Tetragrammaton

"We thus find that the entire Torah is a tapestry of the Name HaShem-. Because of this it is called, "Purely the Torah of HaShem–Torat HaShem Temimah–." ... You then will understand how great is the punishment of someone who mentions the name of heaven in vain; how much more so, someone who pronounces the name according to its letters; even more so, someone who makes use of it!"

"When a man pronounces the Tetragrammaton, write the Cabalists, the nine heavens are shaken, and all the spirits cry out to each other: "Who thus disturbs the kingdom of heaven?" And then the earth reveals to the first heaven the sins of the foolhardy person who took the eternal one's name in vain, and the accusing Verb is transmitted from circle to circle, from star to star, and from hierarchy to hierarchy."

"For non-Jews, the most familiar Name derived from the Hebrew Bible is probably Jehovah, a mistransliteration of the four-letter Name, Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay, the Tetragrammaton or, in Hebrew, the Shem Hameforash. This Name is actually never vocalized in Hebrew—it is too sacred, too powerful. ... The Tetragrammaton is frequently shortened to Yah (Yud-Hey), Yahu or Yeho (Yod-Heh-Vav), especially when used in combination within names or phrases, as in Yehoshua (Joshua, meaning "the Lord is my Salvation"), Eliyahu (Elijah, meaning "my God is the Lord"), and Halleluyah ("praise the Lord")."

"It thus becomes possible to determine with a fair degree of certainty the historical pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the results agreeing with the statement of Ex. iii. 14, in which Yhwh terms Himself "I will be", a phrase which is immediately preceded by the fuller term "I will be that I will be", or, as in the English versions, "I am" and "I am that I am". The name is accordingly derived from the root (= ), and is regarded as an imperfect. This passage is decisive for the pronunciation "Yahweh"; for the etymology was undoubtedly based on the known word. The oldest exegetes, such as Onḳelos, and the Targumim of Jerusalem and pseudo-Jonathan regard "Ehyeh" and "Ehyeh asher Ehyeh" as the name of the Divinity, and accept the etymology of "hayah" = "to be" (comp. Samuel b. Meïr, commentary on Ex. iii. 14)."

"The pronunciation of the Name was forbidden except to priests of the temple during the benediction of the people (Num. 6:22–7) and on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest spoke it ten times before the assembled worshippers (Lev. 16:30). Because unpointed Hebrew is composed entirely of consonants, it was possible to write the name in the books of the Torah and yet still conceal its pronunciation. It appears as , which is transliterated into the Latin characters IHVH (sometimes YHWH or JHWH). But the name could not be written in Greek without revealing the way of saying it. Josephus was a priest and knew the correct pronunciation of the Name, but states in his Antiquities (II, 12, 4) that religion forbids him to divulge it. Philo calls the Name ineffable and says that it is lawful only for those whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a holy place—in other words, for priests in the temple."

"The letters YHVH of the Tetragrammaton are used to imply the whole gamut of the four elements. Y as the creative function of the Archetypal Realm, is Fire the Chiah; the first H represents the Cup, the symbol of the passive character of the Creative World, and is Water the Neschamah; V is the Son, the active vice-regent of the Father, and is Air the Ruach; and the final H is the Nephesch; the passive receptive Earth, fructifying all things."

"According to Ricius, world history may be divided into three stages based upon the names of God in the Bible. The first period was the natural period, where God reveals himself through the three-lettered divine name shaddai. Then there is the Torah period, where God reveals to Moses the divine name of four letters, the Tetragrammaton. In the final period of grace and redemption, God reveals the Tetragrammaton plus the letter shin, or the letter of the Logos (Christ), spelling yhswh, or the Kabbalistic name of Jesus. Thus, the name of Jesus, or the miraculous name, became the pronouncable name of the previously unpronouncable yhwh."