THE
LITERARY CRITICISM.
In the foregoing translation it will be observed that the name of the Deity has been transcribed, not according to the punctuation, Jehovah, but according to the reading adopted by most scholars Yahveh; which, if not absolutely the correct form, is certainly more in accordance with Hebrew etymology than Jehovah, which was only adopted by the blunder of an ignorant transcriber into Greek (cf. an essay on that point at the end of Vol. II of Ewald's History of Israel). In the translation it was thought advisable to use Elohim and Yahveh-Elohim instead of "God" and "the Lord God," because in the first place the plural termination "im" of the Eloh-im, is lost in the English, ("Gods" would not translate it correctly), secondly, our English term "God," is not a translation of Elohim, but merely a substitute; the Hebrew word meaning "the fearful one," or, according to some etymologists, the "powerful one." In the third place the appellation of the Deity in the various parts of the Pentateuch is one of the chief indices by which to distinguish the various documents out of which it is composed. The name Yahveh was left untranslated because it cannot be translated. It is a proper name from the ancient Hebrew root "Havah," being; but like Jupiter, or Zeus, it has lost its adjective power and has become stereotyped as a proper name, the name of the national God of the Israelites. The
