Some teachers of Messianic Judaism insist that Yeshua (Jesus) didn't say the Great Name (יהוה)... thus we must follow his example and keep with Jewish Oral tradition not to speak the so-called "Ineffable" (Unspeakable) Name. But is that really the case? Did he not say the Name? Did he not reveal the Name to his disciples?
John 17:26 “And I have made Your Name known to them, and shall make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me might be in them, and I in them.”
Hebrews 2:12 ...saying, “I shall announce Your Name to My brothers, in the midst of the congregation I shall sing praise to You.” See: Psalms 22:22 and 45:17
John 17:6 “I have revealed Your Name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have guarded Your Word."
Why did Yeshua have to reveal the Great Name?
Jeremiah 44:26 indicates "It" was removed from Judah's lips... so maybe they didn't know how to pronounce It anymore. They knew the Torah and were familiar with the discourse between Moshe (Moses) and יהוה regarding what His Name was and what It meant in Exodus 3:13-15. So they didn't need him to reveal how it was spelled or its meaning, but the pronunciation had been customarily banned by the rabbis. Traditionally, It is believed that only the High Priest would say the name ten times on Yom Kippur (Yoma 39a-b).
John 17:6 uses the Greek word "phaneroō"where you see "revealed" or "manifested" in English. Strong's #: G5319 description is below:
φανερόω
phaneroō
fan-er-o'-o
From G5318; to render apparent (literally or figuratively): - appear, manifestly declare, (make) manifest (forth), shew (self).
In modern English usage, the nuances of "revealed" and "manifested" are different, but a single Greek word is used. Every English speaker will generally prefer one word over another depending on their already strongly held view regarding what Yeshua did. Did he reveal the Name in power AND pronunciation or did he just manifest it in some figurative and yet powerful way without ever saying the Great Name out loud?
If you read Psalms 22 and 45 (passages Yeshua was apparently quoting), you see how frequent King David used the Great Name in writing, but did he actually say It out loud? My question is, why wouldn't he have said the Great Name also if he was speaking It respectively and with good purpose? We have no reason to believe that Jews wouldn't have said It until we come to the time of the Babylonian Captivity where Jeremiah (ch.44) indicates the name was removed from the mouths of the men of Yehudah (Judah).
More significant evidence
The following are a few places Yeshua "likely" said the Great Name out loud. We can't know for sure since He didn't speak in Greek to the common people in Judah and Samaria, yet the Greek is exclusively what we have as the underlying text. We do know that the LXX (the Greek translation of the Tanakh/Old Testament) frequently translates "YHVH Elohim" as "Kurios Theos", which is almost always shown to us in English translation as "the LORD thy God".
Matthew 4:7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord [Kurios] thy God [Theos]. (Quoting Deut.6:16)
Luke 4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord [Kurios] thy God [Theos], and him only shalt thou serve. (Quoting from the Shema: Deut. 6:13)
What about the Apostle Paul?
Romans 14:11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord [Kurios], every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God [Theos]. (Quoting Isaiah 45:23)
Until some time in the future, we may not have the silver bullet of proof that Yeshua spoke the Great Name out loud, but John sums up what we really know happened during Yeshua's life with this:
"Now there is much else that Yeshua did. If every one of them were written down, I think that the world itself would not contain the written books. Amen." - John 21:25
People can of course claim that we have no proof than anyone spoke the Great Name in antiquity, but my question then is this: Why would the Seleucid Greeks demand the Great Name not to be spoken if it was already not spoken?
"The [Seleucid] Greeks decreed that the name of God may not be spoken aloud; but when the Hasmoneans grew in strength and defeated them they decreed that the name of God be used even in contracts... when the Rabbis heard about this they said, 'Tomorrow this person will pay his debt and the contract will be thrown on a garbage heap' so they forbade its use in contracts." (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 18b)
In the Shema passage of Deuteronomy 6, all of the Assembly of Israel is commanded to listen and then do the commands of the Torah. If they didn't all have individual Torah scrolls of their own to read, then they must have heard the Torah read to them out loud (we know this was the case), thus someone must have been speaking the Torah and thus the Great Name (which is found nearly 7,000 times) must have been said and heard in their ears. We see no WRITTEN passage in the Torah demanding that the Name not be spoken until much later times where rabbis ban it from being spoken (Mishnah Berurah 5:2 and Sanhedrin 10:1).
Basically, it comes down to this:
Who, what Master, are you going to listen to? Are you going to listen to the traditions of mere not-so "great ones" (Rabbis) or are you going to listen to the Eternal All Existing One, the Great One of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
It is your choice. Choose this day who you will serve! (Joshua 24:15)
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