At a recent conference of religious leaders, delegates joined in singing an Argentine folk song:
Santo, santo, santo. Holy, holy, holy.
Mi corazon te adora! My heart, my heart adores you!
Mi corazon te sabe decir: My heart knows how to say to you:
Santo eres Señor! Holy are you Lord!
When singing a song in another language, with an interlinear translation provided, one thinks about the words more than in the case of familiar songs. I was a bit shocked by the last word of address to God: “Señor,” the everyday word for “Mister” in Spanish. In English the word “Lord” and the companion term “Lady” no longer belong to ordinary speech; they echo an aristocratic language that has become rather archaic.
It is not surprising, then, that some religious bodies in the United States have debated whether to use the term in worship. The United Church of Christ, for instance, after controversial debate at its national synod, decided recently to continue the usage of “the Lord” in its new hymnal. It would take radical editorial surgery to remove the term from hymns or scriptural passages (such as “The Lord is my Shepherd,” Psalm 23) that have won their way into the hearts of many people.
The language difficulty should be understood even if we decide to keep on using “the Lord” in addressing God, as in most modern translations of the Bible: the Jewish Publication Society Version, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the New International Version, to mention a few. There are two problems with the usage. First, “the Lord” is a masculine form of address; and second, it is a title, not a name. It is as though my wife addressed me, not by my personal name, but as “the Professor.”
We may begin to understand the linguistic problems by turning to the story of the “burning bush” in Exodus. According to the story, when God (Elohim) commissioned Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, Moses responded by asking several questions. One question was, “Suppose I tell them that the God of their ancestors has sent me to liberate them from slavery, and they ask for the deity’s name, what shall I say?” (paraphrase of Exodus 3:13). At this point the storyteller indicates, somewhat cryptically and evasively, that God’s name is Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, a variation on the Hebrew letters YHWH (called the tetragrammaton). In Hebrew, “ehyeh” is the first person form of the verb to be (hayah), that is, “I am.” “Asher” is often translated “who or “that,” making the name read “I am who I am” or “I am that I am,” although the exact translation of the name is uncertain.1
Most scholars believe, however, that the original vocalization of YHWH was Yahweh,a a third person singular form of the verb to be. By this word-play, the narrator seems to suggest hesitance on God’s part to give the divine name directly and openly, for when God’s name (identity) is known it might be used wrongly, perhaps to gain power over God (see, for example, Genesis 32:29). In some societies today, I am told, people do not write down a personal name lest an enemy use it to gain magical power over the person. As a sign of reverence for God, and to avoid any profanation of God’s name, rabbis later joined the vowels of “Adonai” (“Lord”) with the sacred consonants YHWH to indicate that Adonai should be read whenever YHWH is written.b Today some devout Jewish people go further and print G-d without the vowel, as a sign of reverence.
This respectful attitude is certainly appropriate in prayer and worship. One of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:7) stipulates that in the covenant community, “You shall not take the name of YHWH your God in vain” (or “make wrongful use of” the name [NRSV]). If there were a prophet in the midst of the people, he or she would hasten to say that taking God’s name in vain is much more than a matter of linguistic usage. God’s name is wrongfully used whenever it is invoked to support social injustice (Jeremiah 7:3–4) or to serve national interests or values. As the Argentine song says, “You are holy,” beyond all the phenomena of this world.
This sense of God’s holiness prompts us to re-examine the language used in prayer and worship today. The substitution of Adonai (Lord) for YHWH, which the Christian church has adopted from the Jewish synagogue, has weaknesses of which we need to be aware. As said previously, the language is an all-too-masculine form of address, and it represents a shift from the name of God to a title.2
Undoubtedly this linguistic difficulty cannot be overcome completely. Perhaps some, quoting Shakespeare, will say it doesn’t matter that much:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.”
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This is, however, an important theological issue, for the name of God symbolizes the identity or nature of God, just as one’s personal name signifies a person’s selfhood.
The linguistic difficulty may be mitigated, it seems to me, by following a lead given by the Bible itself. In the book of Psalms, we find a whole group of psalms that show a decided preference for the word “God” (“Elohim”) rather than the sacred name YHWH. Someone has calculated that in this group “Elohim” appears 200 times and YHWH only 43. In the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42–83), as it is called, we find a psalm (Psalm 53) that is practically the same as Psalm 14, except that it speaks of YHWH as “God” (“Elohim”). In the circle that used these psalms a decision was made to use “God” rather than YHWH.
In academic circles, which do not presuppose a worship setting, it is proper to revert to the presumed original pronunciation of the name Yahweh. In one modern translation, The Jerusalem Bible, Yahweh is used, but this sounds strange to many modern worshipers. For those of us seeking a proper form of address in a liturgical setting, the Elohistic Psalter points toward a solution: Whenever possible use “God” instead of “the Lord.”
At a recent conference of religious leaders, delegates joined in singing an Argentine folk song: Santo, santo, santo.Holy, holy, holy. Mi corazon te adora!My heart, my heart adores you! Mi corazon te sabe decir:My heart knows how to say to you: Santo eres Señor!Holy are you Lord! When singing a song in another language, with an interlinear translation provided, one thinks about the words more than in the case of familiar songs. I was a bit shocked by the last word of address to God: “Señor,” the everyday word for “Mister” in Spanish. In English the word “Lord” and […]
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But see Anson Rainey’s letter “How Yahweh Was Pronounced,” in Queries & Comments, BAR 20:05; and George Buchanan’s response, in Queries & Comments, BAR 20:05
See the explanatory footnotes to Exodus 3:15 in the Jewish Publication Society Version and the New Revised Standard Version.
2.
In the Christian community, the title “kurios” is frequently used of Jesus, as in the confessional statement “Jesus Christ is Lord.” This, however, differs from the substitution of a term for the divine name.
