…deeper than endless seas

There is a moment in this one song, “Highest” by Hillsong towards the end where the music is just building to a nice crescendo and it seems that the peak is somewhere close…then Darlene Z. speaks up and says “Church lift up a shou of praise…to the King!” And the audience explodes in this massive roar…I get chills everytime I hear it. The song is attributed to the Psalms where the writer speaks of God’s attributes:

Psalm 36 …Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! 

I have been doing alot of thinking about this. Its been coming around for awhile, especially since my wife has been meeting a particular group of ladies who have a different belief system – but nevertheless claim their way is the way to God. In a way it makes sense and then in the end it makes no sense it all. Let me explain. Since humans have inhabited earth and God has always wanted to be in relationship with us – it makes sense that we have this finite sensibility about us that wants to define or outline the Thing we don’t understand. We try to personalize it, humanize it, define it, confine it and ultimately control it. 

Way back in the time of the ancients – before God made Himself known to Abraham, the people would call upon their god – thunder, rain, fertility, etc. – and perform for their respective god. In a way, controlling their god in order to receive some sort of blessing. Confining their god as they did, they knew who to call on for certain things.

Now, when God called upon Abram, waaaaay back in Genesis, I would believe that Abram thought he was being called on by one of the many gods around and he was doing what everyone else would have been doing as well. Listen, do and assign this god to a particular calling. As things turned out – this God that called upon Abram was above all others. And after time He proved Himself to be above all else as well. God proves Himself to be more than just a mountain top experience, but a God who is beyond the mountain – beyond the sky – the unknowable God whose purposes are hidden from human intelligence and the One who cannot be manipulated.

Augustine of Hippo said this: “We are talking about God. Which wonder do you think you understand? If you understand, it is not God.” 

Take the discourse between Moses and God. Moses see’s the burning bush and encounters God on a scale that he would not have imagined, ever. Moses who is not all that together as a public speaker argues for someone else to do the job of delivering God’s people…and then finally resorts to one other question – “Who should I say is calling?“

YHWH.

(I put the period there for emphasis, laf!) To a normal person, this means nothing. To a scholar, its a guess as to what it may sound like, or mean. To the ancients – it was something so sacred that even when it was known – it was spoken just once…once a year in prayer by only the high priest and only on the Day of Atonement. It wasn’t used as punchline to a joke – it wasn’t used when you missed your shot in golf – it was spoken once, it was that sacred. After the Temple was destroyed in 70 a.d. the name was never uttered again. So our best guess is just that as to how the consonants and the vowels are actually constructed to make a word. 

When the ancients would see the word in their Bible – they would used the name Adonai (“the Lord”) – for the more Orthodox, they would use the word ha-Shem (“the Name”). For so long the the word had not been pronounced that the ancients lost the certain knowledge of how to say YHWH that without a definitive way to say it, you couldn’t be certain of its meaning. Precise meanings in Hebrew are so dependent on how to pronounce the vowels, especially in the case of verbs – YHWH is definitely a verb form. 

God’s description of himself is active not passive. This particular name YHWH is a form of the verb to be. Which can be interpreted or possibly defined in one of several ways: First, I am who am, or better I am who causes to be. Second, I am who I am or put another way You cannot control me by invoking my name like a household god. Third, I will be there with you.

 

How would we attempt to pronounce YHWH then? Some may just refer to saying ‘the Lord‘ when seeing the tetregrammaton. Others go boldly into saying ‘Yahweh‘ (yah-way). Another rendering is ‘Jehovah‘ which I have found, after some research, this is rather a mispronunciation based on the misunderstanding of the conventions of medievil manuscripts. But I digress. 

The sages believed that the vowels were actually given to them as the sound of breathing and would sound something like this:

‘yod – hey – vod – hey’ or ‘yahhhveeey’

These vowels sound like breathing. The name is unpronouncable. We are to understand from God that when the high priest goes into the presence of God on the Day of Atonement – he prepares all year long and goes into the Temple and….breathes? There are other instances that we can look at that make this quite an appealing understanding. For instance: when a baby is born, what is the first thing it has to do or it won’t live? Breathe or say the Name of God? The last thing you do before you pass on to the next life is you take your last breath or when you are no longer able to say the Name of God? Is it possible to be sitting with an atheist and they say, ‘There is no God.” Which by all manner of illustration – just that they are able to breath those words brings conviction to the ignorant.

There is alot more to come in this ‘About God…’ category that I will write. 

I find it quite interesting and disturbing that there are so many religions, belief systems and whatever you want to call them that believe that they have a hold and a monopoly on God and try to persuade you that their way is the best. God gave us the Bible. His revelation about Himself. There is nothing else needed. When there are attempts to bring additional revelation to add to His already mountainous, un-ending diamond mine that cannot be fathomed…it is cruelly laughable. I am not laughing at someone’s despair or an attempt to get closer to God – rather, I laugh at trying to explain the Redwood Forest using toothpicks. 

God doesn’t need help in His thoughtful and loving Word. And rather than try to add to it and arrogantly look to others as if they don’t get ‘it.’ We should thank God for this One way – His revealed Way – the Bible. As well, we should praise God for His guaranteed way to Him – Jesus.