(2 Kings viii. 25–29), and the incident—with the wounding of the Israelite king in or about the critical year 842 B.C.—finds a noteworthy parallel in the time of Jehoshaphat and Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 29–36) at the period of the equally momentous events in 854 (see Ahab). See further Jehu.
2. The son of Jehoshaphat and king of Judah. He married Athaliah the daughter of Ahab, and thus was brother-in-law of 1. above, and contemporary with him (2 Kings i. 17). In his days Edom revolted, and this with the mention of Libnah’s revolt (2 Kings viii. 20 sqq.) suggests some common action on the part of Philistines and Edomites. The chronicler’s account of his life (2 Chron. xxi–xxii. 1) presupposes this, but adds many remarkable details: he began his reign by massacring his brethren (cf. Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, and his bloodshed, 2 Kings ix. seq.); for his wickedness he received a communication from Elijah foretelling his death from disease (cf. Elijah and Ahaziah of Israel, 2 Kings i.); in a great invasion of Philistines and Arabian tribes he lost all his possessions and family, and only Jehoahaz (i.e. Ahaziah) was saved.[1] His son Ahaziah reigned only for a year (cf. his namesake of Israel); he is condemned for his Israelite sympathies, and met his end in the general butchery which attended the accession of Jehu (2 Kings viii. 25 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxii. 3 seq., 7; with 2 Kings ix. 27 seq., note the variant tradition in 2 Chron. xxii. 8 seq., and the details which the LXX. (Lucian) appends to 2 Kings x.). (S. A. C.)
JEHOSHAPHAT (Heb. “Yahweh judges”), in the Bible,
son of Asa, and king of Judah, in the 9th century B.C. During
his period close relations subsisted between Israel and Judah;
the two royal houses were connected by marriage (see Athaliah;
Jehoram, 2), and undertook joint enterprise in war and commerce.
Jehoshaphat aided Ahab in the battle against Benhadad at
Ramoth-Gilead in which Ahab was slain (1 Kings xxii.; 2 Chron.
xviii.; cf. the parallel incident in 2 Kings viii. 25–29), and trading
journeys to Ophir were undertaken by his fleet in conjunction
no doubt with Ahab as well as with his son Ahaziah (2 Chron.
xx. 35 sqq.; 1 Kings xxii. 47 sqq.). The chronicler’s account
of his war against Moab, Ammon and Edomite tribes (2 Chron.
xx.), must rest ultimately upon a tradition which is presupposed
in the earlier source (1 Kings xxii. 47), and the disaster to the
ships at Ezion-Geber at the head of the Gulf of Aḳaba preceded,
if it was not the introduction to, the great revolt in the days
of Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram, where, again, the details in
2 Chron. xxi. must rely in the first instance upon an old source.
Apart from what is said of Jehoshaphat’s legislative measures
(2 Chron. xix. 4 sqq.; cf. the meaning of his name above), an
account is preserved of his alliance with Jehoram of Israel
against Moab (2 Kings iii.), on which see Jehoram; Moab. The
“valley of Jehoshaphat” (Joel iii. 12) has been identified by
tradition (as old as Eusebius) with the valley between Jerusalem
and the mount of Olives. (S. A. C.)
JEHOVAH (Yahweh[2]), in the Bible, the God of Israel.
“Jehovah” is a modern mispronunciation of the Hebrew name,
resulting from combining the consonants of that name, Jhvh,
with the vowels of the word ădōnāy, “Lord,” which the Jews
substituted for the proper name in reading the scriptures. In
such cases of substitution the vowels of the word which is to be
read are written in the Hebrew text with the consonants of the
word which is not to be read. The consonants of the word to
be substituted are ordinarily written in the margin; but inasmuch
as Adonay was regularly read instead of the ineffable name Jhvh,
it was deemed unnecessary to note the fact at every occurrence.
When Christian scholars began to study the Old Testament in
Hebrew, if they were ignorant of this general rule or regarded
the substitution as a piece of Jewish superstition, reading what
actually stood in the text, they would inevitably pronounce the
name Jĕhōvāh. It is an unprofitable inquiry who first made this
blunder; probably many fell into it independently. The statement
still commonly repeated that it originated with Petrus
Galatinus (1518) is erroneous; Jehova occurs in manuscripts
at least as early as the 14th century.
The form Jehovah was used in the 16th century by many authors, both Catholic and Protestant, and in the 17th was zealously defended by Fuller, Gataker, Leusden and others, against the criticisms of such scholars as Drusius, Cappellus and the elder Buxtorf. It appeared in the English Bible in Tyndale’s translation of the Pentateuch (1530), and is found in all English Protestant versions of the 16th century except that of Coverdale (1535). In the Authorized Version of 1611 it occurs in Exod. vi. 3; Ps. lxxxiii. 18; Isa. xii. 2; xxvi. 4, beside the compound names Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-shalom; elsewhere, in accordance with the usage of the ancient versions, Jhvh is represented by Lord (distinguished by capitals from the title “Lord,” Heb. adonay). In the Revised Version of 1885 Jehovah is retained in the places in which it stood in the A. V., and is introduced also in Exod. vi. 2, 6, 7, 8; Ps. lxviii. 20; Isa. xlix. 14; Jer. xvi. 21; Hab. iii. 19. The American committee which cooperated in the revision desired to employ the name Jehovah wherever Jhvh occurs in the original, and editions embodying their preferences are printed accordingly.
Several centuries before the Christian era the name Jhvh had ceased to be commonly used by the Jews. Some of the later writers in the Old Testament employ the appellative Elohim, God, prevailingly or exclusively; a collection of Psalms (Ps. xlii.–lxxxiii.) was revised by an editor who changed the Jhvh of the authors into Elohim (see e.g. xlv. 7; xlviii. 10; l. 7; li. 14); observe also the frequency of “the Most High,” “the God of Heaven,” “King of Heaven,” in Daniel, and of “Heaven” in First Maccabees. The oldest Greek versions (Septuagint), from the third century B.C., consistently use Κύριος, “Lord,” where the Hebrew has Jhvh, corresponding to the substitution of Adonay for Jhvh in reading the original; in books written in Greek in this period (e.g. Wisdom, 2 and 3 Maccabees), as in the New Testament, Κύριος takes the place of the name of God. Josephus, who as a priest knew the pronunciation of the name, declares that religion forbids him to divulge it; Philo calls it ineffable, and says that it is lawful for those only whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a holy place (that is, for priests in the Temple); and in another passage, commenting on Lev. xxiv. 15 seq.: “If any one, I do not say should blaspheme against the Lord of men and gods, but should even dare to utter his name unseasonably, let him expect the penalty of death.”[3]
Various motives may have concurred to bring about the suppression of the name. An instinctive feeling that a proper name for God implicitly recognizes the existence of other gods may have had some influence; reverence and the fear lest the holy name should be profaned among the heathen were potent reasons; but probably the most cogent motive was the desire to prevent the abuse of the name in magic. If so, the secrecy had the opposite effect; the name of the god of the Jews was one of the great names in magic, heathen as well as Jewish, and miraculous efficacy was attributed to the mere utterance of it.
In the liturgy of the Temple the name was pronounced in the priestly benediction (Num. vi. 27) after the regular daily sacrifice (in the synagogues a substitute—probably Adonay—was employed);[4] on the Day of Atonement the High Priest uttered the name ten times in his prayers and benediction. In the last generations before the fall of Jerusalem, however, it was pronounced in a low tone so that the sounds were lost in the chant of the priests.[5]
- ↑ These details are scarcely the invention of the chronicler; see Chronicles, and Expositor, Aug. 1906, p. 191.
- ↑ This form, Yahweh, as the correct one, is generally used in the separate articles throughout this work.
- ↑ See Josephus, Ant. ii. 12, 4; Philo, Vita Mosis, iii. 11 (ii. §114, ed. Cohn and Wendland); ib. iii. 27 (ii. § 206). The Palestinian authorities more correctly interpreted Lev. xxiv. 15 seq., not of the mere utterance of the name, but of the use of the name of God in blaspheming God.
- ↑ Siphrê, Num. §§ 39, 43; M. Sotah, iii. 7; Sotah, 38a. The tradition that the utterance of the name in the daily benedictions ceased with the death of Simeon the Just, two centuries or more before the Christian era, perhaps arose from a misunderstanding of Menaḥoth, 109b; in any case it cannot stand against the testimony of older and more authoritative texts.
- ↑ Yoma, 39b; Jer. Yoma, iii. 7; Kiddushin, 71a.
