February 26th Class

In this class we focused on the name, Jehovah.  The most precious name of God to the Jews.  This name was so precious that they would not even pronounce it and even though the name Jehovah occurs 6,800 times in the OT, when the the scribes were making copies, whenever they came upon this name of God they would stop, take off their clothing, take a bath, put on clean clothing - then they would take a new quill pen, one that had never been used, and only then write the name... Jehovah.

We talked this morning about how the name Jehovah, although so very precious and incurring such reverence, is NOT a name that is meant to keep us at a distance, but rather it is a name that beckons us to run into ALL that He is as Jehovah. "The Name of the LORD is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe."

Genesis 2:4 is where we see the name Jehovah used for the very first time in scripture and we saw it compounded with the name Elohim.  Whenever you see the word LORD all in capitals it is translated as Jehovah.  Whenever you see the word Lord, beginning with a capital and then small letters following, it is always translated at Adonai.  Jehovah means 'Self Existent One'.  It is the most personal name of God.  When it is written YHWH it is called the 'tetragrammaton'.  When vowels are placed within the four letters, it becomes YaHWeH... and without taking up more time than I ought to here, Yahweh was then taken and changed into Jehovah.  The reason they came up with this is because the Name is so holy, they did not want to say it, so they came up with 'Jehovah'.

In Deuteronomy 28:58 we are told to, "... fear this honoured and awesome name, the LORD your God,..." I then took the class to Leviticus 24:11-14 where we saw a young man who was described as not having feared this honoured and awesome name, as he "...blasphemed the Name and cursed."   We then saw in verses 15-16 what happened to him, that anyone "...when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death."  I asked the class to do a little extra home this week and to find out what it means to 'blaspheme' the Name of God.

We read through Exodus 3: 1-15 and saw verse 11 Moses saying to God, "Who am I, that I should go..." and discussed how it doesn't matter who we are, what matters is Who God is.  In verse 13-14 we saw Moses asking God what name he should tell the sons of Israel was the God of their fathers and God replying, "I AM WHO I AM;...".  This name is Jehovah, the Self Existent One.

Much, if not most, of this class was spent in teaching from outside any notes that I might have had, as God led us through not only scripture, but also our discussion.  We ended the class with this...

  Jehovah means Self Existent One.  He always has been, He always is, He always will be.

We desperately need Someone Who is always there.

Who will never change or alter.

He is everything and anything you will ever need.

Husbands, children may leave you,

He will never leave you,

He will never forsake you,

He is all that you need.

El Elyon our Sovereign God.

Elohim our Creator.

Jehovah, our everything and anything we need,

if we would just call on His Name,

on ALL that He is.

Jehovah.

love,

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