyone and everyone who desires, to post whatever information they want to, whether it be written articles, audio teachings or even video teachings. The problem that arises, is that many people post so many 'things' on the internet that are not factual,things which are even downright lies and falsehood. There is not really any control over this, this situation is beyond control. Also, many people, who call themselves scholars, have the opportunity to teach their own personal doctrines, topics and opinions,as if the absolute truth, and that without any restraint at all. Two such people who have taken advantage of the wide audience of the internet is Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson who claim to teach the only correct pronunciation of the Name of the Almighty, even make lots of money by doing so.

This article has been written to test the so called “proofs” of Nehemia and Keith, and see if it is in fact true or not (factual or opinionated). This article is in no way an attack on Nehemia or Keith and I certainly do not want to speak any bad things about them. It is written purely to bring the truth to the light and to hopefully encourage others to test everything that they hear, no matter who they hear it from. This article is also not intended to diminish anyone’s faith and I am certainly not trying to make anyone believe what they do not wish to believe. Everyone has a right to do and believe whatever they want to. All I will be doing is to provide evidence and facts on this topic, and then it is up to the reader to do with it whatever they like.

The topic of this article is to see whether the pronunciation of the Name of the Almighty is “Yehovah,” as Nehemia and Keith proclaim it is, or not. Keith Johnson has written a book trying to “prove” or justify this pronunciation and the book is endorsed by Nehemia who taught Keith that the Name if pronounced is “Yehovah.” Both Keith and Nehemia influence thousands of people by touring the world and speaking, through their books and even through internet radio and other forms of communication, and try to convince them all that this is the only correct pronunciation and that the other people are all wrong. They do this, all while making a lot of money in the process. That is why I am writing this article, to give an objective look at their theory for other people to see the whole truth and not just a snippet taken out of context, which Nehemia has done as we will see below.

Now, to get to the explanations…

While listening to a recording that Nehemia and Keith did on an internet radio station, called Truth2u with Jono Vandor, about the Torah portion, “Beshalach – Exodus 13:17-17:16”. Nehemia explained in short why he teaches that the Name is to be pronounced as “Yehovah.” His explanation might sound clever and impressive to anyone who does not know any Hebrew grammar rules. But to anyone who has a good understanding of the Hebrew grammar rules, will see that Nehemia contradicted himself and actually rendered his theory to be false, as will be explained in detail below.

I am attaching a short MP3 file of Nehemia explaining it, for you to listen to it and analyze it for yourself. (It is attached below). I will be analyzing what Nehemia says and compare it according to the facts and grammar rules to see if he is telling the truth or not. I suggest that you listen to the audio MP3 (less than 3 min) before you carry on reading this article. Then after reading the rest of this article, you can listen to it as many times as you want and compare it to the facts for yourself.


(Listen to audio below before you carry on reading).

In order to download the MP3, right click the play button and then choose the first option, "download document".

Okay, now let us break it down and tackle what Nehemia said piece by piece. I have transcribed the audio to text and will now analize it piece by piece. I am also going to color code it for ease of reading and understanding. Keith’s words will be the color of  green, Nehemia’s words will be in the color of blue and the reply will be in the color of red.

Keith: The second issue I want to bring up, is for all of my brothers and sisters out there that say, “well now Keith, you should change your pronunciation. Here it clearly says, Nehemia Gordon, the great Hebrew scholar, just said, the way you pronounce this two letter name, is what Nehemia… how do you pronounce it?

Reply: Here Keith admits that many people have challenged him about the Name of the Almighty. He also sees Nehemia Gordon as “Great” Hebrew scholar. The fact of the matter is that Nehemia is more than competent in the Hebrew language, but there are many people who are far more advanced in the knowledge of the Hebrew language than Nehemia is.

Nehemia: Yah

Reply: Regarding the name, “Yah” one does not need a Hebrew expert to know that it is written and spelled as Yah and cannot be anything else. There is absolutely no dispute about this word at all.

Keith: Yah, so that’s why we should call Him Yahweh. And I am not going to move from this until you can help us understand, Nehemia, What is this YAH…

Nehemia: … Well, I mean, so look, the poetic form, if you can call it that, of the name Jacob in some languages is James. Does that mean…..

Reply: I do not want to argue this statement too much, but James is not a poetic form of Jacob. It is merely a result of the confusion of a language (English) which is made up of mixed multitude of other languages. This often results in many words, often totally different from one another, having the same or similar meaning. This is what has happened with James and Jacob… the one is not a poetic form of the other.

Nehemia: Lets take the example of Michael (which in Hebrew is Micha’el, where the English name is Michael), but what’s the nickname for Michael, Its Mickey. Does that mean that really… lets say that I didn’t have the vowels of the word Michael but I knew it was Mickey, would I then call him Michal? I guess I would call him Michal, Michi’el.

Reply: Here Nehemia did not say anything that has anything to do with his case. Theoretically, the statement he just made is more proof of the opposite of what he is trying to teach. But this is not where the problem is. We will see, when we get to the Hebrew grammar, where Nehemia makes his errors.

Nehemia: So that’s the type of logic that they’re implying when they say that YAH as the poetic form, therefore, it means that the full form is Yahweh, um, I mean there’s absolutely no connection there.

Reply: Firstly, I am not saying that the pronunciation of, “Yahweh” is perfectly correct. This article is about testing the pronunciation of Yehovah. So I am not going to get into why Yahweh is not perfectly correct.

To say that “Yah” has absolutely no connection to the pronunciation of the Name of the Almighty is not true at all. We will see this below when we get into the grammar rules.
Nehemia: Its, uh, you know, YAH… and actually the significance of YAH is that it almost always appears at the end of a word, like HalleluYAH. That’s the form you will normally find.

And even in Ex 15:2 (g¡I Z¡X¥N¦F¥E I¦i¡R – Ozi v’zimrat Yah) and that word Yah is attached toward zimrat which is called smuchut, or the construct case. Its attached to the previous word.

Reply: The question is, is the short form of the Name of the Almighty, “Yah” (spelled yud hey) ever pronounced differently when it is not attached to another word? No it is not, it does not ever have to be attached toward another word for it to be pronounced as Yah. (Ex 15:2; 17:16; Ps 68:4 & 18; 76:11; 89:8;)

Nehemia: And that’s very similar to what we would find when we have, “Yud hey vav”, the three letters of the full name in a larger name, as a compound name, for example, Isaiah, is YeshaYAHU, Elijah is, EliYAHU. So we always have YAHU, which is exactly what we find with YAH, the poetic form.

Reply: The Hebrew grammar rule teaches us that, in a “compound” word (as Nehemia calls it) the suffix (end part of the word) ALWAYS keeps its original form and pronunciation of the word it is using as the suffix, where the prefix (beginning of the word) ALWAYS shortens its syllables whenever possible. Nehemia and Keith so conveniently “forget” to quote the whole grammar rule and only part of it to try and justify their theories.
Nehemia: Now here’s the thing, whenever Yud Hey Vav appears at the beginning of a word its never YAHU, or YAH, its always Yeho, Yehoshua, Yehonatan, Yehonadav.

Reply: Remember that what the Hebrew grammar rule says, the prefix (beginning) always shortens its original syllables whenever possible. Let us look at a simple example. (Please note that this is also true according to ALL Hebrew grammar books. You can look it up for yourself)

Lets use the “Compound” name of Yehonatan (which is Jonathan in the English). It is constructed by joining two words together. The two words are Yahu (from the Name of the Almighty) + natan (give)

Yahu + natan = Yehonathan

Now lets join these two words together but in the opposite order, namely, natan + Yahu. If we do so, then we get the following:

Natan + Yahu = Netanyahu (Nethaniah in the KJV)
Notice how 'natan' shortened its 'vowels' and became 'netan' when used as a prefix.

(found in 2 Kings 25:23, 2 Kings 25:25, 1 Chr 25:2, 1 Chr 25:12, 2 Chr 17:8, Jer 36:14, Jer 40:8, Jer 40:14-15 (2), Jer 41:1-2 (2), Jer 41:6-7 (2), Jer 41:9-12 (4), Jer 41:15-16 (2), Jer 41:18)

As you can see, according to the Hebrew grammar rule, the suffix (end of the compound word) always keeps its original form and pronunciation of the word used for the prefix and that the prefix (beginning part) always shortens its syllables whenever possible.

Let us look at another example quick:

Yasha (to save, be saved, be delivered) + Yahu (from the Name of the Almighty) = Yeshayahu (Isaiah in the KJV)

Notice once again that the prefix shortened its syllable and that the suffix keeps its original pronunciation.

So if the prefix shortens and the suffix keeps its original form and pronunciation, then …yahu at the end of a word is the original form and pronunciation of the Name of the Almighty.
Nehemia: Now here’s the question you have to ask, In the Father’s Name (yud hey vav hey) are those three letters at the beginning of the Name, like in Yehoshua, Yehonatan, Yehonadav, Yehochanan, etc. Or are they at the end of the Name, like in, YeshaYAHU, EliYAHU etc. Obviously they’re at the beginning of the Name.

Reply: This is Nehemia’s explanation on why the Name must be “Yehovah”. As you can see by the above Hebrew grammar rules concerning “compound” words (two words joined to create one word/name), that the Name of the Almighty cannot be Yehovah as Nehemia professes to be true (the Almighty's Name is not a compound word). Now ask yourself, is Nehemia ignorant concerning Hebrew grammar, or is he purposely hiding this rule from you in order to promote his theory (which would be an outright lie)? (Remember that the Almighty's Name is not a compound word).

Once again, the Hebrew grammar rule proves that the original form of yud hey vav, the three letters of the Name of the Almighty, is Yahu and NOT Yeho

But it does not end here, there are a couple more problems with the pronunciation of Yehovah and also with what Nehemia said about it. He really does like to contradict himself a lot, which is the result of not standing by the truth.

Now, Nehemiah said above, that because the three letters, yud hey vav, are at the beginning of the Name, like that of Yehoshua, Yehonatan, Yehonadav etc. proves that it must be pronounced as Yehovah. But there is a very obvious problem with his statement. All the other names that Nehemia compared it to are all “compound names” (as Nehemia called them). The question you need to ask is, is Yud hey vav hey (the full Name of the Almighty) a “compound word”? And if it is, then from what word does the final “hey” come from and what is its meaning?

The fact of the matter is that the Name of the Almighty is NOT a “compound” word comprised of two or more words (as I mentioned above). Therefore, the grammar rule that Nehemia twists to try justify his pronunciation does not and cannot apply to the Name of the Almighty.

Now let us look at another Hebrew grammar rule that does not apply to “compound” words. In Hebrew, the general rule is that the accent falls on the final syllable. The syllable that is accented always keeps its original form and so does the syllable that directly precedes the accented syllable. So, the general rule is that the last two syllables of a word keep their original form (when the accent falls on the final syllable).

In Nehemia’s pronunciation of Yehovah, the accent falls on the final syllable. That means that the last two syllables must keep its original form. This is NOT the case in the pronunciation of Yehovah. Once again, it has failed to meet the Hebrew grammar rules.

Let us look at such an example of a similar type of word and see what the result is.

The Name Y’hudah is a “compound” word which is a combination of the two words, Yahu and yadah. Leah named her son Y’hudah because she, “gratefully praised YHVH” (Gen 29:35).

The accent falls on the last syllable of the name of Y’hudah. That means that the final syllable retains its original form and so does the syllable directly before it. That is why the name is Y’hUdah and not Y’hodah.

Now we have to apply this grammar rule to the Name of the Almighty too. If the accent falls on the final syllable, then the syllable directly before it has to keep its original form as it does in Y’hudah. Therefore, if Nehemia is correct, then the Name should be Yehuvah and cannot be Yehovah.

So once again we have proved the pronunciation of Yehovah to be false.
But we can even go a step further. And this is a clincher.

Nehemia outrightly admitted that the first three letters of the Name of the Almighty, when in the beginning of a word, is “Yeho...” Now if this is the case, all we are left with is the single letter, “hey”. Now the question that you have to ask yourself, once again, is, “is it ever possible to get the pronunciation of “…vah” from a single hey?”

The fact of the matter is that it is never possible and that what Nehemia teaches is false and has been proven to be a lie.

We once again need to ask ourselves the question, is Nehemia Gordon ignorant of these Hebrew grammar rules? Or is he outrightly lying to thousands, if not millions, of people? If he is lying, what is his reason for doing so?

The problem that Nehemia has gotten himself into is that his only audience, and the only people who buy his books and support him are the Christians and Messy-anics. Nehemia does not have any Hebrew following at all. For that reason, he is seen as a leader and makes a very pretty penny on the book sales and support from such people.

After realizing how Nehemia so blatantly lies about such an important topic, how then can he be trusted with anything else? Yes, many of the things that Nehemia teaches is truth, but the problem is that he mixes a lot of falsehood in-between. Everyone has the duty to test everything that they hear.

Every time that I have asked Nehemia about all this, He simply ignores me and has even deleted me as a friend on Facebook. If someone makes such a declaration, like he does, then is it not fair to give explanations and answer questions? Maybe he is unable to answer them without contradicting himself?


I posted a comment on the website where this teaching of Nehemia comes from. Jono Vandor, the owner of the website, has still not moderated my comment for others to see. It seems as if Jono is very biased and does not like anyone to speak against the doctrines of Nehemia, even if he speaks falsehood.

The comment I left was on 27 Jan 2012 and Jono has still not approved it as a comment.

I will post that comment in the comments section below for you to read for yourself.

May the Almighty open all our eyes to the truth of His Word.

Is the Name of the Almighty “Yehovah”?

The Name of the Almighty is one of the most contested things among believers today. Many claim that they have the correct pronunciation and that the other pronunciations are wrong. The majority of these pronunciations do not have any factual or linguistic support and yet the people swear by the authenticity of that pronunciation, even though it is totally incorrect. There are other pronunciations that do have “so called” evidence, but is not evidence at all.

In this article, I am going to show you why the pronunciation of “Yehovah” cannot be the correct pronunciation. I will present evidence and facts to prove this as that is what we need to go by. The true pronunciation must meet all facts and evidence and not only some. If it contradicts even one Hebrew grammatical rule, then it is false. So let us have a look to see if it is correct or not.

 

The original Hebrew Tanakh existed without the Masoretic markings, which were later added in the middle ages. Because of the Pharisaical teachings and tradition that the Name of the Almighty was not to be uttered, certain vocal sounds were added to the Name to hide the true pronunciation. In order to create the vocal sounds for the written name and continuing to keep the Name "secret" and "hidden" the vocal sounds for Adonai were transplanted into the word YHWH. Later the vocal sounds for Eloah (singular form of Elohim) were used creating YeHoWaH.

Since in Modern Hebrew the Hebrew letter WAW (later called VAV) is pronounced "V" in place of its ancient pronunciation "W", YeHoWaH became YeHoVaH. This became transliterated in the original KJV English as IEHOVAH and later when the letter “J” was added to English IEHOVAH became JEHOVAH. However the J and the V in "Jehovah" are incorrect, as are the vowels E-O-A which actually come from ELOAH. In fact only one of the two letters H-H are correct.

Another fact is that the English transliteration YHWH or YHVH is not even100% correct and should actually keep its original Hebrew form יהוה, but for understanding purposes, we will use it here.

Another argument for why the Name should be ‘Yehovah” comes from many Jews and even very learned people, like Nehemiah Gordon and Keith Johnson (who has even written a book on this subject), who claim that the root of the Name of the Almighty is “hayah” and is explained in Exodus 3:14. Let us read. “And Elohim said to Mosheh, “I am that which I am.” (Eyeh asher eyeh) And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Yisraĕl, ‘I am has sent me to you”. Now they say that the Name is derived from “eyeh” which comes form the root “hayah” which means to exist. But is this really the root word for the Name of the Almighty? Well, ‘eyeh’ is explaining the character of the Almighty, he is the only mighty one who actually exists, which is partly in the Name of the Almighty, but is NOT the root of His Name. We refer to the Almighty as Elohim too, but is that His Name or the root of His Name? Certainly not. Let us read the very next verse, “And Elohim said further to Mosheh, “Thus you are to say to the children of Yisraĕl, ‘יהוה (YHWH) Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Avraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Ya’aqoḇ, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My remembrance to all generations” (Exodus 3:15).

So why then did Elohim say ‘eyeh asher eyeh’ in the previous verse? And say “eyeh” has sent me to you? This is because the people were specifically waiting for a prophecy to be fulfilled that the one who exists (eyeh) will deliver them from slavery and bring them back to the land of their fathers. So where and when was this prophecy given, and by whom?

In Genesis we see the Ya’akov spoke to Yosef telling him that Elohim will be (hayah, which is the root of eyeh) with him and bring him and bring them back to the land of their fathers. (Genesis 48:21).

So basically what the Almighty was saying when he said “eyeh asher eyeh” was two fold, firstly He was telling them that the Elohim of their forefathers has come to deliver them and take them to the land of their fathers, as the people were expecting according to the prophecy given by Ya’akov. And secondly, He was proclaiming that He is the only Mighty One who is alive and exists and that there is no one who can go against Him, and that there is no end to Him or His power. He was not saying that that was His Name, as He gave them His Name in the very next sentence.

Evidence from the Hebrew language

Another thing that should be mentioned is another piece of evidence that proves that the Name of the Almighty cannot be pronounced as Yehovah is because it is using the middle ‘waw’ as a vowel and a consonant at the same time, which is not possible or allowed in the Hebrew language. Let me explain. Keith Johnson so nicely explains that when the Name is in the beginning of other people’s name’s that it is pronounced Yeho, as in Yehochanan, or Yehoshua etc. therefore the Name of the Almighty has to start with “Yeho…”.

This information that Keith just gave actually contradicts the rest of his theory.

If we look at these names in the Hebrew, it starts with יהו (yud hey waw) and is pronounced Yeho. Now according to Keith, the first three letters of the Name of the Almighty are pronounced as “Yeho”, but what are we then left with? We are left with only the last “hey.” Now can we ever get the sound or pronunciation of “…vah” from the Hebrew letter “hey”? According to the Hebrew language, it is impossible. In order to get the “v” sound, it needs to come from the “waw”, but it then it cannot be used to get the “o” sound in “Yeho”. So the only options we are left with are, either, “Yehoah” or “Yehvah” but never “Yehovah”

The difference between prefix and suffix  

Hebrew grammar teaches that in a composite word/name, the prefix, which is the beginning part of the name, always shortens its syllables. But the suffix in a composite word/name always keeps its original form and pronunciation. This is a Hebrew grammatical rule that Nehemiah Gordon knows very well and yet never quotes the entire rule in order that keep to his own theory.

Now how does this matter in the pronunciation of the Name of the Almighty? Well, if we look at the many names in Scripture where the Name of the Almighty (יהו (yud hey waw)) is used as the suffix, it is ALWAYS pronounced as “….yahu,” as in YeshaYAHU, and YirmeYAHU etc.

Now according to the grammatical rule stated above, the suffix always keeps its original pronunciation, and in the case of the Name of the Almighty, we clearly see that the original pronunciation is always Yahu. Because of this simple fact, we know for certain that the pronunciation of Name of the Almighty has to start with “Yahu..” It can never be anything else.

If we want to know the truth, then we need to learn the Hebrew language. Many people follow Keith Johnson and Nehemiah Gordon for the simple reason that they do not know any better and assume that these people are teaching the truth.

To sum it up, when the Name of the Almighty is used as a suffix in a composite word/name, then it is always pronounced as “…yahu” which is the original pronunciation. But when it is used as a prefix, then the syllables shorten and then we get “Yeho…” Therefore, the Name “Yehovah” cannot be correct as it is NOT a composite word and has to, therefore, start with “Yahu..” which is the original form.

Why is there no retaliation from the Jews?

The Messiah was persecuted by the Jewish people for proclaiming the Name of the Almighty openly as the Jewish people have hidden it and banned anyone from speaking the Name of YHWH openly. Now if Nehemiah and Keith were correct, then the Jewish community would have been in such an uproar about this as it is a huge issue for them because Nehemiah lives in Israel and is well known among the communities there. But something I noticed… not even one Jew is condemning Nehemiah or Keith for there pronunciation of Yehovah as it is not the true pronunciation.

What about the Leningrad Codex

There is also “so called” evidence that the people, who subscribe to this pronunciation, use a lot to say that His Name is definitely Yehovah. It even looks like rock solid evidence, but only to those who are uneducated in the subject. So what am I talking about? There are photos of manuscripts of the Leningrad Codex, which is the text that has the Masoretic markings that is used for the Hebrew texts, which has the Name written in them with the Masoretic markings indicating the pronunciation of “Yehovah.” (I have added some of these photo’s here for you to see for yourself).

 

It only appears a very few times compared to the, more than 6,000 other times, where the Name is written, and there are no masoretic markings for the Name at all, and the only places that these very few (I think about twelve times or something like that), appears in only one of the books of the Tanakh. Not one of these instances appears in the Torah.

The reason the markings appear like that, is because when the Scribe was writing the copy, he would firstly vocally sound out every word before he wrote it, it was a painstaking process. When the Scribe wrote the Name in certain places, he would lose concentration and sound out the name and accidentally write it with the sounds that he spoke out (remember that they did not have erasers in those days). We know this is not the true pronunciation, as these Scribes were forbidden to speak out the true pronunciation of the Name, and therefore they spoke out the word “Yehovah” instead, which had the vocal sounds of “Eloah” but still kept the Name of YHWH secret.

So as you can see, this is not proof of the pronunciation of “Yehovah” at all, but is actually proof that it isn’t “Yehovah”

Conclusion

We can now see that all the “so called” evidence for the pronunciation of “Yehovah” is not evidence at all, but rather proves that pronunciation to be false.

We can see from the Scriptures and from the Hebrew language that the Name cannot start with “Yeho…” but must start with “Yahu…”

We can also see that the pronunciation of “Yehovah” cannot be true as it is using the “waw” as a consonant and a vowel at the same time, which is a transgression of the rules of Hebrew.

The root of the Name of the Almighty is not “hayah.” The fact of the matter is that the Name of the Almighty is a root word on its own and cannot be broken into further roots.

The Name of the Almighty is the Highest Word in the entire Hebrew language!!!

We are to follow the facts and evidences rather than people who seek a following like Keith and Nehemiah. They do have a lot to offer, but should not be considered the authority for the study of the Scriptures. If you follow them, then you deny the facts and the truth.

Shalom to all those reading here.