These remarks are designed to point towards the desirableness of a reconsideration of the subject of the relation of Elohim to Jehovah in the usage of the sacred writers, from a more strictly scientific point of view than has hitherto been assumed. Learning has done its utmost in regard to this matter ; all the facts of the case have been col.
lected and elucidated by scholars of the first emi nence ; it is only from a juster application of the method of scientific investigation to these facts that any further light can be hoped for. As things stand now the prevalence of the one term in a con text rather than the other can be regarded in no other light than as one of those accidents of com position for which we are unable to account.
4. It yet remains to inquire at what time Jeho vah' became known as the proper appellation of God. Here the question resolves itself very much into an inquiry into the meaning of Exod. vi. 3. Is this to be regarded as intimating the first revelation of the name as a name ? or is the import of the statement that though the patri archs before this time may have known the woy-a' as a designation of God, they had not had the means of realising the full meaning of the ap pellation—that not before this had all which lies involved concerning God in that word been fully made known to them. The former of these views is probably that which the first reading of the passage would suggest ; but it is exposed to such serious difficulties that it seems untenable. How on this view are we to account for such a statement as that in Gen. iv. r, that in Gen. vi. 26, that in Gen. xii. 8, and many similar passages ? To say that in these passages the word is used by. prolepsis, is to resort to a very arbitrary and violent expedient for escaping from a difficulty. In such a proper name also as Moriah (i1:70), we have evidence of early acquaintance with the name Jehovah ; while from the name of the mother of Moses, yochebal (13Z1'), we learn that among his maternal ancestry this name was known. In the family of Jacob also we have such names as A hijah and Abiah (Abijah), to which may be added the names of the two wives of Ezra or Ezer, Hodiah and Bithiah (1 Chron.
25 ; vii. 8 ; iv. 18), all indicating a familiarity with the peculiar name of God before the time of Moses. In the face of these facts, the opinion that the name Jehovah was for the first time made known to Moses on the occasion referred to cannot be retained. Adopting the other view, the statement by my name Jehovah was I not known to them' is best explained by a reference to Exod. xxxiii. 19, Ps. lxxvi. t, etc. (Hengstenberg, Die .Auth. des Penta teuches,i. 268, ff.; Kurz, Hest. of the Old Covenant, p. 98, 215 ; Delitzsch, Genesis, p. 26). The name Jehovah,' says Kurz, was (or rather became) un doubtedly a new one then, but only in the sense in which Christ said (John xiii. 34) a new com mandment give I unto you ;' whereas he merely repeated one of the primary commandments which we find in the O. T., and meet with on every hand in the laws of Moses. It was a commandment, however, the fulness and depth, the meaning, force, and value of which were first unfolded by the Gospel. And just as the greatest act of love which the world ever witnessed provided a new field for the exem. plification of this command in greater glory than was possible under the law, and thus the old com mandment became a new one ; so did the new act of God in the redemption of Israel from Egypt furnish a new field in which the ancient name of God struck fresh and deeper roots, and thus the ancient name became a new one.' 5. Attempts have been made by some to find a heathen origin for the name Jehovah ; but tbe futility of these have been so amply exposed, and the hypothesis is now so generally repudiated by scholars, that it seems needless to occupy space by detailing them (see Tholuck, Ueb. Hypothese Ursprzengs a'es Nonzens Jehovah aus Aegypten Phanicien oder Indien in his Verne. Sehriftelz, 377-40.5 ; Gesenius, Thes., s. v.) 6. In composition the word Mil, is abbreviated into irr yeho, ye, 54 yo, yahu. The name 7ah, is also an abbreviation of the telegramma ton, chiefly used in poetry and in devotional ejacii lations.
The name appears entire also in some proper names, viz.—