TETRAGRAMMATON, the Hebrew four-lettered name of God, commonly known as Jehovah through a misapplication of the vowels belonging to Adonai (Lord) to the letters J.H.V.H. Possibly the causative (hiph‘ii) imperfect reading, i.e., Yahweh (He who causes to be or to fall) is the correct form. As early as the time of the Chronicler Adonai was substituted for the divine name: evidence for this change is supplied also by the LXX. Origen (Ps. ii.) mentions that the best Bible codices kept the Hebrew name of God in the archaic characters. The recently dis covered fragments of Aquila's translation observe this rule and use aa (see examples in H. B. Swete's Introd. to O.T. in Greek, p. 38, 1902; see also F. C. Burkitt, p. xii. of Legacy of Israel, 1927) which was easily mistaken for Greek uncials IIIIII and so this absurd form arose ; it is still perpetuated on the Ma sonic tracing boards where IIIIII figures on the cloud between the pillars Jachin and Boaz. The real pronunciation was for gotten by the Jews since it was suppressed, out of a desire to avoid misuse. The High Priest used it in the Holy of Holies
and it survived for some time in the Synagogal Priestly Benedic tion : here the chant kept up by the choir or by the priests is said to be a survival of the musical screen to shut out the sound of the ineffable name. He who pronounced the name as spelt was guilty of blasphemy. Nevertheless the practical Kabbalists claimed to know the name and to work miracles thereby : such a thaumaturgist was called a Batal Shem and the last instance known in English was Dr. Falk (d. 2782) of whom extraordinary stories of magic are related. (See pp. 245 sqq. of J. Picciotto's Sketches, 1875; Jew. Enc.; C. Duschinsky's Rabbinate, 1921.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See "Tetragrammaton" in Jew. Enc. and other articles therein cited: S. R. Driver in Studies Biblica I. (1885) ; pp. 17-40 of A. Marmorstein's Old Rabb. doctr. of God (1927).