释义 |
‖ Jehovah|dʒɪˈhəʊvə| [The English and common European representation, since the 16th c., of the Hebrew divine name Yhwh. This word (the ‘sacred tetragrammaton’) having come to be considered by the Jews too sacred for utterance, was pointed in the O.T. by the Masoretes with the vowels ' (= ă), ō, ā, of ădōnāi, as a direction to the reader to substitute Adonai for the ‘ineffable name’; which is actually done by Jerome in the Vulgate translation of Exodus vi. 3, and hence by Wyclif. Students of Hebrew at the Revival of Letters took these vowels as those of the word Yhwh (IHUH, JHVH) itself, which was accordingly transliterated in Latin spelling as IeHoVa(H), i.e. Iehoua(h. It is now held that the original name was IaHUe(H), i.e. Jahve(h, or with the English values of the letters, Yahwe(h, and one or other of these forms is now generally used by writers upon the religion of the Hebrews. The word has generally been understood to be a derivative of the verb hāwāh to be, to exist, as if ‘he that is’, ‘the self-existent’, or ‘the one ever coming into manifestation’; this origin is now disputed, but no conjectured derivation which has been substituted has found general acceptance. The following is cited as the first use of the form Iehoua (Jehova):—
1516P. Galatinus De Arcanis Cath. Veritatis ii. lf. xlviij, Non enim hę quatuor literę [yhwh] si, ut punctatę sunt, legantur, Ioua reddunt: sed (ut ipse optime nosti) Iehoua efficiunt. ] 1. The principal and personal name of God in the Old Testament; in English versions usually represented by ‘the LORD’. Hence in modern Christian use, = God, the Almighty.
1530Tindale Exod. vi. 3, I appeared vnto Abraham Isaac and Iacob an allmightie God: but in my name Iehouah [Wyclif Adonay] was I not knowne vnto them. 1539Bible (Great) Ps. lxxxiii. 18 They shall know that thou (whose name is Iehoua) art only the most hyest ouer all the earth. 1600Heywood Edw. IV, Author to Bk. 24 If then the world a theater present..In which Iehove does as spectator sit. 1667Milton P.L. vii. 602 Great are thy works, Jehovah, infinite Thy power. 1738Pope Univ. Prayer 4 Father of All! in ev'ry Age, In ev'ry Clime ador'd, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 1821Byron Cain i. i, All hail! Jehovah, with returning light, all hail! 1860Pusey Min. Proph. 77 It is better to own ignorance, how this Name of God is pronounced, than to use the name Jehovah, which is certainly wrong, or any other, which can only be conjectural. (β) Examples of recent forms of the word.
1869J. E. Carpenter tr. Ewald's Hist. Israel II. 130 Jahveh alone was the true defence. 1892Montefiore Hibbert Lect. 45 Yahveh, to the Israelite, was emphatically the God of Right. 1899R. H. Charles Eschatol., Heb., Jew. & Chr. 8 As the natural God, Yahwe was the invisible Head of the nation. 2. Jehovah's Witness, a member of a fundamentalist millenary sect, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, founded c 1879 (under the name ‘International Bible Students’) by Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916), which rejects institutional religion and refuses to acknowledge the claims of the State when these are in conflict with the principles of the sect. Occas. Jehovah Witness.
[1932J. F. Rutherford Health & Life (Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc.) 7 This commandment is written, in Isaiah 62:10, directed to Jehovah's faithful witnesses.] 1933M. S. Czatt (title) The International Bible Students, Jehovah's Witnesses. 1941H. G. Wells You can't be too Careful iv. i. 223 A single declared Fascist or Communist or Jehovah's Witness or Single Taxer. 1944G. B. Shaw Everybody's Pol. What's What? v. 46 May he choose..a tribal idol as the sect called Jehovah's Witnesses now do? 1955W. Gaddis Recognitions ii. i. 305 It's like Jehovah's Witnesses when you sit down at a table there, everybody comes over. 1961Times 5 May 20/6 A rhesus-positive baby whose father, a Jehovah Witness, refused to consent to a blood transfusion. 1962Lancet 7 Apr. 747/2 Jehovah Witnesses will usually accept their own blood at operation, though they would not take that of a donor. 1973Guardian 14 Mar. 7/4 A mother who divorced her husband because of his adultery is to lose her children because of her religious beliefs. She is a Jehovah's Witness. Ibid., To bring up the children under the Jehovah Witness cult would tend to isolate them. Hence † Jeˈhovian, Jeˈhovic adjs., of or pertaining to Jehovah. † Jeˈhovism, the relation of Jehovah to his people and church.
1822C. Wells Stories after Nature (1891) 218 His inveteracy of purpose was in its depth Satanic, as a saint's is Jehovian. 1872D. Brown Life John Duncan xi. 228 On this Jehovism Mr. Duncan would at times wax grand. 1884G. F. Pentecost Out of Egypt iii. 46 As He announced the unspeakable Jehovic name, he at the same time interpreted it. |