…Covered YHWH

Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times in the Old Testament. Continued into the New Testament. Thomas saw the nail marks and recognized the name. The tradition covered the recognition with a title.

Part 4 of 5

 

Lord is the most consequential of the four translation choices in this series because it is doing double duty, covering YHWH six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times in the Old Testament, and then continuing into the New Testament where it covers the recognition of YHWH in the body of the risen Son. Every other translation in this series removed a declaration from the name or title of the one the gospel proclaims. This one removed the declaration from the name of YHWH himself, and then used the same word to flatten the moment when the risen Son showed that YHWH’s name had been confirmed in his body.

To understand what was covered, the name must first be heard in its own voice. Not as a theological concept. Not as a title of divinity in the abstract. As four Paleo-Hebrew pictographic letters drawn by Moshe in the wilderness approximately 1446 BCE, each one a picture, the four pictures together a declaration.

 

Yod י   —   A Hand or Arm

The working hand. The outstretched arm. The hand that acts, creates, reaches, and gives. The hand that is the first letter of the name, the hand that opens the declaration.

 

Heh ה   —   Behold — A Man With Arms Raised

The command to look, to see, to pay attention to what is being shown. YHWH gave the Heh, the behold, to Avraham and Sarah when he made covenant with them. He kept the Yod and the Vav for himself. He gave the covenant people the behold. He kept the hand and the nail.

 

Vav ו   —   A Nail or Tent Peg

The connector. The fastener. What holds two things together. The same letter enlarged at the center of the Torah in Leviticus 11:42, the nail at the heart of the covenant text, preserved in every Torah scroll ever written, declared as the center letter by the Babylonian Talmud.

 

Heh ה   —   Behold — Again

The second behold. The name is framed by two commands to look, behold at the opening, behold at the close, with the hand and the nail between them. Look at this: the hand, the nail. Look again. The declaration is not stated once. It is framed.

YHWH’s name is a sentence with emphasis: see the hand, see the nail, do not miss this.

 

Four letters. Four pictures.

One declaration: Behold the hand. Behold the nail. That is what the divine name says when it is read in the script Moshe used to write it. Not as an interpretation imposed from the outside. As the pictographic content of the letters themselves, established in the archaeological record, confirmed in every Paleo-Hebrew source from the exodus period forward.

This is the name that was removed six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times. Every time a psalm cries out to YHWH, the name being called upon was showing the hand and the nail. Every time a prophet declared thus says YHWH, the authority behind the declaration was the one whose name pictographically shows the hand and the nail. Every occurrence of the name across the Torah, the Psalms, and the Prophets was a pictographic declaration of the identity of the one who holds both sides of the covenant, the one whose hand would be pierced, whose body would bear the nail, whose destruction by his own willing hand was declared in the first word of the Torah before the name itself was introduced.

Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight occurrences. Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times the covenant text was showing the hand and the nail, and the name was replaced with a title of authority that showed nothing of the kind.

The title the LORD tells the reader that there is a God and he is Lord, authoritative, sovereign, in charge. This is true. It is not untrue. But it is a title of rank and authority, not a declaration of identity. The LORD says what God is. YHWH says who YHWH is. And who YHWH is, at the level of his own self-declaration in the four pictures of his name — is the one whose hand is the hand and whose nail is the nail. The identity declaration was covered by an authority declaration. And authority without identity tells you that someone is in charge without telling you who that someone is or what the name of the one in charge has been declaring since before the creation began.

Moshe said at the burning bush: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial, my zikaron, my reminder, to all generations. YHWH chose a name that would remind every generation of who he is at the level of pictographic declaration. Behold the hand. Behold the nail. Every generation was supposed to encounter the name and see the hand and the nail, and connect the declaration of the name to the declaration of the first word of the Torah, where the Son of God destroyed by his own hand on the cross was announced before anything was made. The name was the reminder. The reminder was removed. And the generations that followed read the LORD and encountered authority without identity, sovereignty without declaration, the God who is Lord without the name that showed whose hand was reaching and whose nail was being driven.

Now comes the New Testament, and Lord continues its work of covering, now in the opposite direction. If the Old Testament removal covered YHWH under a title of authority, the New Testament use of Lord covers the recognition of YHWH in the body of the risen Son under the same title. The most dramatic example is Thomas.

Yochanan (John) 20:28. Yeshua appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. Thomas had not been present at the earlier appearance and had said he would not believe unless he saw the nail marks in Yeshua’s hands. Yeshua appeared again and showed Thomas his hands.

And Thomas responded: ho Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou. The Greek is Kyrios, the same word the Septuagint had used to replace YHWH six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times in the Hebrew text. The English is my Lord and my God.

But read what Thomas was actually seeing. He was looking at the nail marks in the hands of the risen Yeshua. The hand, the Yod of the divine name. The nail, the Vav of the divine name. The two central letters of YHWH, behold the hand, behold the nail, were visible in the body of the one standing before him. Thomas was not expressing reverence for a superior. He was not giving Yeshua a title of authority and respect. He was reading the name of YHWH in the nail marks. The name that had been removed six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times had just been confirmed in the hands of the risen Son.

And Thomas declared it: my YHWH and my God. Behold the hand. Behold the nail. I see the name. I see who this is. The declaration the name had been making since Moshe first drew its four Paleo-Hebrew letters in the wilderness has just been written in flesh and confirmed in resurrection.

Thomas saw the nail marks in the hands of the risen Yeshua and declared my YHWH and my God. He was reading the name, behold the hand, behold the nail, in the body of the one the name had been pointing to since Moshe first wrote it. The tradition rendered it my Lord and my God. The recognition became a title of respect.

The same covering applies to Sha’ul’s declaration in Philippians 2. Sha’ul wrote that YHWH gave Yeshua the name above every name, and that at the name of Yeshua every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Yeshua HaMashiach is YHWH, to the glory of YHWH the Father. He was drawing directly from Yeshayahu 45 where YHWH says every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess to me. The confession Sha’ul declared was not that Yeshua has authority. It was that Yeshua is YHWH, that the name above every name, the name that Moshe wrote in four Paleo-Hebrew pictures declaring behold the hand, behold the nail, is the name that belongs to the Son and in which the Son is confessed. Every tongue confessing Yeshua HaMashiach is YHWH, is every tongue reading the hand and the nail in the body of the one the covenant testimony had been declaring from the beginning.

The English renders it Jesus Christ is Lord. The declaration that the name above every name is YHWH, that the confession is a declaration of identity rather than a declaration of authority, is covered under Lord. And the reader who encounters Jesus Christ is Lord hears a statement about authority and rank rather than a declaration that the nail marks in the hands of the risen Son are the confirmation of the name that was being removed six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times in the text that was supposed to carry it.

Lord is a title of authority. YHWH is a declaration of identity. When Thomas saw the nail marks he did not see authority. He saw the name. And the name said everything the covenant had been saying since the first word was written before the light was called.

There is one more dimension that must be named because it connects Document 4 to what Document 2 established about the name Jesus. Document 2 showed that Jesus confined him to a lifetime, a label that begins at a birth and cannot carry the one who was present before the creation. The removal of YHWH completes that confinement at the level of the Father’s name. When YHWH is replaced with Lord in the Old Testament, the eternal identity of the divine name — the I am, the one who declared this is my name forever, the one who was present in-beginning, disappears from the covenant text. And when Yeshua is replaced with Jesus in the New Testament, YHWH disappears from the Son’s name as well. Both removals together strip the eternal identity from every level of the gospel, from the Father’s name across six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight occurrences, and from the Son’s name in every occurrence. What remains is the LORD and Jesus, authority and biography, sovereignty and thirty-three years, with no eternal I am present in either name to carry the one who was declared in the first word of the Torah before anything was made. The two removals are not independent. They are the same act of covering, applied at two levels simultaneously, producing the same result: the eternal one cannot be seen through either name. He was always there. The names that were supposed to carry him were taken.

YHWH, Behold the hand. Behold the nail. Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times the text was showing this. The LORD showed nothing.

 

Lord: a title of authority. Declares rank.

YHWH: a declaration of identity. Shows the hand and the nail.

 

Removed six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times.

Thomas saw the nail marks and read the name.

The tradition covered the reading with a title.

 

Restore the name. Read what Thomas read. Behold the hand. Behold the nail.

 

The Gospel Revolution  •  Mike Williams Ministries

William Ethan Massengill  •  Michael Lilborn Williams  •  Daniel Thomas Rouse

Published by Audrey Williams