Judaism has different names given to God, which are considered sacred: (), (Adonai ), (El ), ( ), (Shaddai ), and ( ); some also include I Am that I Am.This is the formulation of Joseph Karo (SA YD 276:9). Maimonides (MT Yesodei haTorah 6:2), Jacob ben Asher (AT YD 276), and Isaac Alfasi (HK Menachot 3b) also included I Am that I Am, as do many later authorities, including Moses Isserles (SA YD 276:9). The original lists are found in y. Megillah 1:9 and b. Shavuot 35a, with some MSs agreeing with each authority. Maimonides and followers give the number of names as seven; however, manuscript inconsistency makes it difficult to judge which are included. Authorities including Asher ben Jehiel (Responsa 3:15), the Tosafists (b. Sotah 10a), Yechiel of Paris (cited Birkei Yosef, Oraḥ Hayyim 85:8), Simeon ben Zemah Duran, Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, and Moses Isserles (SA YD 276:13), include the term Shalom as well. Early authorities considered other Hebrew names mere epithets or descriptions of God, and wrote that they and names in other languages may be written and erased freely.e.g. Akiva Eiger (Hagahot to SA YD 276:9) and Shabbatai HaKohen (SK YD 179:11). Yechiel Michel Epstein (AH HM 27) was the first major authority to explicitly disagree. See also J. David Bleich, Contemporary Halakhic Problems Vol. I ch. IX. Some moderns advise special care even in these cases,Epstein, Jonathan Eybeschutz, Urim veTumim 27:2, Yaakov Lorberbaum, Netivot ha-Mishpat 27:2, etc. and many Orthodox Jews have adopted the chumras of writing "G-d" instead of "God" in English or saying Ṭēt-Vav (, '9-6') instead of Yōd-Hē (, '10-5', but also 'Jah') for the number fifteen or Ṭēt-Zayin (, '9-7') instead of Yōd-Vav (, '10-6') for the Hebrew number sixteen.
Seven names of God The names of God that, once written, cannot be erased because of their holiness"If an error is made in writing it, it may not be erased, but a line must be drawn round it to show that it is canceled..." , "Names of God", 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia are the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), Adonai, El, Elohim, Shaddai, Tzevaot; some also include I Am that I Am, from which "YHWH" is believed to be derived. In addition, the name Jah—because it forms part of the Tetragrammaton—is similarly protected. The tanna Jose ben Halafta considered "Tzevaot" a common name in the second centuryJose ben Halafta, Soferim, 4:1, Yer. R. H., 1:1; Ab. R. N., 34. and Rabbi Ishmael considered "Elohim" to be one.Rabbi Ishmael, Sanhedrin, 66a. All other names, such as "Merciful", "Gracious" and "Faithful", merely represent attributes that are also common to human beings.Sheb. 35a.
Tetragrammaton
Also abbreviated Jah, the most common name of God in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton, . The Hebrew script is an abjad, and thus vowels are often omitted in writing. The Tetragrammaton is sometimes rendered with vowels, though it is not known which vowels were used originally. Direct transliteration is avoided in Jewish custom.
Modern Rabbinical Jewish culture forbids pronunciation of this name. In prayers it is replaced by saying the word (, , Pluralis majestatis taken as singular), and in discussion by 'The Name'. Nothing in the Torah explicitly prohibits speaking the name and the Book of Ruth shows that it continued to be pronounced as late as the 5th century BCE. Mark Sameth argues that only a pseudo name was pronounced, the four letters (YHVH, YHWH) being a cryptogram which the priests of ancient Israel read in reverse as , 'he–she', signifying a dual-gendered deity, as earlier theorized by Guillaume Postel (16th century) and (19th century)."At one point he [Guillaume Postel] observes that the Tetragrammaton יהוה yhwh contains both feminine and masculine pro-nouns — וה wh, and יה yh. He then finds this discovery is corroborated in , when the Prophet Elijah sits down with the Widow of Zarephath and the Hebrew says "she ate, she and he" וַתֹּאכַל הוא-והיא הִיא-וָהוּא. What is striking here in Kings is that the vowels of the pronouns are swapped around: הוא hw' (he) is vocalized as היא hy' (she), and vice versa. This was exactly the sort of divine gender-bending he was after." — It had ceased to be spoken aloud by at least the 3rd century BCE, during Second Temple Judaism. The Talmud relates, perhaps anecdotally, that this began with the death of Simeon the Just.Yoma; Tosefta Sotah 13 Vowel points began to be added to the Hebrew text only in the early medieval period. The Masoretic Text adds to the Tetragrammaton the vowel points of Adonai or Elohim (depending on the context), indicating that these are the words to be pronounced in place of the Tetragrammaton (see Qere and Ketiv), as shown also by the pronunciation changes when combined with a preposition or a conjunction. This is in contrast to Karaite Jews, who traditionally viewed pronouncing the Tetragrammaton as a mitzvah because the name appears some 6800 times throughout the Tanakh; however, most modern Karaites, under pressure and seeking acceptance from mainstream Rabbinical Jews, now also use the term Adonai instead. The Beta Israel pronounce the Tetragrammaton as Yahu, but also use the Geʽez term .
The Tetragrammaton appears in Genesis and occurs 6,828 times in total in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition of the Masoretic Text. It is thought to be an archaic third-person singular of the imperfective aspect of the verb "to be" (i.e., "[He] is/was/will be"). This agrees with the passage in Exodus where God names himself as "I Will Be What I Will Be" using the first-person singular imperfective aspect, open to interpretation as present tense ("I am what I am"), future ("I shall be what I shall be"), or imperfect ("I used to be what I used to be")."Biblical Hebrew Grammar for Beginners" , University of Texas at Austin
Rabbinic Judaism teaches that the name is forbidden to all except the High Priest of Israel, who should only speak it in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. He then pronounces the name "just as it is written." As each blessing was made, the people in the temple's courtyard were to prostrate themselves completely as they heard it spoken aloud. As the Temple has not been rebuilt since its destruction in 70 CE, most modern Jews never pronounce YHWH but instead read (, , , Pluralis majestatis taken as singular) during prayer and while reading the Torah and as HaShem 'The Name' at other times. Most English translations of the Bible write "the " for YHWH, and "the God" or "the Lord " for Adonai YHWH instead of transcribing the name. The Septuagint may have originally used the Hebrew letters themselves amid its Greek text,Origen, Commentary on Psalms 2:2.Jerome, Prologus Galeatus. but there is no scholarly consensus on this point.
Adonai
(, , , pluralis majestatis taken as singular) is the possessive form of ('Lord'), along with the first-person singular pronoun enclitic. As with , Adonai's grammatical form is usually explained as a form akin to the "royal we". In the Hebrew Bible, the word is nearly always used to refer to God (approximately 450 occurrences). As the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided in the Hellenistic period, Jews may have begun to drop the Tetragrammaton when presented alongside Adonai and subsequently to expand it to cover for the Tetragrammaton in the forms of spoken prayer and written scripture. Owing to the expansion of chumra, the idea of 'building a fence around the Torah', the word itself has come to be too holy to say for Orthodox Jews outside of prayer, leading to its replacement by ('The Name').
The singular forms and ('my lord') are used in the Hebrew Bible as royal titles, as in the First Book of Samuel, and for distinguished persons. The Phoenicians used it as a title of Tammuz (the origin of the Greek god's name Adonis). It is also used very occasionally in Hebrew texts to refer to God (e.g. Psalm 136:3). Deuteronomy 10:17 has the Tetragrammaton alongside the superlative constructions "God of gods" (, literally, "the gods of gods") and "Lord of lords" (, "the lords of lords": ; JPS 2006: "For your God יהוה is God supreme and Lord supreme").
The final syllable of Adonai uses the vowel rather than , which would be expected from the Hebrew for 'my lord(s)'. Professor Yoel Elitzur explains this as a normal transformation when a Hebrew word becomes a name, citing other examples such as Nathan, Yitzhak, and Yigal.Yoel Elitzur, Shemot HaEl VeTaarichei Ketivat Sifrei HaMiqra, published in Be'einei Elohim VaAdam, Beit Morasha Jerusalem: 2017, p. 407 footnote 24; see also link . As became the most common reverent substitute for the Tetragrammaton, it too became considered un-erasable due to its holiness. As such, most prayer books avoid spelling out the word , and instead write two () in its place.
The forms , , and represent Ashkenazi Hebrew variant pronunciations of the word .
El
El appears in Ugaritic, Phoenician and other late Bronze and Iron Age Levant texts both as generic "god" and as the head of the divine pantheon. In the Hebrew Bible, El (, ) appears very occasionally alone (for example, in Genesis 33:20, Jacob builds an altar dedicated to , the 'Mighty God of Israel',KJV margin at Genesis 33:20 and Genesis 46:3 refers to , 'El the God of thy father'), but usually with some epithet or attribute attached (e.g. , 'Most High El', , El Shaddai, 'Everlasting El', , 'Living El', 'El my Shepherd', and 'El of Strength'). In these cases, it can be understood as the generic "god". In theophoric names such as Gabriel ("Strength of God"), Michael ("Who is like God?"), Raphael ("God healed"), Ariel ("My lion is God"), Daniel ("My judgment is God"), Ezekiel ("God shall strengthen"), Israel ("one who has struggled with God"), Immanuel ("God is with us"), and Ishmael ("God hears/ will hear / listens/ will listen") it is usually interpreted and translated as "God".
El also appears in the form ().
Elohim
A common name of God in the Hebrew Bible is Elohim (, ), the plural of (). When Elohim refers to God in the Hebrew Bible, singular verbs are used. The word is identical to meaning gods and is cognate to the found in Ugaritic, where it is used for the pantheon of Canaanite gods, the children of El and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim" although the original Ugaritic vowels are unknown. When the Hebrew Bible uses not in reference to God, it is plural (for example, Exodus 20:2). There are a few other such uses in Hebrew, for example Behemoth. In Modern Hebrew, the singular word ('owner') looks plural, but likewise takes a singular verb.
A number of scholars have traced the etymology to the Semitic root , 'to be first, powerful', despite some difficulties with this view. is thus the plural construct 'powers'. Hebrew grammar allows for this form to mean "He is the Power (singular) over powers (plural)", just as the word means 'owner' (see above). "He is lord (singular) even over any of those things that he owns that are lordly (plural)".
Theologians who dispute this claim cite the hypothesis that plurals of majesty came about in more modern times. Richard Toporoski, a classics scholar, asserts that plurals of majesty first appeared in the reign of Diocletian (CE 284–305).R. Toporoski, "What was the origin of the royal 'we' and why is it no longer used?", The Times, May 29, 2002. Ed. F1, p. 32 Indeed, Gesenius states in his book Hebrew Grammar the following:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (A. E. Cowley, ed., Oxford, 1976, p.398)
The Jewish grammarians call such plurals ... or ; later grammarians call them , , or .