D5-5: The Real Factually Verifiable Reason Why The Jewish People Do NOT Say God’s Name Out Loud

“You are not to misuse the name of Adonai your God, because Adonai will not leave unpunished someone who misuses his name.”-Deuteronomy 5:11

We now come to the 3rd Commandment and honestly this commandment is probably the most misunderstood and mischaracterized out of all the ten.

So let’s get down to it.

The 3rd commandment is mainly dealing with only one thing.

It’s dealing with not misusing God’s name when making an oath or a vow.

That’s it.

This commandment has absolutely nothing to do with the accidental mispronunciation of HASHEM’s formal name known as YHVH.

The idea that we’re not supposed to say YHVH because we might say it incorrectly has no basis in Scripture whatsoever.

All one has to do is check the Talmud to see the real reason why the Jewish people came to the decision in around 300 B.C. to not utter God’s personal name out loud anymore.

The reasons actually have nothing to do with the 3rd commandment.

So what is the real reason why the Jews made a decision to stop pronouncing YHVH out loud?

Here’s the real and CORRECT answer.

It’s all about reverence.

Let me ask you this.

How would you feel if all of a sudden you started calling your mother and father by their first names instead of addressing them as “Dad” or “Mom” which is the norm.

Imagine how weird that would be.

You would feel funny and your father would be wondering what in the heck had gotten into you.

He might be wondering if you had just disowned him as a father.

If you think about it, it is downright disrespectful.

If you want to properly honor your father, then also address him as your father.

In the ancient Middle East, it was considered downright disrespectful to address one’s parents by their first names.

Hence, since the Lord was considered to be Israel’s Father in heaven, they carried over this same principle to their God.

And that’s the real reason and answer to the question of why the Jews don’t pronounce YHVH out loud.

It’s all about proper love and respect for their Father in heaven.

And let’s get this straight.

What I’m telling you is NOT my speculative imagination gone hog wild.

What I have just said is pure fact that can be verified by not only going to the Talmud but also the writings of Philo and Josephus.

So again, I reiterate.

The purpose of the 3rd commandment is to avoid using the Lord’s name frivolously when making a vow or an oath.

Before closing, I wanna make a few points about the nature of vow-making in ancient times.

Back in the Bible days, whenever a vow or an oath was made, if it was not sealed with the name of one god or another, that vow or oath was not valid.

A god’s name had to be invoked to make the vow or oath legally binding.

The act of vow or oath-making was so serious that in the later books of the Tanach (OT) and then in the New Testament, it was recommended to avoid vow and oath-making altogether.

Because once one made a vow using God’s Holy and Personal name, Hashem fully expected you to keep your end of the bargain if he kept His end.

Invariably, this subject of how serious vow-making is usually leads to the tale of Jephthah and how he offered up his own daughter as a burnt human sacrifice due to a vow he had made.

There is one thing we shouldn’t overlook about the Jephthah story.

It was Jephthah who approached the Lord and it was Jephthah who carelessly set the terms of the vow he brought to the Lord.

The Lord didn’t ask Jephthah to make a vow…

…and He certainly didn’t ask for a human sacrifice.

I think we can all agree that Jephthah is a perfect example of why for the most part we should avoid vow-making altogether.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“Again, you have heard that our fathers were told,
‘Do not break your oath,’and
‘Keep your vows to Adonai.’
But I tell you not to swear at all —
not ‘by heaven,’ because it is God’s throne;
not ‘by the earth,’ because it is his footstool;
and not ‘by Yerushalayim,’
because it is the city of the Great King.
And don’t swear by your head,
because you can’t make a single hair white or black.
Just let your ‘Yes’ be a simple ‘Yes,’
and your ‘No’ a simple ‘No’;
anything more than this has its origin in evil.
-Matthew 5:33-37