Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain"; so runs the third of the Ten Commandments. But what is this Name, and how shall we know it?
    In the last issue of Freemasonry Today we saw how the word which we pronounce as JEHOVAH was actually made by combining the consonants JHVH with the vowels of ADONAI (pronounced as "EDONAY"), the Hebrew word for "Lord".
    This was done because JHVH was never allowed to be pronounced, except by the High Priest once a year, so the word Adonai was always substituted when reading the Scriptures aloud.
    This convention was followed by the translators of our Authorised (King James) Version, and wherever the letters JHVH appear in the Hebrew text, the word LORD (in capital letters) appears in the English version.
    The ancient Hebrews were an extremely careful and particular people, and tended to take things very literally. Some of their customs continue to this day. Thus, the Law said (Exodus 23,19) "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk."
    With modern farming methods, such an event is highly unlikely, but in order to avoid the billion to one chance that it might happen, they decided that the safest thing would be never to serve meat and milk at the same meal, and Orthodox Jews still observe this same convention.
    Again, the Law allowed the priests to enter the holy part of the Temple, but the people could only enter the outer court. No trace of the Temple now remains, and so no one knows exactly where the Holy Place was. No Orthodox Jew will therefore set foot on the Holy Mount Moriah in Jerusalem lest, by mistake, he happens to tread on ground forbidden to him.
    This then is surely why the Israelites never pronounced JHVH in full, lest the state of their souls meant that they were "taking the Name in vain."
    Now the next question that arises is this: Why does God need to have a name at all? This is a perfectly fair question because, when you come to think of it, names are only needed to distinguish between individuals of the same species or objects of the same kind.
    Thus we call one man Tom to distinguish him from other men called Dick and Harry, and we call one city London to distinguish it from other cities called Edinburgh or Cardiff.
    But when there is only one of any species we do not need to give it a name. For example, we have only one world, so we just call it The World. We don't say "Our world is called X to distinguish it from another world called Y".
    Of course, as scientific exploration develops, I suppose we may find other worlds and galaxies, so let us use the example of the Universe instead. By definition there can be only one Universe, since it includes everything; therefore there is no need for the Universe to have a name.
    How much more, then, must this apply to God who, by the same definition, comprehends all power, all existence, and so has no need to be distinguished from others of the same species, since there are no others!
    It wasn't always so. Man's earliest religious beliefs included a multiplicity of gods. These included gods of particular places (mountains, forests, rivers etc.) and gods of particular activities (war, peace and music), and each of these naturally needed a name.
    Then came the idea that different nations could have gods of their own: Baal, Rimmon, Moloch and Dagon, for example, were "adopted" as local or national gods, who were expected to assist and promote their worshippers, in return for which the worshippers offered sacrifices and – theoretically – obedience.
   
   
    In the earlier books of the Bible it is clear that Israel's God was thought to be in competition with other deities, and the prophets were continually maintaining the superiority of their own God as "The God above all Gods".
    It was only much later that they realised that the Universe can have only one Great Architect, and therefore all talk of "other gods" was nonsense, since there are no other gods at all.
    Masonry has sometimes been criticised for not having a specific religious doctrine of its own; but in fact it is one of Masonry's greatest strengths that it excludes theology from its teaching, and indeed forbids religious discussion in its Lodges.
    It is not that we want "all religions to be equal" but rather that there is but One God, and it is up to each individual to worship that One God in any way that he thinks fit. The important thing therefore is not the Name of God, but His existence. I think that this can most clearly be seen in the passage in Exodus, where Moses hears the voice from the Burning Bush instructing him to free the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage.
    Moses asks, "When I say to the children of Israel, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?"
    In reply to that question, God does not say, "Tell them that my name is..." No - God says, "I am that which I am, so tell them that I am sent you." In other words, God has no name because he doesn't need one; his existence is all that matters.
    That existence and power is summed up in the ineffable tetragrammaton JHVH, implying past, present and future being. You can call it a name if you want to, and of course many did, and still do.
    But it is really a sort of shorthand to describe the One True and Living God Most High, who was, and is, and is to come, the Almighty.
    So mote it be.

The Reverend Canon Richard Tydeman was awarded the Grand Master's Order of Service in Masonry in 1988 and promoted to Junior Grand Warden in 1989. In Royal Arch he was Grand Scribe Nehemiah in 1971 and Grand Superintendent in and over Suffolk 1980-1987. He holds high rank in many other Degrees and Orders.