The
Two-Letter Name of YHWH -
The
Yah Verses in the Tanach (Hebrew Bible)
Twelve
Tribe Torah Institute ©
Yah
is the hidden aspect of YHWH-Elohim.
Without the Book of Psalms we would know very little about the use of
this Holy Name in ancient times.
As Bat-Yah is the daughter (1 Chronicles 4:18) of Pharoah, portrayed as
the master of resistance in the Exodus story, we will find Yah in all our
denials and avoidances. In the
pre-Talmudic era, Yah will be recast as the Daughter of God in Proverbs Chapter
8 and equated with the Wisdom, the pre-existent creative element, the darkness
our of which all light emits.
Shechinah
(a "She" noun in the Hebrew meaning Indwelling) in the Talmudic era
will begin to take on the essence of the indwelling Holy Presence. In addition, the root of the word
Shechinah (Shochen) intimates Death, the She'ol, or the Dwelling in the
Underworld (thanks to Mitchell Dahood for the Ugaritic sources on this
correlation - also see Psalm 7:6 "and (the enemy) will cause my honorable
self to dwell in the dust").
Shechinah through the root "to dwell" is quite common in the
Tanach and is the root for the noun "Mishcan" the Sanctuary, or place
of Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
A
perusal of the verses of Yah, most of which appear in the Psalms, has
organically lead me this conclusion
- that She is the Feared
One connected to Death and the She'ol passage to the next world. Yah is the Divine Daughter who is
always the Avoided One in most religious cultures. However, out of Her Darkness, the Light arises, and She
beckons the coming of the Son, the Redeemer, the Light, the Saviour. All of these are ASPECTS of the
Holy Name of YHWH, the forth letter signifying the Daughter according to the
Zohar page 27b. Once you get to
befriend Her, the result is Hallelu-Yah as all the sages praised the wisdom,
transformation, and the release from difficulty that denial of Her will
create. Yah is the early Holy Name
of Shechinah!
I
will make it clear that an addition of a mapiq dot in the Hey letter of the
word YAH, makes it an exclamation point.
It was also assumed that it makes the word a "He" word instead
of a She word as it clear from the verbs and adjectives surrounding Yah. However, this assumption needs to be
revisited, in light of the information below.
The
following list of verses is comprehensive, covering most if not all the verses
in the Hebrew Bible that contain a clearly recognizable form of the Holy Name
of Yah:
Psalm
77:12 "I will make mention of the deeds of Yah; surely I will remember Your
wondrousness from of old."
Yah in the later incarnation as Wisdom (Xochmah) is also described as
the most ancient. See Proverbs
chapter 8 which is all about Wisdom (a "She" noun in the Hebrew) and
depicted as the Daughter of God the Father.
Psalm
94:12 "Fulfilled is the person whom You, Yah, castigate but teach from
Your Torah" (Torah is a "She" noun and was later equated with
Xochmah and Bat - the Daughter).
This verse establishes the connection between the hard lessons learned
when we are in the Presence of the Holy Spirit and Shechinah, and emphasizes
Yah's leading us back to Ashrei, the condition of fulfillment and true
happiness (i.e. "only through the Daughter can we come to the
Mother").
Psalm
115:17,18) The dead do not praise Yah, neither all those who descend into the
Silent Underworld (Domah, another "She" noun in Hebrew). But we will bless Yah, from now and
through eternity -- Hallelu-Yah! These two verses establish the connection
between the stay in Purgatory and the recognition that blessing Yah throughout
the darkness and punishment leads us into the shout of Hallelu-Yah!
Psalm
118:5 From the narrow straights, I called out "YAH!" - and (Yah)
answered me in the vast expansive space of Yah. Again, this verse establishes the connection between being
squeezed (Metzar, a narrow, oppressive place, and also connoting being in
slavery in Mitzrayim, the "double-trouble" or place of dilemma), and
the liberation there from, as being all in Yah!
Psalm
118:17-19 Here is the trilogy of
Yah -- 1. I shall not die
for I live telling of the deeds of Yah.
2. Yah has sorely chastised
me but not given me over to Death.
3. Open for me the gates of Right Living; I will enter through them,
giving thanks to Yah! Again,
here is the connection between the grip of Death and the process of learning
through the hard knocks of life, and the entering into the gates of liberation
through Tsedek, righteousness, all through Yah!
Psalm
118:14 and Exodus 15:2 "My
strength and my song (or my vibrant, cutting edge power, or
"sentinel" according to Dahood) is Yah, and has become for me a
Salvation (again a "She" noun in the Hebrew). This verse is echoed and amplified in
the Prophet Isaiah 12:2 "Behold El is my Salvation - I shall trust and not
live in fear - for my strength and power is Yah Yahweh, becoming for me a
Salvation."
Psalm
94:7 "And they say that one cannot see Yah and that one cannot comprehend
the God of Jacob." This verse
establishes the hidden nature of Yah.
In fact Yah is the mystery, the wisdom, most feared and denial oriented
Name of God. However, Jacob (the
heel) grew to know Yah and learned to struggle with the Angel and prevailed,
leading to the creation of Israel.
Out of transformation comes our salvation.
Isaiah
26:4 "Trust in YHWH for all time; surely in (the Name) Yah YHWH is the
Rock of Ages." Or possibly: "surely Yah YHWH within me is the Rock of
Ages"
Isaiah
68:5 "Sing unto God; sing His
Name; make way for the One who rides the clouds; through YAH is His Name; go
rejoice in His presence."
(note that Isaiah is the Prophet most closely related to the Psalms -- no other Hebrew prophets besides
Moses and the Levites ever mention this Name).
Psalm
68:19b "w'af sor'rim li-Shcon
Yah Elohim" - is a difficult verse in the one Psalm that consciously
interweaves all the Hebrew Names of God.
In any event, this verse establishes that Yah is a Holy Name of God, and
strongly intimates a connection between Yah and the verbal root for "Shechinah"
(a "She" noun in the Hebrew), probably the Dwelling in the Underworld
where the straying souls reside.
Psalm
102:18,19 "(YHWH) turned to
the prayer of those who are abandoned and did not despise their prayer. May this be written down unto the final
generation so that a people reborn may praise Yah!" Again: another reference that the
name of Yah is connected with rebirth and salvation from calamity.
Psalm
130:3 "If you preserve (our)
hidden sins, oh Yah Lord, who can stand?!
For with You is the Forgiveness, so that you are fear-worthy." Here is a connection between Yah and
Adonai, and also the connection between Yah and 'awon (hidden sin, the sin of
child abuse and earth abuse - more on that important Biblical keyword in
another essay).
Exodus
17:16 (in reference to the eternal war against Amalek) "Moses then built
an altar, calling its name, YHWH Nisi (Yahweh is my Standard). And he said: "Surely the hand of
the Almighty is (on) the Throne of Yah, (swearing that there is) a war for Yahweh
against Amalek for all generations."
If this translation is correct (we will probably never know for sure),
then here is another connection between the Son and the Daughter Aspects of
YHWH. This one would then be a
very crucial teaching, perhaps one of existential importance to all religions
yearning to be based in freedom and choice in God.
Psalm
135:4 "For Yah has chosen Jacob as His own; Israel as his
Treasure." For while we
struggle with the darkness in our "Jacob" phase of life, Israel, the
wholeness of the spiritual Twelve Tribes, is the ultimate inheritance and
treasure of YHWH.
Psalm
122:3,4 "Jerusalem rebuilt is like a city that all fits together. For there the tribes arose, the very
Tribes of Yah, as a testimony to Israel (father of the geographical Twelve
Tribes), giving thanks to the Name of YHWH." How our struggle and living through the darkness gives rise
to the very birth of the twelve spiritual tribes who all acknowledge the
greatness and sovereignty of Yahweh.
HALLELU-YAH!! This well-known phrase literally means:
"Y'all, praise Yah!" (see Psalm 104, 105, 106, 111, 112, 113, 115,
116, 117, 135, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150)
Psalm
150:6 (the very last verse in the Book of Psalms): May each soul praise Yah! Hallelu-Yah!
The
visionary Pharisaic tradition teaches in the Babylonian Talmud Eruvin page 18b:
"Rabbi Jeremiah ben Elazar taught: 'from the day the Temple was destroyed,
it is totally sufficient for the world to use (the Holy Name consisting of) two
letters, for it is written "May each soul praise Yah! Hallelu-Yah!"'
The
spiritual Pharisaic tradition teaches in the Genesis Midrash Rabah (14:11) that
"Rabbi Levi in the name of Rabbi Hanina taught: 'with each and every
breath a human being needs to adore the Creator.' What is the proof text? "May every soul with breath praise Yah! Hallelu-Yah!"
One
point of this Midrash Rabah teaching is a guidance to humankind to include
those religious practices that assist us and indeed encourage us to go face the
darkness, the abusive, the deceptive, the denial, and the self-delusional, and
to still sing praises at all times to Yah! May you find great blessing in knowing the Two-letter Name
of YHWH! Hallelu-Yah!
Copyright
information:
Part
One - The Two-Letter name of YHWH
- the Yah Verses
Translations
of the above Tanach verses and Talmud/Midrash sources are all by Rabbi Monty
Eliasov. © The Twelve Tribe Torah Institute,
Inc. Version 2.02
Permission
is given to freely distribute this list.
Whenever
reprinting or emailing, please include this copyright information.