Yahweh

🏷  Bible name divine name hidden ruler pun · name   —   by Gerry · Nov 2020 · 2437 words

The mysterious tetragrammaton YHWH is one name of the Biblical God. It’s written יהוה yhwh, and often pronounced Yahweh or Jehova. It’s officially explained as a pun with the phrase “I am who I am”. But for our “hidden rulers”, yhwh may be mainly a pun with yḥbh for “hidden”. Several more puns are possible, all of which match Yahweh’s attributes & symbols.

As an extra disclaimer: I do not intend to insult God or religion here. I think there is nothing wrong with religion or the idea of a God in general. What I want to prove here is that the ruling aristocrats who have instituted religions — all religions, not just Judaism or monotheism — never believed in any religion, or in any god. To them, religions have always been mere tools, just like all other human institutions. So spookery is not a war of one religion against another, but a war by the most powerful humans against everyone else.

The Yahweh puns in a nutshell

All attributes of a deity are typically all similar to that deity’s name. This seems to be true for all cultures. I think this was a form of ancient poetry: At some point, early humans started worshiping abstract concepts as deities, like “life”, “death”, “fertility”. Since there was no way to depict the underlying abstract concepts, they chose symbols & attributes from words that were similar. Later, corrupt rulers promoted those deities whose names were by coincidence also similar to some corrupt concept, like “secrecy” or “disguise”.

At first glance, Yahweh is not such a deity created from poetry: He is a God without visible representation. He is a monotheistic God without special attributes that would separate him from other gods. And his name is unique, composed only of the vowel-type letters Y / H / W. The only word that is similar to his name is the Hebrew word for “to be”, as explained in the story: “I am who I am”.

But when we look closer, we can see that Yahweh has in fact many visible incarnations & attributes: In the Bible, Yahweh’s physical incarnations are the chest, the tent, the pillars of clouds & flame, and the burning bush. For each & every one of these, there exists a word that is similar to “Yahweh”. Also, even though Yahweh is a universal deity, his Biblical narrative has several recurring themes & aspects: He is a loving God, a punishing God, a creator God, a bestower of gifts, and he is the only God. For each & every one of these, there again exists a word that is similar to “Yahweh”. Most importantly, Yahweh has no depiction, i.e. he is “hidden”. Even here, there exists a word for “hidden” that is similar to “Yahweh”.

So it seems that Yahweh indeed originated from ancient poetry, like all other gods, and was perhaps elevated from earlier polytheistic worship among the large pantheon of Canaanite gods.

As for word similarity: Yahweh’s name is written yhwh, so one could think that the ancients considered only words with these letters similar. However, in practice all these letters were interchangeable with others: He with Ḥet, Waw with Bet, and Yod with any vowel. The ancient speakers would therefore consider many words to be “somewhat” similar to Yahweh. These are the words that were used for his symbols & attributes, to emphasize his core concepts through the similarity.

Most of these symbols & attributes are confirmed by the Biblical story of Yahweh. Some others are possible spook puns, like “hidden-ness” or “veiling”.

The combined name YHWH-Elohim then puns with “hidden rulers” and “banker lords”.

Semitic hyh for “to be”

The most common explanation for Yahweh / Jehovah is that the name is somehow related to the Exodus 3:14 phrase אהיה אשר אהיה ˀhyh ˀšr ˀhyh for “I am who I am”, and thus to the verb היה hyh which means “to be” or “to become”.

The idea here could be that an all-powerful omnipresent spiritual being is not created by anything else, but “is” simply there.

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

wyˀmr ˀlhym ˀl mšh ˀhyh ˀšr ˀhyh wyˀmr kh tˀmr lbny yšrˀl ˀhyh šlḥny ˀlykm

ויאמר אלהים אל משה אהיה אשר אהיה ויאמר כה תאמר לבני ישראל אהיה שלחני אליכם

Exodus 3:14

That verb meaning “to be” has many different grammar forms & spellings such as היה hyh / יהי yhy / יהיה yhyh / והיה whyh / יהוא yhwˀ / הוה hwh. A related form, indexed separately, is הוא hwˀ / הוה hwh for “to become”.

None of the occurrences quite matches YHWH. However, since the form יהוא yhwˀ occurs regularly, that’s maybe because later editors censored all occurrences of a mere grammatical yhwh into yhwˀ, switching the suffix He for Aleph. Apart from that, the verb “to be” can occur with practically any combination of vowels around an H, so the pun is valid.

Semitic ḥbh for “hidden”

We know how much the spook aristocrats are obsessed with their identity as “hidden rulers”, because almost all spook names mean either “hidden” or “ruler” or “hidden ruler”.

We also know that Elohim means “rulers”. To make Yahweh Elohim a “hidden ruler” pun, YHWH would need to pun with a word meaning “hidden”. And indeed it does.

Hebrew ḥbh, ḥbˀ = hidden, secret

יחבה yḥbh : Jehubbah, Jechubbah, Yechubbah; from chabah: hidden — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חבי ; חבא ; חבה ḥbh; ḥbˀ; ḥby : to cover, hide; to be hidden; to hide one’s self — Hebrew (Jastrow)

חבה ḥbh : to hide; he hid himself, was hidden — Hebrew (Klein)

חבה ḥbh : to withdraw, hide, conceal, to secrete, hide (self) — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חבא ḥbˀ : withdraw, hide, concealed, hide, hid, hidden, hushed, secretly — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חבוי ḥbwy : hidden — Hebrew (Klein)

חובי ḥwby : darkness; darkness — Aramaic (CAL)

Arabic ḫbˀ for “box”, “tent”, “veil”

The Semitic root ḥbˀ for “hiding” (written with Ḥet) surfaces in Arabic as ḫbˀ for “hiding”, “box”, “tent”, “veil” (written with Ḫa). Hebrew doesn’t have the letter Ḫa, so this is clearly the same word, with derived meanings. There’s also an Arabic grammar form yḫbˀ for “hiding”, which is again similar to Jehubbah / Jehovah.

As confirmation for this pun, we have the strange in-story feature of God residing in a literal box, the Arc of the Covenant, and also in a literal tent, the Tent of Meeting. Arabic ḫbˀ is a synonym for both “box” & “tent”, and also puns with Jehovah.

As for the “veil”, this is obviously just a spooky pun, and not a feature of an actual God. The ancient spooks often used such terms for “veiling”, to describe their collective “masking”. Arabic ḫbˀ has also derivations that mean “cunning” & “cheating”, so the spooks were aware that their entire act was malicious.

Arabic ḫbˀ = box, tent, veil; yḫbˀ = hiding, cloaking

خبا ḫbˀ ḫibâ’ : small tent of wool or camel-hair; curtain, veil; case, box — Arabic (Steingass)

يَخْبَأُ‎‎ yḫbˀ yaḵbaˀu : to hide, to conceal, to cloak — Arabic (Wikt)

Semitic ḥbh / ˀhbh for “love”

God is often associated with love. There are even Bible verses claiming that God is love: 1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16. And indeed, this kind of God is one that’s worth believing in.

But for the spooks, this may merely mean that the name Jehova also puns with ḥwb / ḥbb for “love”. That word is sometimes even officially linked to ḥbh for “hidden”, because “love” is an invisible thing that is “hidden inside”. There’s also another explanation via “burning” emotion though.

Jehove also puns with a second word for “love”, ˀhb / ˀhbh. It is often used in the Bible, für emotinal as well as sexual love. Dictionaries do not link it to the first word ḥwb, but since He and Ḥet are interchangeable, I’d say they’re related. (It is the official explanation for captain Ahab’s name, though not for king Ahab.)

Hebrew, Aramaic ḥbh = love, affection

חבב ḥbb chabab : to love; properly, to hide (as in the bosom) — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חבה ḥbh chibbah : love, affection, esteem — Hebrew (Klein)

חבב ḥbb : to love; loved; endeared — Hebrew (Klein)

חיבה ; חבה ḥbh; ḥybh chibbah; chibah : love, esteem, honor — Hebrew (Jastrow)

חוב ḥwb : love — Aramaic (CAL)

Hebrew ˀhbh = love

אהב ˀhb ahab; ahav : to love; beloved, friend, lover, loving; to have affection for (sexually or otherwise) — Old Hebrew (Strong)

אהבה ˀhbh ahabah; ahavah : love, lovingly; feminine of ˀahab and meaning the same — Old Hebrew (Strong)

Semitic ḥwb for “punishment” & “financial debt”

Very often in the Old Testament, God as Yahweh is not exactly all loving, but deals out severe punishment for perceived misbehavior. (The God of the New Testament is depicted like this less often.) This punishment can be explained as a pun too, because the root חוב ḥwb means “sin”, “guilt”, “punishment”, and even “financial debt”.

As an aside, since El means “lord” & “god”, and Baal also means “lord” & “god”, it’s interesting to note that בעל חובה bˁl-ḥwbh baal-huvvah means “creditor”, literally “owner of debt”. For the spook overlords, Jehovah-Elohim may even be a synonym pun of sorts, with Baali-Jehuvvim meaning “creditors”, which would be… them. In the shortened form bˁl-ḥwb, the word is still used today, and can mean both “creditor” & “debtor”. Modern meaning seems to have been shifted more towards “debtor”.

Hebrew ḥwb = sin, guilt, debt

חוב ḥwb : guilty — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חוב ḥwb : debt, debtor — Old Hebrew (Strong)

חוב ḥwb : to be declared guilty, be sentenced; to be punishable; to be (legally, morally or religiously) bound, to be responsible; to owe, be indebted; to declare guilty, to convict, sentence — Hebrew (Jastrow)

Hebrew, Aramaic bˁl-ḥwb = owner of debt, borrower, lender, creditor

בעל חובא bˁl ḥwbˀ : creditor — Aramaic (CAL)

בעל חוב bˁl ḥwb : creditor — Hebrew (Maot)

בעל חוב bˁl ḥwb : borrower or lender — Hebrew (Wikt)

The creditor owns the pledge.

bˁl ḥwb qwnh mškwn

בעל חוב קונה משכון

Jastrow: pledge

Semitic ḥbb for “burnable brushwood”

The verse Exodus 3:2 tells the odd story of Moses hearing God from a “burning bush”. The explanation may also be a pun with the word Jehovah: The term ḥbh / ḥbb for “love” also means “burning” (perhaps linked via “hot” emotion), and is specifically used for small bushes & burnable brushwood that you can use to start a fire. In this sense, Jehova is a homonym to a synonym for “burning bush”.

(The burning bush verse in its entirety may tell a totally unrelated story, but I haven’t decrypted it yet.)

Aramaic ḥbh, ḥbb = love, burn, burnable brushwood

חבב ḥbb : to love, to burn; to light; to incite to love; to burn something; to be loved — Aramaic (CAL)

חבב ḥbb : to love; Syriac חַב (= it burned) — Hebrew (Klein)

חבה ḥbh : burnable substance, brushwood — Aramaic (CAL)

חבובא ḥbwbˀ : brushwood, kindling; under-shrub, sub-shrub — Aramaic (CAL)

Semitic hwbˀy for “thorn bush”, ḥwḥ for “thorn”

The specific burning bush of God may even be a thorn bush, because hwbˀy means “thorn” & “desert plant”.

Aramaic hwbˀy = thorn, desert plant

הובאי hwbˀy : thorn — Aramaic (CAL)

הובאי hwbˀy : desolation, waste; desert plants, thorn — Hebrew (Jastrow)

Hebrew, Aramaic ḥwḥ = thorn

חוח ḥwḥ : thorn — Hebrew (Jastrow)

חוח ḥwḥ : briar, thorn; hook, ring — Hebrew (Klein)

ܚܘܚܐ ḥwḥˀ : a thornbush — Syriac (AAF)

🏷  Bible name divine name hidden ruler pun · name