214 EEV. J. IVERACH MUNRO, M.A., ON THE WITNESS OF 



In the paper which I had the honour of reading before the 

 Victoria Institute in 1913, I gave my reasons for concluding 

 that Jehovah is the correct pronunciation of the Tetragram- 

 maton rTirT^, YHVH, but that XV, Yah, was not derived 



T 



from it, but from the same root, "l^n, hauv, the same source as 



that of Zeus, Jove, Theos, Deus, etc., and that the meaning when 

 first used was that of " Maker." 



It is remarkable that both elements of Tth"^ should be in the 



singular number, that the name for God should be in the stative 

 or passive form of the primitive noun, while Jah was originally 

 active in meaning. 



Does philology bring us here to see a state of things in that 

 far-off time when men had come to regard God as the " Mighty 

 One " indeed, but as indifferent to the sufterings, the sorrows, 

 and the sins of man, and some great religious reformer had 

 come forward with the good news that the " Mighty One " was 

 the " Maker," and could not from His very nature be indifferent ? 

 There is no sign of lielief in a plurality of gods in this, the 

 oldest Eevelation embodied in a composite name. The plurality 

 lies in the later development, when, in spite of the very assertion 

 of the unity, might, and ownership of the " Maker " in the name 

 'Eloah, men turned away from that Eevelation, and fashioned out 

 of their own imaginations such a plurality, using, strange to say, 

 the very word containing the truth to express their error. 

 We are on firm ground here from the teaclung of philology 

 itself. 



It is legitimate to ask — indeed, necessary, for science is 

 never a mere recording of facts — Have we any evidence as to 

 when this name for God was developed ? It seems to me we 

 have. In the latter part of the name, as we saw, we have Yah. 

 When this can be traced to the same source as that of Jehovah, 

 Zeus, and Jove, etc., we are certified that the languages in which 

 they occur were originally one. Have we not, then, in this 

 name the record of a great religious crisis, when mankind was 

 riven, as it has been so often since, by opposing spiritual forces ; 

 as when the Bomoousians and the Homoioudans, which to super- 

 ficial thinking represents the difference of a letter, but really 

 represents the contents of a faith which can save the chief of 

 sinners, and one which can save no one, were striving for the 

 mastery ? Or, may it have formed the centre of the preaching 

 of Noah, that the " Mighty One " was the " Maker," and that 

 men should turn to Him and live ? We cannot with certainty 

 tell ; but this we do know, that the message was accepted so 



