Alexandr Loginov © 2017
Flamy name of
Yahweh
Holy and awesome is his name
(Psalm 111:9)
One of the
most common religious taboos is prohibition on utterance of the name Yahweh, the Biblical God of Israel. “You
shall not misuse the name of the Lord [Yahweh – יהוה],
your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his
name”. (Ex. 20:7 see also Deut. 5:11) The ban was grounded on the sensible
requirement to avoid the sacred name in perjury or false covenant. The adverb
“falsely” [lash-sháv – לַשָּׁוְא]
can be interpreted as “vain”, “deceitful” and “idle”. The Bible texts confirm
this very exegesis of the commandment. “Do not swear falsely by my name and so
profane the name of your God”. (Lev. 19:12; see also Lev. 6:2-5; Is. 48:1; Jer.
5:2, 7:9; Hos. 10:4; Zech. 5:4, 8:17; Mal. 3:5). With the same restriction the
name Yahweh was freely used in the swear: “As surely as the Lord who
rescues
Beside the short form there exists the full form of the name Yahweh, with
the particular sacral significance. “I will cause all my goodness to pass in
front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord [Yahweh], in your
presence”. (Ex. 33:19), - here the deity is called by the proper name Yahweh
(יהוה),
but one more, particular name is mentioned. It could be learned by only the
chosen few at the moment of mystic admition, vision of “gloria”. In religious literature
this name was designated with the term Shem ha-Mephorash (שֵם
הַמְפוֹרָש).
The literal meaning of Shem ha-Mephorash is “the name which is clearly
articulated...”, as it is defined in Brockhaus
and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia or “name in detail”. This term is used by cabalists
and means the secret name of the God. It has 72 words, which were declared the
names of angels. These names were “specified” with the most bizarre and tricky
method. It was based on 72 letters of Biblical Neo-Hebraic in three verses Exodus2 – 14:19-21. They gave the roots to
the “names” supposedly making Shem ha-Mephorash. In order to get the root of
the first “name” they linked the first letter of the first word of the verse Ex.
14:19 with the last letter of the last word of Ex. 14:20 and added the first
letter of the first word of Ex. 14:21. The root of the second “name” they
received the same way: to the second letter of the first word of Ex. 14:19 they
added the next-to-last letter of the last word of the verse Ex. 14:20 and
completed with the second letter of the first word of the Ex. 14:21. The same
method was used to create the roots of the other “names” which had never
existed. Then to the roots they added “godly” suffixes “-iach” and “-el” and
received the names of 72 angels supposedly making together the full name of Yahweh.
The 72 invented words are very difficult to
remember and, moreover, to repeat aloud correctly, and their creators probably
considered the difficulty of the “super name” to be the attribute of gnosis. However,
the exceptionally cumbersome artificial construction contradicts the sacred name
itself, as Shem ha-Mephorash “means literally the name, clearly articulated…”,
the other variants of interpretation are “explained”, “obvious”, “distinct”,
“comprehensible”… And how can we consider comprehensible a name of 72 invented
words?
Judaic mentors kept to the commandment “to insulate
Torah” (Talmud, Avot 1:1), that means they
tried to keep adherents of different faith from the information of their
doctrinal statement, and the “Name in detail” with the description of the deity
must have been hidden in secret with particular care. The statement that
Shem ha-Mephorash is presented as a combination of 72 angel names, which is set
out in some cabalistic texts, is such protection from curiosity of the
profanes.
The fictitious angel name offered by the Middle Ages cabalists only
confirms existence of the real “Name in detail” which was tried to hide behind
an ornate myth. This name is known by
every reader of the Bible, it is
represented in the famous scene of Moses’s meeting with the God of Israel who
showed his worth in the wonder of Burning Bush. “Moses said to God,
“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has
sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell
them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to
the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Ex. 3:13-14). In the Judaic
original of the name-epithet “I am who I am” they use the verb hаjаh היה – “be”, “exist”,
and it is pronounced as ehyeh asher ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה
אֲשֶׁר
אֶהְיֶה). In Septuagint
the self-name Yahweh is interpreted as Eγω είμι ό ων.
Here we see the name-epithet characterizing the deity in accordance with the
conceptualization of believers. All ancient gods had such names-epithets. For instance, Zeus was called Thunderer (like
Jupiter had a name Fulgurator – “Fulminating”), Apollo was “Kithara player”
(Kithared), the name-epithet of Demeter was “Fruit Benefactress”, the Egyptian Ptah
was “He who is behind the southern wall”, Anubis was “The First of western
inhabitants”, etc. Yahweh also had the name-epithet presented Exodus 3:14.
Many exegetes and biblical scholars interpreted
the phrase “I am who I am” as reflection of absolute and transcendent existence
of the God. Though, such interpretation of the Yahweh name-epithet of the God
does not seem valid. “The translators created so-called Septuagint, much
to delight of all philosophizing theologians of the Middle Ages, described the
famous self-description of the Biblical God ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh in terms of
Greek ontologism ego eimi ho on (I am who I am). But the Judaic
verb “hayah” does not mean “be” but “be actually present”; it does not
characterize some essence but existence. And here the question is about life but
not esse; about reality but not essence… The entire idea of Egyptians, Babylonians
and Yahud in their utter achievements is
not philosophy as the object of the idea is not “genesis” but “life”, not
“essence” but “existence”, and it does not use “categories” but indiscrete
symbols of human self-awareness-in-the-world. It quintessentially excludes
technical and methodical “correctness” of true philosophy” / Sergei Averintsev.
Greek "Literature" and Middle Eastern “Philology”/. The mystical
characterization of Yahweh, given by the author of Exodus, cannot be
explained through the notions appeared some centuries later and used in a
different cultural and religious environment.
Quite long ago in Biblical exegetics they offered a version that the full
name of Yahweh is presented in Ex. 3:14 in a contorted form. “In its real form
the phrase is meaningless.3 However, initially its meaning revealed the
content of the tetragram. Later the phrase became subject to editing, that is
why it is necessary to restore its initial form to elicit its original sense”. /Vestel
Y. “Ineffable Name”. http://www.word4you.ru/publications/17515/ Such contortion was not at all
unusual, it occurs repeatedly in Old Covenant texts, and they even received a
certain name - Tiqqun soferim «corrections of scribes». The cause of willful
contortion of the name-epithet Yahweh is not a secret. In ancient times they
believed that to know the entire true name of the deity means to obtain
supernatural abilities, and articulation of the name only enchants unprecedented
power. Such conceptualization, which can be viewed as magic superstition
though, continued in Judaism for quite long. “In the
In both citations the author asks a rhetorical
question: “What do you ask about My Name?” which is directed to the readers –
his contemporary adherents. For them the sacred name Yahweh seemed highly
valuable religious information. The author eluded that for such gnosis they had
to have the particular right, which only priests had. It is highly unlikely for
them to share the exclusive information with profanes, that is why we can
assert that in Ex. 3:14 the name-epithet Yahweh was written down in a contorted
or incomplete form.
It is long since appearance of Exodus with the contorted variant of the vast name-epithet Yahweh, and
its true sounding seems completely impossible now to restore. However
fortunately, it is not so. Authors of Biblical texts “gave the information
away” in artistic presentations of their deity, and thereby prompted the
wishing to unravel the ancient mystery.
The first prompt is in the same third chapter
of Exodus, where Yahweh says about himself: “I am Existing”. Now Moses
was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Madian, and he
led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the
The wonder with the nonburning bush was
explained long ago. There is a natural plant which does not burn on fire. It is
widely common in Europe and Asia, including the
The second prompt is the description of the
deity visitation in Judg. Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the
grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord. And
the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife
watched: As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of
the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell
with their faces to the ground. When the angel of the Lord did not
show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the
angel of the Lord. “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We
have seen God!” (Judg.
13:19-22). In real material
altar flame, like in the burning bush, it was the prosopopoeia of Yahweh, and
like in the burning bush the angel stayed harmless on fire.
Now let us consider the description of the God of Israel in Ezekiel which occur twice in the text and are
repeated almost literally. “Above the vault over their heads was what
looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure
like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked
like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like
fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a
rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.” (Ezek.
1:26-28). “In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was
sitting in my house and the elders of
In another famous Biblical vision presented in Daniel,
Yahweh is similized to a spiritual elder sitting on the burning throne. “As I looked, “thrones were set in place, and
the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair
of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its
wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before
him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand
stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.” (Dan. 7:9-10).
In Daniel the God of Israel can be on fire and gift His just men with flame invincibility “Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace… Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” (Dan. 3:19-21, 24-25).
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who refused to worship
the golden calf were not at all injured in glowing furnace. Moreover, there
supernaturally appeared the fourth character who is likened to “the God’s son”
by the author. That was the name of the proof against fire character in the
translation of Theodotion, the Judaist proselyte in II century A.D., who used
the earlier versions of Daniel. The variant of Theodotion translation Hieronymus
used in his Vulgate, and it is presented in classical KJV (version NIV –
son of the gods, follows the later Masoretic version of the text). Apparently,
the “God’s son” was a the fiery angel – the incarnation of Yahweh himself (like
in Judg. 13:19-22), who freely lived in hottest flame.
Thus, Yahweh like other deities of that time beside a personal name
(Yahu) had also a name-epithet. The variant we know is presented in Exodus
3:14 – “I am who I am”, is very indeterminate, but initially the name-epithet
of a deity must be clear to believers. The reason of the name’s contortion
could only be a responsible decision of the author to conceal the holy epithet
from readers of the text.
But we have the larger part of the sacred name-epithet,
and we know its meaning: “...The phrase אֶהְיֶה
אֲשֶׁר
אֶהְיֶה most likely meant "He who is
Alive” /Brockhaus and Efron Jewish
Encyclopedia/. And what was removed from the name-epithet in Ex. 3:14 then? Let us take the description of Yahweh given above
and see what unites all of them – the deity is described as one living in flame
as at home. Then the sacred name-epithet of the deity must mention the most
important attribute of Yahweh, and it sounded as “He who lives in fire”, or “Living
in Flame” as more poetic-sounding.
The Biblical Hebrew for the name together with
the word “fire” - אֵשׁ
(esh), makes אֶהְיֶה
אֲשֶׁר
אֶהְיֶה
בָּאֵשׁ –Ehye asher Ehye ba-esh. It
is the sacred name
of Yahweh.
It is interesting that in Bible this
secret and for many centuries forgotten name Yahweh was mentioned, but is used to characterize a person who progressed
to religious and moral goodness. “You who are far away, hear what I have done;
you who are near, acknowledge my power! The sinners in
Isaiah on behalf of the deity promised the men
of God a supernatural ability “to live in consuming flame”. But the case is not
about afterlife destiny as transfer to some weird fire mixture of paradise and
hell, some after world mansion of eternal flame which is only safe for Yahwism
followers. No, the prophet promises to grant the ability even in mortal life.
If to understand the prophet’s words literally, some puzzle questions will
occur: why to live in consuming flame? What is good in it? But if Living in Flame was the sacred name of
Yahweh, Isaiah’s words can be understood: he tells about the sanctified approaching
and even assimilating with their deity. The ancient daunting image of “eating flame”4 in the prophet’s conceptualization
became linked with the idea of moral perfection, so to say flaming model of
sainthood.5
Conceptualization about life in flame as the most
significant award for religious asceticism explains also the mystic tale about the
ascension of Elijah the Prophet. “When the Lord was about to take
Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from
Gilgal… As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of
fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went
up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My
father! The chariots and horsemen of
Precisely this conceptualization was also stated
in Book of Zechariah (VI B.C.). The author on behalf of Yahweh promises depopulation
of the larger part of humanity, and the rest are promised immersion into fire;
it will not kill them, though but proselyte to Yahwism. “In the whole land,”
declares the Lord, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet
one-third will be left in it. This third I will put into the fire; I will
refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and
I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say,
‘The Lord is our God.’” (Zech. 13:8-9). New
According to the prophet Zechariah (VI B.C.),
Yahweh could cover the entire capital of
Prophet Zechariah promised the fire presence of
Yahweh in
In Bible, however, we can find
one fragment which seems a forcible argument against the hypothesis in focus.
In 1 Kings prophet Elijah “traveled forty days and forty nights until he
reached Horeb, the
Is it possible for the readers the text was for
could seek the God in an earthquake and fire? Yes. They could. Again and again
in Old Covenant texts of theophany Yahweh was described as volcanic explosion. “…You
stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me,
“Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to
revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their
children.” You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it
blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep
darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you
out of the fire. ” (Deut. 4:10-12). “The earth trembled and quaked, and
the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.
Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals
blazed out of it.” (Ps. 18:7-8). “
The Yahweh neophytes remained adepts of the
volcano deity and worshiped him at heights (probably, they were waiting for an
underground fire to get away from the mountain tops). Religious zeal was
maintained with tales about unprecedented power of the underground god of
volcanoes and earthquakes; unlike other gods represented in motionless statues,
Yahweh was “alive”, and manifested himself with terrible rumble, ruinous earth
tremor, streams of lava – “eating fire”, and burning hot ashes pour with choking
sulfur odor. Correspondingly, natural disasters causing thousands of people’s
deaths (see foe example, Gen. 19:24-25, Deut. 29:23, Jer. 49:18), ascribed
Yahweh and declared fair and necessary extermination of hopeless sinners. “I
overthrew some of you as I overthrew
Natural disasters happened relatively rare, and
priests and prophets had to constantly remind about their deity might. “In my
zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great
earthquake in the
But there was no the key concept in Yahweh
worship, which is religious contemplation of fire-breathing sanctity during a
volcano explosion, so believers used to hear about the power of their deity for
centuries but never witnessed his destroying fire. They could think that he
cancelled the testament and left his stubborn nation. “This is what
the Lord says: “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they
strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless
themselves. They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of
Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and
ravines, a land of drought and utter darkness, a land where no one travels and
no one lives?’” (Jer. 2:5-6). With no observation of threatening power of
Yahweh, the ancient Jewish people gradually turned to traditional Semitic gods
of
In response to the religious crises Yahweh
templar cult was introduced, the same as in other Middle-Eastern religions. The
image of the deity created by the witnesses of Madian volcano explosion –
rumbling flame at the top of the mountain – was also rejected; they tried to
represent Yahweh as the lord of the entire environment but not only underground
fire. “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he
stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers
on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the
wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants.” (Ps.
103:2-4). Because of that many Biblical
texts mention an underground deity who can shake earth and split mountains,
alongside with the later descriptions of Yahweh as the lord of the entire
Universe.
It is to overcome archaic conceptualization
about the Lord, the author of 1 Kings purposely explains: “after the
earthquake there is fire, but the God is not in it”; there is no need to seek
the deity in material volcanic ash.”7
But such clarification shows that there was conceptualization of Yahweh as The Living in Fire! And it remains,
according to the above Biblical portrait of the fire deity, but now his fire
was supposed to be supernatural.
Still surviving apocryphal works help us imagine how the God of Israel
was pictured in Judaic tradition of I Thd. A.D.. Some of them are dedicated to Enoch,
a Biblical character, who is supposed to be taken alive to the heaven, like the
prophet Elijah. In the so-called Ethiopic Book of Enoch (named for the
place of discovery of the ancient text), Yahweh was literally The Living in Flame of the celestial
palace hidden behind the fire wall. “And the vision was shown to me thus:
Behold, in the vision clouds invited me and a mist summoned me, and the course
of the stars and the lightning’s sped and hastened me, and the winds in the
vision caused me to fly and lifted me upward, and bore me into heaven.8 And I went in till I drew nigh to a
wall which is built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire: and it began
to affright me. And I went into the tongues of fire and drew nigh to a large
house which was built of crystals...” (chapter 14; translated by R. H. Charles).
/ http://wesley.nnu.edu/index.php?id=2126
/ As we see, the after world hall of The
Living was bounded by everlasting fire.
The flamy image of Yahweh is also described in The Second Book
of Enoch (there is only the later translation of this Judaic apocryphal
work into Old Slavic preserved). “Listen my children, for it is not from my own
lips that I am reporting to you today, but from The Lips of The Lord, I have been
sent to you. For you hear my words, out of my lips, out of my lips, a human
being created exactly equal to yourselves; but I have heard from The Fiery Lips
of The Lord. For The Lips of The Lord are a furnace of fire, and His angels are
flames which come out. But you, my children, see my face, a human being created
exactly like yourselves; but I am one who has seen The Face of The Lord, like
iron made burning hot by a fire, and it is brought out, and it emits sparks and
it is incandescent. You gaze into my eyes, a human being equal in significance
as yourself; but I have gazed into the eyes of the Lord; shining like the rays
of the sun and terrifying the eyes of a human being.” (chapter
39). / Cit. ex: http://sonnen.tripod.com/enoch4.html/
The Book of the Palaces apocryphal work (its other name is Hebrew
book of Enoch with approximate dating V-VI centuries A.D.) tells how Enoch
himself was liken to Angel Metatron and passed into a living fire. “As soon as
the Holy One, blessed be He, took me in (His) service to attend the Throne of
Glory and the Wheels (Galgallim) of the Merkaba and the needs of Shekina,
forthwith my flesh was changed into flames, my sinews into flaming fire, my
bones into coals of burning juniper, the light of my eye-lids into splendour of
lightings, my eye-balls into fire-brands, the hair of my head into dot flames,
all my limbs into wings of burning fire and the whole of my body into glowing
fire.” (15:1). /Cit. ex: https://archive.org/stream/HebrewBookOfEnochenoch3/BookOfEnoch3_djvu.txt
tr. by H. Odenberg/
The
frightening image of Yahweh was critically reexamined in many texts of gnostic Christians,
who considered the World Creator an imperfect and even fierce after world
substance principally different from good everlasting Deity. No wonder that the
image of the deity creating destroying fire was looked at exceptionally
negatively by Gnostics, and the reasons they gave were taken from the written
and oral tradition of Yahweh followers. For instance, the description in the
so-called Gospel of
Judas correlates clearly with the above given description of the flamy
face of Yahweh in The Second Book of Enoch: “And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel]
whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name
was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth”. (tr. by R. Kasser,
M. Meyer, and G. Wurst, in collaboration with Fr. Gaudard). /http://southerncrossreview.org/49/gospel-judas.htm
/
It is fair to assume that the authors of some
gnostic text knew the sacred name-epithet of Yahweh. In The Apocryphon of
John there is a tale about genesis of the creator and the archon of the
material world, identified with Yahweh. The mother of this imperfect deity,
Sophia (Wisdom), is one of the celestial hypostasis of Pleroma -
The flamy deity of
But not only “heretics” provide validation of
the hypothesis about The Living in Fire in
early Christian writings. The sacred name Yahweh is mentioned by Ephrem the
Syrian, one of the great doctors of
Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus Flavius contain validation
of the hypothesis about the sacred name of Yahweh. In this book the Jewish
historian, among other things, tells how a high priest’s garments looked like.
He came out of the noble priestal kin, and his detailed description of ceremonial
clothes of the high priest of the
This description is close to the Old Covenant
tale about the headwear of high priest: «“Make a plate of pure gold and engrave
on it as on a seal: Holy to the Lord. Fasten a blue cord to it
to attach it to the turban; it is to be on the front of the turban. It
will be on Aaron’s forehead, and he will bear the guilt involved in the sacred
gifts the Israelites consecrate, whatever their gifts may be. It will be on
Aaron’s forehead continually so that they will be acceptable to the Lord»
(Ex. 28:36-38). However, Josephus Flavius directly pointed that the holy name
was carved on the forehead metal plate (the name of God
in sacred characters). Does it turn out that the author of Exodus divulged the sacred name Holy to
the Lord (קֹדֶשׁ
לַיהוָה
– kodesh li-Yahweh)?
Certainly, it did not happen. The sacred thing
is a ceremonial term which meant “devoted to Yahweh”; that was also the name
for a tithe (see Lev. 27:32), and sacrificial meat (see Ex. 29:30-33, Lev. 9:17
etc.), and the objects for religious rituals. Moreover, Old Testament contains a vaticination that this kind of
sacred thing will be even cooking pots of
But Josephus Flavius left behind exceptionally
valuable information about the appearance of the sacred diadem. “Furthermore,
the head-dress [of the high priest] appears to me to symbolize heaven, being
blue; else it would not have borne upon it the name of God, blazoned upon the
crown – a crown, moreover, of gold by reason of that sheen in which the Deity most delights” (Ant.,
III, 7, 7, Translated by Henry St. John Thackeray). Josephus Flavius compared
the diadem with a flower (see The Jewish Antiquities III, 7, 6), and
pointed that it expresses the “sheen in which the Deity”. The Judaic the diadem
really means tzitz – “flower” (צִּיץ, Strong's
Number H 6692a), and according to Josephus Flavius, it resembled the corona of
a flower. But the initial meanings of the word tzitz were “spark”, “gleam”. It
is expected that the “flower” did not represent some after world sparkling, but
the fire erupted from the volcanic vent of Horeb. And the escapists from
Let us come back to the phrase Shem ha-Mephorash, which, as we have ascertained,
meant the sacred name of Yahweh, The
Living in Fire. Now there appeared a chance to learn important information
about the use of the name-epithet in temple rituals. “Shem ha-Mephorash means
literally the name clearly articulated, i.e. that name of the God which the
high priest articulated distinctly on the Day of Atonement reading Lev. 16, 30,
at the time of confession of sins (Yoma, IV, 2)”. /Brockhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia, http://brockhaus-efron-jewish-encyclopedia.ru/beje/25-1/218.htm/ Yom Kippur is the main holiday of
Judaism, and the most suitable moment to articulate the sacred name Yahweh. “I beseech thee, [Name],11 I have committed iniquities,
transgressed, and sinned before Thee, I and my house, and the sons of Aaron,
Thy holy people: I beseech Thee, [Name], forgive the iniquities,
transgressions, and sins which I have committed, transgressed, and sinned, I
and my house, and the sons of Aaron, Thy holy people, as it is written in the
Torah of Moses Thy servant: 'For on that day shall he make atonement for you,
to cleanse you from all your sins, that ye may be pure before Jehovah.” (Talmud, Yoma, IV, 2; tr. by M. L.
Rodkinson) / http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t03/yom09.htm /
The sacred name of Yahweh sounded in The Temple
by the high priest only once a year, at the time of Yom Kippur. In that case,
the attendees did not repeat it aloud, but in response to the prayer of the
chief cohen, they said: “Blessed the
glorious, kingly name of him for all eternity”. Consequently, the sacred
name was called during the prayer on Yom Kippur, and it was widely known by not
only The Temple priests, but also by all Yahweh worshipers, thereby, it
remained tabooed for free articulation12
and spelling in religious texts. The only legal way to mention The Living in Fire was his metaphoric
descriptions found repeatedly in the Bible.
Also it is necessary to accept that the popular variant of “the name in
detail” - Shem ha-Mephorash - is not exactly correct. Firstly, the word Shem –
“name” – needs to take the definite article ha - ה, and then the word is understood as “that very
name”, or “the Name with the capital letter”, i.e. the name-epithet of the
flamy deity which is not called. Probable, the tradition of Shem ha-Mephorash
with no article came to stay on purpose, in order not to call the God’s name in
“vein”. Secondly, that was possibly the same reason to contort the
pronunciation of the last syllable, instead of “-ash” there must have been
“-esh”.
That exactly – Ha-Shem ha-Mephoresh, the form
of the sacred name in numerous sources, both medieval and contemporary. The text
of anathema (herem) of heretics drawn up by a Judaic community in
הַשֵם הַמְפוֹרָש
אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה בָּאֵשׁ
Ha-Shem ha-Mephoresh –
Ehyeh asher ehyeh ba-esh
It was only the high priest who articulated Ha-Shem
ha-Mephoresh on the holiday of Yom Kippur, addressing to Yahweh with pleas for the
nation forgiveness. This distich is the
first lines of the prayer and, at the same time, the formula of the short
“article of faith” of Yahweh adepts. It can be expected that in such a prayer
there was personal claim to Yahweh, for the sacred and tabooed name was
only articulated during a special appeal
of the high priest to the deity, that is why the variant articulated on Yom
Kippur, must take personal claim:
Your revealed name –
The Living in Fire!
There is
one more important detail: this prayer claim has a noticeable similarity with
the beginning of Lord's
Prayer, the main Christian prayer.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name...
It is extremely improbable that similarity of
the sacred claims to Yahweh, which we found, and the first lines of Lord's Prayer
is accidental. In addition, it was quite long ago, when the Biblical scholars
noticed similarity of the prayer Lord's prayer with the ancient variant of the
prayer Kaddish (קַדִּישׁ),
which was read in Aramaic in synagogues as far as I century A.D.:
May His great name be exalted and
sanctified
in the world which He created according to His
will!
May He establish His kingdom
and may His salvation blossom and His anointed
be near
during your lifetime and during your days
and during the lifetimes of all the House of
Israel,
speedily and very soon!
May His great name be blessed
for ever, and to all eternity!
As we see, the prayers are similar in the form,
but there is no direct appeal to the God in Kaddish; there no “His great name”;
the prayer seems beheaded. Who is “He” the believers appeal? In Kaddish there is neither Yahweh nor any other
deities’ names. This is a very weird peculiarity of the prayer, but is is
easily explained, though – Kaddish used “the great name” which was tabooed for commonplace, “profane”
articulation. As we know from Talmud, the direct appeal to the
deity with his sacred name was permitted only to the high priest, and it
happened in the
This sacred formula lets unravel the mystery of “the great name of three simple
letters”, which is mentioned in the famous cabalistic treatise Sefer
Yetzirah – Book of Formation (neo hebraic ספר
יצירה). This text
dated back earlier than IV century A.D., tells about creation of the material
and another worlds, and it happened with the letters of Hebrew alphabet. The
God, according to Sefer Yetzirah, combined
letters in various sequence and, and thus, created the Universe. “He
chose three simple letters and fixed them in His great Name. And He sealed with
them the six edges [of the world]… Three mother letters: א מ ש
(alef, mem, shin) – a great mystery, hidden and ineffable, and sealed
with six seals. And from it goes out fire, and water and air, and it is divided
into male and female... Three mother letters: א
מ ש (alef, mem, shin). And from them were
born three fathers from whom everything was created”.
The “great Name” can only be understood as the
deity’s sacred name; it means, the author of Sefer Yetzirah thought it had three letters - Alef, Mem, Shin.
Then, it seems that the hypothesis about The
Living in Flame” (אֶהְיֶה
אֲשֶׁר
אֶהְיֶה
בָּאֵשׁ) as “the great
Name” turns out deadly contradicting to cabalistic conceptualization.
But if to attempt to reconstruct this brief
three-letter “name” through sorting combinations of ש; א ;מ,
the results received do not correspond the sacred name. Could the letters act
as abstract symbols, and did not need to make words from? However, in my
opinion, the ancient cabalistic mystery can be unraveled after all.
Here is the first prompt, from the characteristic of Sefer Yetzirah in On-line Jewish Encyclopedia: “The lexicon (especially in the first chapter) reminds the dictionary of mystic works of so-called sifrut ha-merkava (the literature of the chariot)”. Merkava is the fiery whirlwinds of The Living in Flame Yahweh: “His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.” (Dan. 7:9), and the same image of the deity is given in the works of mystic cabalists of I Thd. A.D. In particular, there is a description how a religious visionist addresses to Yahweh with a request “not to be lured into fire and flame, whirlwind and storm that rage around You, o You, Frightful and High”. (Fragment from the work by Merkava Rabbah from Merkava Shlema work collection; cit. ex: Шолем Гершом - Основные течения в еврейской мистике. М., 2004, С. 87). Actually, cabalists also considered the God to be The Living in Flame, and in the secret name with three letters we need to seek the word “fire” (esh, אֵש). It is tolled about in в Sefer Yetzirah: “He made the letter Shin king over Fire. He tied a crown to it and combined it with the other letters. With them He formed heaven in Space, winter in Time and the head in Soul…” (Chapter 3. Mishna 9).
The second prompt: “According to Sefer Yetzirah,
all real substances in three layers of genesis – in the world, in time and in a
human body (“world”, “year”, “soul”) appeared due to the combination of 22
letters and especially due to the
combination of the letters in pairs…” You cannot make a pair with three
letters, but it is possible to combine two pairs if to use one of the letters
twice.
The next steps are simple. The first pair of
the sacred letters in the full “flamy” name is the word “fire” אֵש. To determine
the second pair from “Three mother letters”, one needs to find the “half” for
letter Mem. It is either Mem + Alef, or Mem + Shin in various sequence. But it
is not necessary - Shem ha-Meforesh begins with Shin+Mem and forms the word
“name”. That is all, the words, which were used to create the Universe,
according to Sefer Yetzirah, are found.
Name – Fire
שֵׁם –אֵשׁ
Shem – esh
We see that the name formed from “Three mother
letters”, corresponds in sense to the sacred formula of Yahwism: The revealed name is The Living in Flame. But the most striking is that, “the Name
in detail” begins and ends with the words forming the short great name (which must
be called Ha-Shem, “this Name”), and repeating the sacred description of
Yahweh. The short great name of Yahweh appeared symmetrical, two words with two
syllables, one of them starts, and another “closes” with letter Shin. Such
surprising balance could definitely be considered by Judaic mystics as an
attribute of supernatural origin of the sacred formula.
הַ
שֵם
הַמְפוֹרָש
אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה בַָּ אֵש
Now it becomes clear why cabalists understood “three simple letters” as a symbol of the celestial judgment: “Three mother letters: א מ ש (alef, mem, shin). Their basis is the scale of acquittal and the scale of guilt, and the tongue of law holds the balance between them.” “The tongue of the scale of law” is letter Shin ש: if it bends to Mem, it forms the word “Name”, which can only mean the God’s blessing; if it bends to Alef, it makes the word “fire” with the meaning of punishing flame of Yahweh.
It is fair to assume that the brief “Name – Fire”,13 but not the wordy “Name in detail”, could be inscribed on the corona of the diadem of the high priest. The gold slab on the forehead with the fire of Yahweh on it was rather small in size, and it could have enough place and be noticeable for believers only four letters of the true sacred the Tetragrammaton:
1 It is highly likely that the name of the God of Israel was exactly
articulated as Yahu. At any rate, it is the only variant of the Tetragrammaton
which occurs repeatedly in Elephantine Papyri, the records of the
military post of Judaist contractors, who served in the
2 Obviously, the text was chosen by
its title, Exodus in Judaism
is called Shmot – “Names”.
3 This “senselessness” of the name-epithet
Yahweh served as a base to its apophatic interpretation, which was founded on
admition that a human mind is not able to gain an insight into the God on
principle, and all the attributes applied to the God will be incomplete and insufficient. Such interpretation supporters thought that
Yahweh in Ex. 3:14 introduced himself to Moses indefinitely and mysteriously on
purpose in order to point to his incomprehensibility for humans. Philo of
Alexandria: “And God said, "At first say unto them, I am that I am, that
when they have learnt that there is a difference between him that is and him
that is not, they may be further taught that there is no name whatever that can
properly be assigned to me, who am the only being to whom existence belongs”. (Mos.
I, 75; tr. by Ch. D. Yonge).
4 “When the sun had set and darkness
had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between
the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and
said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the
great river, the
5 So-called Second Isaiah, the
unknown author of оf VI
B.C., also promised the Yahweh adepts тоже invincibility in fire power. “When you pass through
the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will
not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the
flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy
One of
6 The hypothesis about “volcanic origin” of
Yahweh worship was offered by researchers of Bible quite long ago, and
validated by many authors. Here are some works where the given hypothesis is
proved: Charles Beke,
7 “…Tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks” (1 Kings. 19:11) there
is no wind in nature. Why did the author allow such exaggeration? But in the Judaic
original of the text they do not say about wind, but use the word רוּח – ”spirit”, “breath”. It could be the citation from the ancient
legendary, in which they tried to describe emission of volcanic gases and ashes
"before" by the God, i.e. at the very beginning of volcanic
explosion?
8 Philo of Alexandria: “For it is
impossible for even so slight a portion of the earth to touch the heaven,
by reason of the cause before mentioned, that no centre can ever touch the
circumference; in the second place, because the ether is sacred fire and an
unquenchable flame... If, then, these things are so, was it not necessary
that those men who were endeavoring to mount up to heaven must have been
stricken with thunderbolts and burnt up, their high-minded and proud designs
being unaccomplished by them?” (On the confusion of tongues. XXX.
156-158, Tr. вy Ch. D. Yonge).
/ http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book15.html /
9 “For in the long garment was the
whole world, and in the four rows of the stones was the glory of the fathers
graven, and thy Majesty upon the diadem of his head.” (Wisdom of
Solomon, 18:24; King James version).
10 The chief priest wore The Sacred diadem
throughout the year, and on Yom Kippur only he took off all ritual paraphernalia
and put on white clothes before entering the Holy of Holies of the
11 An
English translator substituted here the unique name Shem ha-Mephorash by the
artificial “name” Jehovah. But in Russian translation by N. Pereferkovich (Н.
Переферкович) it is said that during the holiday of Yom Kippur the high
priest would utter a special sacred name. See: Талмуд, критич. пер. Н.
Переферковича. М, 2004 – 2005, Т. 2 (Кн. 3 и 4) : Мишна
и Тосефта. - Репр.: СПб.,
12 There is one more reference to articulation of “the Name in detail”.
“In interpretation of Numbers 6, 27 Sifre, ad locum, instead of the Biblical
word “My name” uses the term Shem ha-Mephorash”. /http://brockhaus-efron-jewish-encyclopedia.ru/beje/25-1/218.htm/ The Sifre is halakhic midrash
to Deuteronomy and Numbers,
and what is involves is the line: “So they will put my name on the Israelites,
and I will bless them.” (Num. 6:27). Obviously, here they understand the sacral
service on the holiday of Yom Kippur, but there could be some other special
rituals when Yahweh was called by his true name – The Living in Fire.
13 “See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.” (Ex. 30:27). The metaphor Isaiah seems a little weird – how can a name come? But if “name” meant continuation – “fire”, the Yahweh reader immediately understood the author’s idea: it is referred to a stream of fire, or more exactly, to “the tongue” of а glowing avalanche which was considered the supernatural manifestation of Yahweh.