TET'RAGRAM'MATON (Gk. rerpa7panya rov, word of four letters, neu. sg. of rEronypoyya roc, tetragrammatos, having four letters, from 7-17pa-, tetra-, four + ypeiliya, gramma. letter. from yplpfir, graphrin, to write). A term used to designate the name of Israel's God, consisting of the four letters lI W H. In the Massoretie text it occurs 6823 times and is written with the vowels of Adonai 'Lord' (originally 'my Lord'), or with those of Elohim, `God.' By these vowels the reader was warned not to pronounce the di vine name, but to substitute for it Adonai or Elohim. (On the reasons for this custom, see JEHOVAH.) It is found as early as in the second century B.C. in the Greek version (see BIBLE), which uses Kiwtoc, Kyrios, 'Lord,' for the tetra grammaton. The editorial revision of Book II. in the Psalter (Psalms xlii.-1xxii.) also substi tutes for it Elohim. There is little room for doubt that the original pronunciation was Yahwe, the final h being inaudible. According to Theodoret the Samaritans (q.v.) pronounced the name 'Ia,3k, Yabe or Fare, and this statement is borne out by extant Samaritan hymns where the rhyme indicates that pronunciation. The same pronunciation is ascribed to a Christian sect by Epiphanius and is found in Egyptian papyri. An Ethiopic manuscript gives the form Yawe, in which the vowels are indicated. The name lao frequently found in manuscripts and papyri goes back to Yahu. That Yal]. or Vali existed in Syria as a divine name before the Hebrew invasion is probable and receives some support from Egyptian inscriptions. The fact that it
occurs chiefly in late Old Testament writings may be due to an archaistic tendency not seldom seen in connection with the liturgy. Yah at the end of a name and Yeho at the beginning meet us so often in pre-exilic times that it is likely to be very old. It is also significant that Yahwe never seems to be used in theophorous names. Since it was at all times permitted to pronounce Yalu', it is not strange that the Greeks and Romans should have got the impression that the name of the god of the Jews was lao. The earli est datable occurrence of the tetragrammaton is in the inscription of King Mesita of Moab, c.840 B.C. Through the Samaritans and certain Jewish sects the knowledge of the proper pro nunciation was perpetuated. While the Samari tans of the seventeenth century refused to di vulge this secret, Sabbatai Zewi (see MEsstAn) , the famous mystic and claimant to the Messiah ship, insisted upon the pronunciation of the tetragrammaton. The hybrid form Jehovah, made up of the consonants of Yahwe and the vowels of Adonai, was first used in 1520.
Consult: Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgesehichte 1S76) ; Driver, in Stud ia Biblica (Oxford, ; Dalman, Der Gottesname Adana] and seine Gesehichte (Leip zig, 1889) ; W. Max Muller, Asien and Europa (Leipzig, 1S03) ; Dietrich, in Zeitschrift fiir alt testamentliche Wissensehaft (Giessen, 18S3) ; Deissmann, Bibelstadi-en (Marburg, 1895).