It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
source
Most scholars accept that YHWH is made up of Y, meaning "he", plus a form of HWY, the root of a group of words connected with "being" and "becoming".[20] Frank Moore Cross has advanced the hypothesis that the name Yahweh is an abbreviation, in which the theophoric element el has been dropped, thus giving yhwh-'l or "El-Yahweh",[21] which would parallel "El-Shaddai" and "El-Elyon". El was the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, and El-YHWH is still attested as an epithet, 'El, who shows himself' in a few places in the Old Testament (in psalm 50:1, for example). It would have originated as a description of El's appearance and blessing: "El who shows himself".[22] The author of Exodus 3:13–15 gives a similar explanation: God, asked by Moses for his name, provides three names: "I Am That I Am", followed by "I Am," and finally "YHWH": ... יהוה אלהי אבתיכם... זה־שמי לעלם... אהיה אשר אהיה ויאמר כה תאמר לבני ישראל אהיה שלחני אליכם׃ "I AM THAT I AM [...] Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you [...] YHWH God of your fathers, [...] this is my name for ever"[Exod. 3:14–15] As the origins of Yahweh seem to lie to the southeast of Israel, in Edom and Midian or even further south, an alternative explanation looks for its etymology in South Semitic languages like Arabic rather than in Hebrew, which is West Semitic. One of the meanings of HWY in Arabic is connected with falling or causing to fall, leading to an interpretation of Yahweh as a storm god whose name means "He who causes to fall" (meaning rain, lightning, and his enemies) or "He storms". This also helps explain Yahweh's attributes as a storm god (he comes to rescue Israel surrounded by darkness and thick clouds, and the earth trembles, the clouds drop water, and the mountains quake at his appearance), and the way he appropriates attributes from the rival storm god Baal.[23] Divine names, however, are often much older than the religions using them, and ideas about gods change over time; despite Exodus 14 it is fairly improbable that the authors of the bible were aware of the meaning of the name Yahweh, and even an accurate knowledge of the origins of the name will not help understand the significance Yahweh held for them.[24]