The Jewish or Jewish or biblical religion, by definition, is the opposite of paganism. However, for some reason, the biblical religion was credited with the property of pagan religions - not to pronounce the name of the supreme deity out loud.
For many peoples, the main deity was the bear - the most powerful animal in their area. Few people know that the very word “Bear” (“knowing honey”, in Ukrainian “Wedmed”) is not the name of this animal itself, but is a euphemism (substitute), which in everyday speech replaced the real taboo (forbidden to pronounce) name animal god. This original name has not been preserved in Slavic languages. In Latin it is "ursus" (from where in Romance "orso", "ours", etc.). Most likely, his real forbidden name is "Ber". It survives in English and some other languages. From this root is the place of the bear's dwelling "BERLOG". But there is no need to say it out loud in the forest. Ber will hear his name being called and will appear. Beru must be treated with respect!
As another example of a pagan prohibition on pronouncing the name of God, I will cite little-known Ugro-Slavic paganism, where fire is part of the trinity of pagan gods (along with its brothers the Sun and Lightning). His name was considered dangerous to pronounce:
From Egyptian mythology:to become the mistress of heaven, Isis decided to find out secret Name Ra. She noticed that Ra had become old by that time, saliva was dripping from the corners of his lips and falling to the ground. She collected drops of Ra's saliva, mixed it with dust, molded it into a snake, cast her spells over it and placed it on the road along which the sun god passed every day.
After some time, the snake bit Ra... Isis promised him that she would heal him, but he must say his secret name
“Let Isis search within me, and let my name pass from my body to hers.”
...When Ra agreed that he secret name became the property of the sorceress, and his heart was taken out of his chest, Isis said: “Flowing poison, come out of Ra, Eye of Horus, come out of Ra and shine on his lips. It is I, Isis, who conjure, and it is I who made the poison fall to the ground. Truly the name of the great god is taken from him, Ra will live, and poison will die; if the poison lives, then Ra will die.”
As you can see, modern Talmudic Judaism picked up the very idea of a secret name from Egypt.
Even Indian cults in America had the same tradition of superstitious pagan fear of pronouncing the names of gods (the name of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl), etc.
But this is all paganism. What's in the Bible? The true God must have a contrary tradition.
Some argue that the name of God (“Jehovah”) was not spoken before Moses. This conclusion is drawn from the following verse:
With name]
This is a common confusion. The concepts of “opening up with a name” and “pronouncing a name” are confused. After all, before Moses, all positive biblical characters pronounced the name “Jehovah”.
In general, the idea that the name of God may not be known is drawn from paganism:
Sikhs believe in One God, the omnipotent and all-pervading Creator.
No one knows his real name.By the way, pay attention - pagans, but they believe in the only God. But they don't know his name. So much for paganism. In Judaism and Christianity the name of God must be known, otherwise there is no difference from paganism. In both paganism and Judeo-Christianity, there is One God. What's the difference then?
I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob With name]"God Almighty" and with the name [My] "Lord" ("Jehovah" in the original Hebrew) did not reveal himself to them (Exodus 6:3)It should be noted that in the Russian translation, Orthodox translators added the word " With name] ". In the original Hebrew there is no word "name". It is said that he simply appeared as "God Almighty". This is not a name but a quality. But when Jehovah pronounced his name, he actually called it a name: "and with the name "Jehovah "I did not reveal myself to them." Here, in fact, the word "name" is written in Hebrew. Thus, the Orthodox translators have added a little haze of lies - they say both "Almighty" is a name and "Jehovah" is a name.
So, before Moses, all positive biblical characters pronounced the name “Jehovah”. For example, Noah, Abraham and Isaac said:
Genesis 9:26:(Noah) said: "Blessed Jehovah, God of Sims; Canaan will be his slave";
Genesis 12:08:(Abram) built an altar there and called the name Jehovah
Genesis 13:4: to the place of the altar which he made there at the beginning; and there called Avram Name Jehovah.
Genesis 21:33:(Abraham) planted a grove near Bathsheba and called there Name Jehovah, the eternal God
Genesis 26:25:(Isaac) built an altar there and called the name Jehovah.
Please note that Noah pronounced the name of Jehovah as the name of God specifically Shem, the forefather of the Shemites, the Jews, and not the name of the God of the Canaanites.
Note also that Abraham is said to have spoken the name of Jehovah three times in the Torah.
There is a belief, especially among grandparents in remote villages of the Russian outback, that supposedly before Moses, no one spoke the name of Jehovah. But, in the book of Genesis, 38 times people pronounce the name “Jehovah” in direct speech out loud:
1. Gen.4:1Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and said: I bought a man from Jehovah.
2. Gen.5:29: (Lamech) called his name Noah, having said: He will comfort us in our work and in the labor of our hands in [cultivating] the land which he has cursed Jehovah.
3. Gen.9:26 Then said: blessed Jehovah God of Sims;
4.Gen.14:22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom: I lift up my hand to Jehovah God Almighty, Lord of heaven and earth,
5. Gen. 15:2 Abram said: Lord Jehovah! What You will give me?
6. Gen. 15:8 He said: Lord Jehovah ! By how can I know that I will own it?
7. Gen.16:2 And said Sarah to Abram: here, Jehovah I shut up my womb so that I would not give birth
8. Gen.16:5 And said Sarah to Avram: ... Jehovah let him be a judge between me and you.
9. Gen.19:14 And Lot went out and spoke with his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said: get up, get out of this place, for Jehovah will destroy this city.
10. Gen.24:2,3 And said Abraham to his servant: ... swear to me Jehovah, God of heaven and God of earth
11. Gen.24:6,7: Abraham said to him:... Jehovah, God of heaven [and God of earth]
1 2. Gen. 24:12 and said: Jehovah O God of my master Abraham!
1 3. Gen. 24:27 and said: blessed Jehovah The God of my master Abraham... Jehovah led me straight to the house of my master's brother.
1 4. Gen. 24:31 and said[to him]: Come in, blessed one Jehovah; why are you standing outside?
15. Gen.24:34,35 He said: Jehovah greatly blessed my lord
16. Gen.24:40 He said to me: Jehovah [God], before whom I walk, will send His angel with you
17. Gen.24:42 And now I came to the fountain, and said: Jehovah , God of my lord Abraham! ...
18. Gen. 24:44 and whoever says to me, “You drink, and I will draw for your camels,” this is the woman whom Jehovah assigned to my master's son
19. Gen.24:48 And I bowed down and worshiped Jehovah, and blessed Jehovah, God of my lord Abraham,
20. Gen.24:50 And answered Laban and Bethuel said: Jehovah this thing has come;
21. Gen.24:51 Behold Rebekah is before you; take [it] and go; let her be the wife of your master's son, as he said Jehovah .
22. Gen.24:56 He said to them: do not hold me back, for Jehovah made my way better;
23. Gen.26:22 ... said he, now Jehovah gave us a spacious place,
24. Gen.26:28-29 They they said: we clearly saw that Jehovah with you, and therefore we said: we will put an oath between you and us and conclude an alliance with you, so that you do not harm us, just as we did not touch you, but do only good to you and let you go in peace; now you are blessed Jehovah.
25. Gen.27:7 Bring me game and prepare food for me; I will eat and bless you before you Jehovah, before my death
26. Gen.27:20 ...He said: because Jehovah Your God sent me to meet you.
27. Gen.28:16 Jacob awoke from his sleep and said: true Jehovah present at this place; but I didn’t know!
28. Gen.28:20 And Jacob made a vow, saying: If Jehovah God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I am going on, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear,
29. Gen. 28:21 And I will return in peace to my father's house, and it will be Jehovah my God
30. Gen.29:32 Leah conceived and bore [Jacob] a son, and called his name Reuben, because said she: Jehovah looked upon my misfortune [and gave me a son],
31. Gen.29:33 And [Leah] conceived again and bore [Jacob a second] son, and said: Jehovah He heard that I was unloved and gave me this too. And she called his name: Simeon.
32. Gen. 30:24 And she called his name Joseph, saying: Jehovah He will give me another son.
33. Gen.30:27 And said to Laban: Oh, that I may find favor in your sight! I note that for you Jehovah blessed me.
34. Gen. 30:30 For you had little before me, but have become many; Jehovah blessed you with my arrival; when will I work for my house?
35. Gen. 31:49 also: Mizpah, because Laban said: yes he is watching Jehovah over me and over you, when we hide from each other;
36. Gen.32:9 And said Jacob: God of my father Abraham and the God of my father Isaac, Jehovah [God] who said to me: return to the earth yours, to your homeland, and I will do good you!
37. Gen.29:35 And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said: now I will praise Jehovah . Therefore she called his name Judah (Yehuda).
38. Gen.49:18 I hope for your help, Jehovah!
There are also 5 examples when the name “Jehovah” was pronounced by Jehovah himself (or angels on his behalf):
1. Gen.15:7 And said to him: I Jehovah Who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land for your possession.
2. Gen. 18:19 For I have chosen him, that he should command his sons and his household after him, to walk in the way Jehovah, doing justice and justice; and will fulfill Jehovah over Abraham, what he said about him.
3. Gen. 28:13 And behold, Jehovah stood on her and speaks: I Jehovah, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie will I give to you and to your descendants;
4. Gen.18:14 Is there anything difficult for Jehovah? At the appointed time I will be with you next year, and Sarah will have a son.
5. Gen. 19:13 For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against its inhabitants is great. Jehovah, And Jehovah sent us to destroy him.
As you can see, for the first time in the Bible Jehovah called himself Jehovah in direct speech in the 15th chapter, addressing Abraham. And when did Jehovah introduce himself as God Almighty (“El Shaddai”)? Before you introduced yourself to Jehovah or after? The answer is after. First he introduced himself as Jehovah, and only then as the Almighty, already 2 chapters later:
Abram was ninety-nine years old, and Jehovah appeared to Abram and said to him: I God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless;
Do not forget that Abraham called Jehovah by the name “Jehovah” even earlier.
The name of God "Jehovah" was also found in Hebrew names. For example, Moses' mother's name was Yogeved. She is mentioned in Exodus 6:20.
Here is the commentary of the famous Jewish commentator Soncino:
Yocheved consists of two words: from the four letter name of the Almighty and from the word kavod - “glory”. It can be understood as “The Most High (Jehovah) is my glory.”
The use of this name itself is a refutation of the critical approach to the analysis of the Torah text, which is based on the fact that the four-letter name was not known before Moshe began his activity.
http://www.machanaim.org/tanach/b-shemot/indb02_1.htm,
http://www.istok.ru/Tanah/tanach/humash/shmot/shmot_3738.html
That is, from the phrase " with my name "Jehovah" was not revealed to them"It does not follow that the name was not known and was not pronounced.
God revealed himself to Abraham with the name "El Shaddai" (in Russian "God Almighty") - this means that God proved that He is "Almighty" - was able to make the barren old woman Sarah and even more old in years Abraham was able to conceive a child, for example.
This is how it was revealed that God, who appeared to Abraham, is omnipotent:
11 Abraham and Sarah were old and advanced in years, and Sarah’s customary behavior among women ceased.
12 Sarah laughed internally , saying: Should I, when I am old, have this consolation? and my lord is old.
13 And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, “Can I really give birth now that I am old?”
14 At the appointed time I will be with you next year, and Sarah will have a son.
So, 90-year-old Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Not only was she quite old and ill with infertility all her life, but also “the custom of women ceased with Sarah” (Gen. 18:11).15 But Sarah did not confess, but said, “I did not laugh.” Because she was afraid. But He said: no, you laughed (Genesis 18)
And Abraham was already 100 years old. Therefore, the promise of God appearing to Abraham was hardly believed.
The name "Yitzhak" in Hebrew comes from the word "laughter" - in memory of the fact that the announcement of the possibility of his appearance was so incredible that Sarah even laughed. Despite what the Lord himself told her. She understood that it was impossible to laugh at Jehovah’s words, and that’s why she didn’t confess. But I couldn’t contain my emotions - the laughter was not intentional, but completely automatic, the message about the possibility of an old man having a son looked so funny.
And what did Jehovah answer her?
Is there anything difficult for Jehovah?
This is the statement that God is omnipotent. Nothing is difficult for him.
(By the way, here we see that Jehovah himself pronounced his name publicly as Jehovah 400 years before Moses. Who can claim that before Moses no one knew this name? Only a pathological liar or a madman!).
And to Moses he revealed himself under the name “Everlasting,” or rather “I Will Be,” which is a decoding of the word “Jehovah,” which is a combination of the Hebrew verb “to be” in three tenses. (“Will be” - “yegye”, “is” - “gove”, “was” - “gaya” (approximately in Hebrew transcription in Russian letters). I do not want to delve into this meaning in this topic, I just want to emphasize that pronounce name and to uncover name - different things)).
For example, Stirlitz revealed himself as Soviet intelligence officer Colonel Isaev. This does not mean that the Center did not know that his name was Isaev.
And the artilleryman Leo Tolstoy once revealed himself as a great writer. In another case, Leo Tolstoy revealed himself as a vegetarian, in a third case as a moral teacher and “Mirror of the Russian Revolution.”
The word "Jehovah" has a future connotation, that is, God fulfilling his promises for the distant future. Jehovah promised Abraham to produce great people. This was fulfilled during the exodus from Egypt. Several million Jews appeared. Until this moment it was not possible make sure one could only trust in the fulfillment of Jehovah's promises. And now God has revealed himself, or rather “recognized.” The fact that in Russian it is written “but with [My] name “Lord” is not OPENED"im" in Hebrew is the verb " nodachi", This is a form of the verb " know", as opposed to "believe". http://biblezoom.ru/#-2-6-3-exp-w-10-22550 – take a look here.
In addition to the fact that a great nation would come from childless Abraham, it was also predicted that the people would be enslaved in Egypt and would be released to freedom in the Promised Land.
Abram said:
–Sovereign Lord! what will you give me? I remain childless; ...Behold, You gave me no offspring...
And he brought him out and said to [him]:
– Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can count them... you will have so many descendants.
Abram believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him:
– I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land as your possession. .. know that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will enslave them, and will oppress them for four hundred years,but I will bring judgment upon the people to whom they shall be enslaved; after this they will come out [here] with great wealth... in the fourth generation they will return here...
On this day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:
– To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to great river, Euphrates River (Gen.15:1-18)
Now look at the context of chapter 6, where the promise was fulfilled and God was therefore revealed as “Jehovah”:
And the Lord said to Moses: Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh; by the working of a mighty hand he will let them go; by the action of a mighty hand he will even drive them out of his land. And God spoke to Moses and said to him:
– I –Jehovah. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the name "God Almighty", but with My name "Jehovah" I did not reveal myself to them; And I made my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan , the land of their wanderings, in which they wandered. And I heard the groaning of the children of Israel because the Egyptians kept them in bondage, and I remembered my covenant . Therefore, say to the children of Israel: I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their slavery, and I will save you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments; and I will take you as My people and will be your God, and you will know that I – Jehovah your God, who brought you [from the land of Egypt] out from under the yoke of Egypt; And I will bring you into the land about which I, having lifted up My hand, swore to give it to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and I will give it to you as an inheritance. I am Jehovah (Ex.6:1-8)
Previously they only believed Jehovah, but now they KNOW that he keeps his promises. This is the essence of what is translated in Russian as “disclosure.” But this has nothing to do with knowing the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.
However, “blessed are those who have not seen but believed” (John 20:29). It is for faith that God is grateful to Abraham. But any fool can know.
Gen. 15:6: Avram believed to the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness
Predicting from the beginning what will happen in the end is the main proof of the truth of Jehovah God.
Isaiah 46:10:
I have declared from the beginning what will happen in the end, and from ancient times what has not yet been done.
But how do people know what was once predicted? From Jehovah's people, from his witnesses. Witnesses who keep his prophecies in written form.
9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and the nations flock together. Who among them predicted this? let them declare what happened from the beginning; let them present witnesses on their own behalf and be justified,
12 I have foretold and saved and proclaimed; But you have no other, and you are My witnesses, says Jehovah, that I am God; (Isa.43)Here's how 4 different Jewish translators translated Exodus 6:3:
Even when I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the Almighty God, I didn't let them know what the Name means (The author of the translation is Rav S.R. Hirsch)
I OPENED UP TO ABRAHAM, YITZHAK AND YAACOV IN THE IMAGE ALMIGHTY, BUT I DIDN’T REVEAL MY DIVINE ESSENCE TO THEM(Author - Soncino)
AND I revealed Myself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as G-d Almighty, but (under) My Name the Lord the Eternal I was not known by them (author - Frima Gurfinkel)
appeared I am to Abraham, Isaac and Yaakov God Almighty, and by My name "Eternal" didn't open up to them(author - David Yosifon)
All 4 translations can be seen on the Jewish website
As you can see, none of the Jewish interpreters translates it so that the name supposedly “was not revealed.” It's just about revealing understanding and knowledge of MEANING or the essence of who God is , and not the fact of discovery of the sound or pronunciation of the name.
In Talmudic Judaism, a list of 613 specific commandments has been compiled. Some people think that supposedly in that list there is a commandment prohibiting the pronunciation of the name of God. Nothing like this!
You can see this list, for example, on Wikipedia http://ru.wikipedia.org/?oldid=35520654. Look for yourself and see that there is no such commandment. There is prohibitive commandment number 62: do not swear in vain:
62 Shemot 20:6 Don't swear in vain
Here are all the meanings of this verb that this dictionary gives:
infinitive
נָשָׂא [לָשֵׂאת, נוֹשֵׂא, יִישָׂא]
1.bear 2.endure, endure
נָשָׂא אִישָה
נָשָׂא אוֹתָהּ לְאִישָה
married her
נָשָׂא אֶת עֵינָיו
looked up
נָשָׂא בְּעוֹל
carried the burden
נָשָׂא פָּנִים
cut some slack
נָשָׂא פָּנִים אֶל
look straight in the face
נָשָׂא פּרִי
bore fruit, gave results
נָשָׂא רַגלָיו
ran, lost his legs
נָשָׂא תפִילָה
נָשָׂא וְנָתַן
negotiated
נָשָׂא חֵן בְּעֵינֵי
liked smb.
נָשָׂא אֶת נַפשוֹ
strived
לְלֹא נְשׂוֹא
intolerable
As you can see, the dictionary confirms that the meaning of the verb is 1. “to bear” 2. “to endure” (in the sense of “to endure”) and there is no meaning to pronouncing any words or sounds out loud.
Google translate translates as "accept".
Why Russian translators translated this verb as “pronounce” is not known to science.
But let’s say the dictionary compilers made a mistake. Where is this verb first found in the Bible?
And Cain said to the Lord [God], “My punishment is greater than DEMOLISH Can;
As you can see, the meaning is clear, even without a dictionary, that this word means “to wear” and not “to say out loud.”
And the flood continued on the earth forty days [and forty nights], and the waters increased, and PICKED UP the ark, and it rose above the earth;
The same. Did the water carry the ark or did the water bring the ark out loud?
1. lift;
3. contain;
4. forgive.
B(ni): to rise, to exalt, to be exalted or exalted. C(pi): 1. to raise; 2. carry. E(hi): to incur (guilt). G(hith): to exalt, to exalt.
As you can see, there is not a single meaning associated with pronunciation at all!
This is how the Jews themselves now translate into Russian:
"Don't take it upon yourself The name of G‑d, his G‑d, is in vain, for G‑d will not consider the one innocentaccepts His Name is in vain"
"Thou shalt not exalt the Name of the Lord ( don't swear them) in vain"
That is, it is forbidden to swear falsely by the name, but not to utter it at all.
Here is Rabbi Shimshon Hirsch's comment:
... perjury is the most despicable denial of G-d...
These words of G-d mean that to take an oath in His Name means to make your entire future dependent on the sincerity of the oath or the intention to fulfill it. Our sages teach (Shavuot 39a) that the whole world trembled in horror when G‑d declared on Mount Sinai that He would not spare anyone who took His Name in vain, because G‑d’s judgment applies to the words of any person who swears and then breaks the oath
"It's pointless, in vain ( the word also means "lie"). What is there? false oath?(When a person) swears, (knowingly) changing what is known, obvious, (for example), about a stone pillar (says) that it is golden [Shevyot 29]"
Here is Soncino's Jewish commentary:
in vain In vain. In vain oath considered false oath, so oath uttered without any need.
The Almighty has the quality of holiness, and His name is also holy. It is permissible to swear in the name of the Almighty, only if the person is completely confident in the veracity of his statement. But even in this case, taking an oath is permissible only at the request of the court in cases strictly defined by law. According to custom, the name of the Almighty is not uttered in conversations on everyday topics.
for he will not forgive and will not leave him unpunished. Before a person summoned to court took an oath, the sages warned him about the responsibility that falls on the person pronouncing oath.
All comments are taken from here http://www.machanaim.org/tanach/b-shemot/indb05_2.htm - click on the desired verse of chapter 20 and select any comment in the upper right corner.
That is, All 3 commentators collected on the Jewish website refer this commandment specifically to a false oath, and not to pronouncing the name of God.
But for some reason, Christians, and even some Russian-speaking Jews, believe that the commandment not to pronounce a name out loud came from the Jews from the interpretation of this third commandment. And Jewish authorities, as we see, attribute this commandment only to a false oath.
By the way, here is http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm translation of the Jews on the most authoritative Jewish English-language site. They use the verb "take" in verse 6 rather than "say."
Jews before new era translated the Torah into ancient Greek. This is now called the Septuagint. This translation was used by the first Christians, and is now considered by many churches to be even more authoritative than the Hebrew text.
Notice how these words about the 3rd commandment are translated in the Septuagint:
"Do not take a name in vain"
That is, even the Septuagint does not talk about pronouncing the name, but about assignment the name of Jehovah ON "vain" ("shav" in Hebrew). “Vain” is false gods, idols in Hebrew (this Hebrew word for “vain” (“shav”) is used for example in Jonah 2:9 in relation to false gods or idols).
The essence of the commandment in this case is not to call idols by the name of God - “vain”, “vain” gods or, in other words, “dummies”.
In fact, the first 3 commandments are 3 points of one general commandment about idols:
1. Do not make images of gods (however, sinners made a golden calf)
2. Do not worship them (they did worship the golden calf)
3. Do not call these idols (dummies) by the name of the true God. (when they made the golden calf, the apostate Jews called it “their god who brought them out of the land of Egypt”)
4 He took them out of their hands, and made a molten calf out of them, and dressed it with a chisel. And they said, Behold your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!
5 When Aaron saw [this], he set up an altar before him, and Aaron proclaimed, saying, “Tomorrow is a feast.” Jehovah
that is, the sinful Jews, worshiping the calf, considered it Jehovah - they violated the third commandment not by pronouncing the name, but by calling the idol by this name (specifically, Aaron called it that way, but the people did not object to him).
As noted above, one of the understandings of this commandment in the exact translation is “do not bear the name of Jehovah falsely.”
"Do not carry the Name of Jehovah your God, false, for Jehovah will not leave without punishment the one who bears His name falsely"
The Jews were then called Jehovah's witnesses, the people of Jehovah (see Isaiah chapter 43), the community of Jehovah ("community" and "witness" are written the same in Hebrew, only the ending is different. Witness - "ed", community - "eda" - the ending was added for female).
Moreover, regardless of the name, the nations knew about the Jews that their God was Jehovah. The people knew him only by name; the pagans did not particularly delve into other details of the faith.
Less commonly, Jews were called Jews. But the word “Jew” in Hebrew “Yehudi” also comes from the name of God and is translated as “one who recognizes Jehovah.”
That is, the Jews in the biblical period, the people of God, bore the name of God on themselves. More precisely, they were called by this name.
To be called by any name in Hebrew is conveyed precisely by this verb used in this commandment.
For example, after the terrorist attack in Toulouse, carried out by a Muslim terrorist named Muhammad, one of the Muslim leaders of France said that this "murderer is not worthy be called in the name of the Prophet Muhammad." Translated into Hebrew by Israel State Radio, it was expressed through the same verb:
הרוצח אינו ראוי לשאת את שמו של הנביא מוחמד
Please note that it is not said “not worthy to pronounce”, but “not worthy to bear a name” or “to be called”. So why should the Hebrew commandment be the other way around?
The fact that the righteous Jews were called by the name of Jehovah, bore the name of Jehovah, is literally confirmed by the prophet Isaiah in the 43rd chapter.
"everyone who called by My name, whom I created for My glory, formed and established" (Isaiah 43:7 according to the Synodal translation)
כֹּל הַנִּקְרָא בִשְׁמִי, וְלִכְבוֹדִי בְּרָאתִיו: יְצַרְתִּיו, אַף-עֲשִׂיתִיו
Here in Hebrew the passive passive form of the verb "Likro" ("To be called") is used, or in the dictionary past tense form of the active form "kara". This verb has the meaning “Pronounce”, “Call”, “Read”. I’ll explain it very simply for those who don’t know Hebrew. When they say “call Vasya” in Hebrew, for example, this is the verb they use. Call - make Vasya hear his name out loud. Accordingly, Vasya is called by this name or bears the name “Vasya”.
Here are all the meanings of this verb from Strong's dictionary:
7121 — קרא
A(qal):
1. call, call;
2. shout, proclaim;
3. read aloud;
4. call, name, give a name.
B(ni): 1. to be named;
2. to be called, to be summoned;
3. be read aloud. D(pu): to be called, to be named. LXX: 2784 (κηρύσσω), 4341 (προσκαλέομαι).
Here is how the Israeli dictionary of Hebrew language professor Baruch Podolsky translates it:
called to order
קרא לילד בשמו
called by his name
איך קוראים לך?
What is your name?
קרא בשמות
Well, with the advent of Christianity, of course, this commandment acquired a similar meaning.
But there are very big problems with the name “Christians”. This word is common nowadays. But in the times of the early Christians this was not the case. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever uttered this word. Except for Peter - only 1 time.
1 Peter 4:16: and if you are a Christian, then do not be ashamed, but glorify God for such a fate.
This word appears 2 times in the Bible - it was said by King Agrippa
Acts 26:28: Agrippa said to Paul: You are not convincing me to become a Christian.
And for the first time, others called Christians this way:
Acts 11:26 and the disciples in Antioch were called Christians for the first time.
More often in the Bible, God calls Christians “witnesses of Jesus” or simply “witnesses.” This word appears 171 times in the New Testament. And in " Old Testament" - 88. It’s difficult to list everything. Moreover, even Jesus often called himself that.
Christians are also prohibited from bearing the name of Christ falsely, by analogy with the name of Jehovah for Jews.
As for the direct ban on pronouncing the name of God out loud, for some reason no one notices this point. Some kind of witchcraft!
Keep everything that I have told you and name others do not mention gods; let it not be heard from your lips . (Exodus 23:13)
That is, there is a direct prohibition precisely on pronouncing the names of other gods, and not the true God of the Bible - Jehovah. But for some reason, all religions except Jehovah's Witnesses do everything exactly the opposite. For some reason, the name of Jehovah is not pronounced, but the names of other gods are pronounced - Baal, Ashtoreth, Molech, etc. If Jehovah had forbidden to pronounce his own name, he would have said it directly, as he said about the names of other gods - “do not mention” and “let not be heard” - we're talking about specifically about pronunciation that can be heard, and not about an oath, and without any restrictions - “in vain,” “in vain.”
Moreover. There are several direct calls in the Bible to speak God's name:
Numbers 6:27 So let them call on my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them
Ps.104:1 Praise Jehovah ; call on His name; proclaim His works among the nations;
Isaiah 12:4 Praise Jehovah, call on His name; proclaim His works among the nations; remind us that His name is great;
There are also examples of invoking the Name. Let's start with Moses. This is how it is written in the synodal publication in Deuteronomy 32:3:
I glorify the name of the Lord; give glory to our God
There is no vague "glorify" in Hebrew. There is a word from the above-mentioned root "k.r.a." "קרא", meaning "to utter" and "to shout". That is, Moses says " I will shout the name of Jehovah", not "glorify".
For example, this same verb appears in Judges 7:20:
And all three companies blew trumpets, and broke the pitchers, and held lamps in their left hands, and right hand trumpets, and trumpets, and shouted קראsword Jehovah and Gideon!Even the psalms mention that Moses pronounced the name of Jehovah out loud:
More examples of stating the fact that a name must be pronounced:Ps.98:6 Moses and Aaron among the priests and Samuel among calling on His name they cried out to Jehovah, and He answered them.
Jehovah is His name!
Zechariah 13:9 And I will bring this third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will refine them as gold is refined: they will call on my name, and I will hear them and say: “These are My people,” and they will say: “Jehovah is my God!”
But what will happen to those who do not call on the name:
Ps.78:6 Pour out Your wrath on nations that do not know You, and on kingdoms that they do not call on Your name
Jeremiah 10:25 Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You, and on the nations that they do not call on Your name
The main “state” encyclopedia of the Jewish state of Israel fully confirms my conclusions:
TETRAGRAMMATON (in Greek “a word of four letters”)... As the so-called Lachish letters testify (see Lachish), at least until the destruction of the First Temple (586 BC) this name was pronounced aloud in appropriate vocalization. ...
The prohibition against pronouncing the name of Yahweh... is based on a broad interpretation of the third commandment (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11; see Ten Commandments), which prohibits taking the name of God in vain ( the direct meaning of the commandment is prohibition of swearing falsely in the name of God )
In general, from what is written in the Jewish encyclopedia it follows that Judaism now is not that ancient true Judaism, but has changed to the opposite, from the point of view of the state of Israel, expressed in the state encyclopedia. And this despite the fact that the editorial staff of this encyclopedia also includes rabbis.
So, in Hebrew it is not written “do not pronounce”, but it is written literally “do not carry”, which means “do not call yourself”, “do not use”, “do not swear”. But don't say "don't say it." In Hebrew, such an understanding of the verb "laset" is not conceivable.
Various religions were looking for a place in the Bible that would say something about the prohibition of pronunciation. And they decided to find among the 10 apostles in order to give special significance to this false commandment beloved by religions. They say this was written directly by the finger of God. This is not khukhra-mukhry, but the third commandment from Mount Sinai!
Romans 10:17: “Faith therefore comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” But religions did the opposite. First they came up with a belief about the prohibition of pronunciation, then they explained to the word of God what it should be.
And a few words about the Lachish letters mentioned in the Jewish encyclopedia. Based on these letters, the authors of the encyclopedia conclude that in Judaism the name was pronounced, at least in those days, that is, before the destruction of the first temple.
Let me explain what kind of letters these are. These are letters written on shards found in 1935-38. in the ruins of Lachish, a fortified city that played an important role in the life of Israel. Judging by the contents, they were written by an officer of the Judean outpost to his commander named Yaush at Lachish, during the war between Israel and Babylon at the end of the seventh century BC. Of the eight legibly readable shards, seven begin with the greeting:
Yes he will Jehovah At this time, good health to my master!
In total, the name of God appears 11 times in seven letters, and this clearly proves that the name of Jehovah was used day after day not only in religious rituals. And this was not considered a pronunciation of “in vain.”
I quote, translated into Russian, some of these clay letters:
Ostracon (clay shard) 2
1 Lord Jausch, let him hear
2 Yeowa to my lord tidings of peace (good tidings)
3 at this time! Slave
4 Does my lord remember his Caleb?
5 Let him hinder Yeowa
6 to my words, if I tell you what I don’t know!
Ostrakon 3
Your servant Oshayau sends to tell my master Yaush, let him hear Yeowa tidings of peace to my lord!...
Alive Yeowa, if anyone tried to read the letter (sent) to me, then forever (i.e. will be destroyed)
(Please pay attention to how Jewish translator Rami Yudovin conveys the pronunciation of the name of God - “Yeova”. I hear the same thing in Israel from native Israelis. They learn this pronunciation mainly from former religious Jews who left the religion. The form of the sound is supposedly " Yahweh" is not known to them at all. For the first time they hear Yahweh from Russian-speaking people and for a long time they cannot understand what kind of word it is).
Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and said: Thus says Jehovah, God of Israel: Let My people go, so that they may celebrate a feast for Me in the wilderness.But Pharaoh said:Nowadays they often say that the name was allegedly not always pronounced and not by all Jews and pagans, but supposedly only in the Temple and only on the day of atonement and only by the High Priest.
This is how the famous preacher of Judaism Pinchas Polonsky describes this procedure:
Ten times pronounced High Priest on Yom Kippur Shem ha-meforash - unpronounceable Name of God...
Coolest pun! Pronounced the unpronounceable. It’s like the famous joke “can God lift a stone that he cannot lift.” Dry moisture, black whiteness, light darkness, true lies...
...He pronounced this name over the goat that was to be sacrificed...
A man of flesh and blood, even a High Priest, cannot pronounce the Name of God. Even angels can't pronounce it
Well, Comrade Polonsky took this really seriously. Even angels can't? However, the Bible is full of examples of angels speaking. Most famous example in Isaiah at the beginning of chapter 6:
How did the High Priest reprimand him?
On this holy day in this holy place the High Priest - the holiest of men - was purified and sanctified until he rose above all earthly things and was ready to pronounce the Name. And then he opened his mouth, and Holy Name it went away on its own from his lips. Man cannot pronounce this Name, God Himself pronounced it.It turns out that the priest only opened his mouth, and the name itself flew out of his mouth. God pronounced it from inside a person’s mouth. True, he immediately says that the name ITSELF came from. It's not entirely clear what he means. Did God himself or did he speak from a person’s mouth?
Speaking about Polonsky, we should not forget that he is the greatest specialist in false truth. He invented a specific non-existent quote from the New Testament and put it in the mouth of the Apostle Paul, who allegedly abolished good works in Christianity. http://levhudoi.blogspot.com/2011/09/blog-post.html The impudence of this false truth is that Polonsky’s lies can be easily verified by opening the Bible in the place indicated by Polonsky himself where there is nothing of the kind. He refused to answer my question about this quote. He deleted my question on his Facebook wall without answering anything.
Introduction.
Today is the last service of this year. This year has not been easy for many, but God has been with us.
New Year's holidays are good time for assessments, rethinking, changing something in your life; time to Once again set a task, pour out more love on others - because they really need it.
Our church is part of New Year with analysis of the 10 commandments. This is not just a coincidence. Let walking in the 10 commandments become not only an integral part of the coming year, but of our entire lives.
So today is the 3rd commandment:
DO NOT SPEAK THE NAME OF THE LORD IN VAIN
Let's start, according to tradition, from the place Holy Scripture:
“Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave without punishment the one who takes His name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)
Do not pronounce at all (?)
In the Jewish tradition, the name of God is not pronounced in principle - “Yahweh” (the Existing One). They replace it with “Lord” and various pronouns, and in writing they separate this word with a “-”. In Russian it would look like “God”. For a Jew, this is a special reverence and fear of God’s greatness. I am not a supporter of such extremes, but there should be special awe before the Lord and before His presence in our lives. He is the King! He is the God who measures the Heavens with His span. He is the One who conquered death and hell! He is the One who overcomes sin in Your life and mine! Be grateful to Him for this. Treat His name with special respect! He deserves it!
However, this is not exactly what the third commandment says.
Don't say without hesitation
This phrase explains this commandment more accurately.
From many people you can often hear the phrases: “Oh Lord!”, “Oh my God!”, “God be with you!”, “Lord forgive me!” Good phrases, but their thoughtless use borders on sin. Watch what comes out of our mouths and for what purpose.
Don't saywasted in prayer
Most often, a believer pronounces the name of God in prayer. It turns out that you can sin even during prayer.
Let's study this moment in detail.
Firstly: Ask yourself, how often when you say the Lord’s Prayer do you think about what you’re saying? All the words of this prayer are so familiar, and it is so easy to start saying them mechanically... Today at the end of the service, try to experience this prayer in a special way while you say it.
Secondly: I believe it is also worth reviewing your personal and corporate prayers, prayers in church and family, and times of praise and worship. Maybe sometimes they also become nominal, ordinary and automatic in our country?! Are we not thinking about various questions vanity of the day, at a time when our lips utter words of praise and thanksgiving to our Creator?!
Third: Pronouncing the name of the Lord can become in vain even when our prayers are not completed. Prayer is a dialogue. And we must learn to conduct this dialogue and bring it to the end. A conversation not brought to its logical conclusion is an empty dialogue. In prayer, we must learn not only to speak to God, but we also face the task of learning to understand what the Lord wants to tell us. When a person intercedes for too long for a solution to some issue, but does not hear God, the temptation comes to give up such prayer. But by learning to understand God, we will begin to receive God's answers to our prayers faster. Sometimes it will be a firm “Yes!”, sometimes the Lord will say that it is not time yet, and sometimes you can hear Him categorically - “No!” ... Prayer is in vain if it is not completed. Don’t pray if you don’t think of bringing the prayer to a victorious end. Intercede until God answers you. Even if the answer is “No!”, still wait for the answer.
Don't say without doing
Jewish wisdom says: “Do not pray to God unless you deal with people according to the Scriptures.” This is another explanation of this commandment. I have met people who are “angels” before God, but when communicating with their neighbors, it is very difficult to believe that God lives in the hearts of these “angels.” The prayers of those who do not allow God's love to flow to others are in vain. Love those whom life sends your way!
Don't sayfor your authority
Many Christians have become good at appealing with “necessary” “spiritual” phrases. Necessary to maintain your authority and the authority of your words. Surely each of us has heard, and said more than once, “The Lord told me this and that!” - “God told me that your decision to marry this brother is not from God” - “God told me that the pastor of this church is not from God” - “God told me that you should go as missionaries to Gua” and so on. ... Above we talked about the fact that we need to learn to hear God. But at the same time, we must not forget with what trepidation Jews treat the pronunciation of the name of the Lord. May the Lord keep us from saying - “God told me” - just for the sake of being listened to or obeyed. It is a sin! Before the phrase “God told me” comes out of your mouth, think and check with the Word of God - is it asking to come out of your mouth in vain?
Conclusion.
In conclusion, I will touch on one more facet of the diamond - the 3rd commandment. When a person says a prayer of repentance and invites the Lord to come into his life, he must
don't look back.
One translation of the Greek word used in this commandment sounds like this:λαμβάνω (lambanō) - "Take". In this case, the commandment will sound: “Do not take the name of the Lord in vain...”. In other words, “do not take the name of the Lord into your life in vain.” If you have accepted the name of God into your life, then carry His name in your heart to the end, no matter what the cost. In Russian it is called - Fidelity.
Amen!
Savenok A. V.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave unpunished the one who takes His name in vain.”
Exodus 20:7
Anyone who utters the name of the Lord without thinking about it or just to string together words is misusing it. Some people spend all day saying, “Oh my God, I forgot my keys,” or “Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s raining outside again,” but they don’t even think about God or actually call on His name.
Listen to one story about a rich landowner who had many men and women workers. His eldest daughter had one bad habit; At every opportunity she said: “Oh, my God,” or “Oh, Lord Jesus.” The father did not like this; he often told his daughter not to abuse the name of the Lord.
“Oh, dad,” she usually answered, “you attach too serious importance to this, I’m not doing this with malicious intent, and therefore it cannot be a sin.”
One morning the master called all his servants and said:
Today I ask you to help me do something special, I will pay you well for it. While doing your work, you call out loudly all day long, from early morning: “Maria! Maria!” (that was his daughter's name). And if my daughter asks what you want from her, say: “Oh, nothing, we’re just saying that, we didn’t invite you.”
In the morning, Maria went to the pantry to give the maids food for lunch, when she suddenly heard from the girls’ room: “Maria! Maria!” She quickly ran upstairs:
What's happened? Why did you call me?
Oh, nothing! Nothing! We're just saying it! - answered the maids.
Maria slammed the door, cursing, when she suddenly heard from the kitchen:
"Maria! Maria!" In the kitchen they answered her the same way as in the maids' room, and she noticed that the maids could hardly contain their laughter. Over and over again, from above and from below, one heard: “Maria! Maria!”
Maria got angry and, stamping her foot, demanded an explanation why they kept calling her.
“We didn’t think about it,” the servants and maids answered. But soon her patience ran out, and she, red with anger, ran to her father’s office.
What's wrong with you, my child? - the father asked calmly, - you look so angry.
I have quite a few reasons for this! - she screamed and began to tell her father how the workers and maids mocked her.
“Oh,” said the father, “they do it without malicious intent.” They just don't think about it. Then the daughter began to cry:
The servants treat me so disrespectfully, and you still rejoice and approve of it.
Maria, Maria,” her father interrupted, “I don’t understand why I should punish these people just because they call you?” Do you think that the great, holy God will not punish you for constantly saying His name without even thinking about Him?
Maria was amazed by this, she cried a lot and from then on she was careful about what she said. Sometimes the name of God still slipped out from her, but she immediately asked the Lord for forgiveness. And this never happened again.
Date of publication or update 05/01/2017
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” (Ex. 20:7).
Special promises are associated with the worthy invocation of the name of God. Prophets, apostles and many saints, in the name of God, the name of Jesus Christ, healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded earth and heaven. Let us recall from the Old Testament history of the prophets Elijah and Elisha - how they raised the dead and performed many other miracles; from the New Testament - the apostles Peter and John, who healed the lame man in the name of Jesus Christ; Let us remember, in particular, the Apostle Peter, who resurrected Taviou; Apostle Paul, who resurrected the youth Eutychus.
And now each of us, with faith and reverence calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother and the saints of God, receives unexpected relief from illness or help from misfortune. In proportion to the infinite holiness and importance of the name of God, which is most good for us, we must use this most holy and omnipotent name with infinite respect and reverence. The name of God is pronounced in vain when it is pronounced unnecessarily, in useless and vain conversations, and even more so when it is pronounced falsely or in violation of reverence.
In our human life there are many cases when the invocation of the great name of God becomes inappropriate and turns into sin. When, for example, someone says that he was somewhere, saw something, heard about something, and, to the usual in such cases, often humorous, objection, begins to assure by calling God as a witness: then he is in vain pronounces the name of God.
This use of the god has become so established among many that even without any reason, at every word they say “By God! Here's Christ for you! Or they use the name of God as a proverb in conversations about the most base, sometimes criminal, subjects. Thus, the expression is often heard: “How holy God is,” although this is not at all about holy objects.
God is usually used among us as proof of the validity of our words. But we should behave in such a way that our sincerity is visible in our single “yes” or “no,” and so that no one has a reason to tell us: “This is not the first time you lie.” Oh, if only we were taught from childhood to be honest and faithful in our words! Then and in mature years We wouldn’t need the vain deification that is so common today. Nowadays the god is heard among us so often that no one pays any attention to it, and through this the name of God is blasphemed in us. You can often hear in a circle of very young children how one says to another: “Go ahead!”, although even after the worship you still remain in disbelief. So the name of God has been imputed to nothing since our youth.
Ah, let us not be indifferent to the name of God! It is holy and wonderful! Let us remember the story of Moses' call to liberate the Israelites from Egypt. When he, having come to a bush of burning and unburning, heard the voice of God: “I am God,” he bowed his knees and bowed his face to the ground - reverently to look before God... So it would behoove us to revere the name of God when it pronounced by us or in our presence. Good children pronounce the names of their parents with respect and are troubled in their hearts when they hear the name of their father or mother spoken with disdain by others; Is it the Heavenly Father, by whom we live and move, will He lack reverent respect in us, and will our hearts not be confused when His great name is reverently pronounced in our presence!
In Old Testament times, they stoned those who dared to call the name of the Lord without respect, with disdain (Lev. 24:16). And in Christian states Once upon a time, people were expelled from the city for three weeks for committing a god, sometimes they were put in the pillory for the whole day, they were put on bread and water for several days.
Those who heard a false god and did not report it to their superiors were also punished (see “Public and private life V European countries Middle Ages", p. 203). There is no blessing of God on those who do not respect His name. If we carefully observed ourselves, we would easily perhaps be convinced that many failures in life and sudden disasters are righteous retribution for disrespect for the name of God (1 Sam. 2:30). At least, there are examples in the lives of saints of how the Lord sometimes punishes people, unknown to them, for the unreasonable use of theology.
The life of the Monk Auxentius tells the following.
Two lepers came to the Monk Auxentius and fervently asked him for healing. “For what sins did God bring this terrible disease upon you?” - the monk asked them. The patients did not know what to answer; They did not think about their sins, nor about the fact that the Lord was punishing us for our sins with illnesses, and therefore they silently bowed to the Holy Father and asked for mercy. Saint Auxentius himself answered for them: “Your illness was sent to you as punishment for your unreasonable deities and oaths, which have become a habit among you.” The lepers were afraid that the saint knew their sins, fell before him and, repenting of their sinful habit, asked for healing with all the more zeal. Seeing their repentance, Saint Auxentius anointed them with oil and cleansed them from leprosy with the name of the Lord Jesus, which they uttered in vain (Thurs. Min., February 14).
The obvious bad consequence of frequent worship is that we become distrustful even when holy name Christ is heard at crossroads in the mouths of the mendicant brethren. Having become accustomed to thinking that the poor pronounce the name of Christ as a proverb, we no longer pay due attention to their needs and leave them without any benefits. Ah, if only the mendicants themselves did not pronounce this almighty name in vain! But those of our poor brethren who use the alms asked of Christ for the sake of Christ in a non-Christian way, or use the name of God to cover up their laziness and idleness, pronounce the name of the Lord in vain. Judas Iscariot collected alms for Christ's sake, but, using it to satisfy his passion, he became a traitor to Christ and hanged himself. This is the fate that threatens those who dare to imagine the face of Christ in themselves and turn out to be an impostor. Good Christians will never refuse requests in the name of Christ; but woe to him who uses this saving name to satisfy his passions! It is impossible, however, not to notice that at present the Orthodox custom ask for help in the name of Christ, and the poor are more likely to resort to some tricks or only with their appearance and cries they try to touch the compassionate. Of course, this innovation is also a consequence of a general cooling towards the name of God, which has been used in vain since childhood in ordinary conversations and sayings.
The indifferent, frivolous use of the name of God in ordinary conversations and sayings little by little produces in us a cooling towards everything sacred, and then blasphemy becomes for us an ordinary idle word. Thus, people who do not value their words and are already accustomed to despising everything sacred, compare the bliss of paradise, the Kingdom of Heaven, with the pleasures of this world, saying: “It’s good, like in paradise! There is no need for the Kingdom of Heaven either!” Or they jokingly cite the inspired words of Holy Scripture in support of ordinary idle talk or slander. Such rude, pitiable expressions, shocking the reverently thinking soul with horror, are called blasphemy.
Oh, how the plagues should escape that community, where sacred objects, objects of our faith and hope, objects of our reverence for God are degraded to such comparisons, turned into a crude joke, into unholy laughter, into a wicked reproach! Everything that the name of God is glorified with, that relates to worship: the Word of God, the Holy Sacraments of the Church, everything sacred things, liturgical actions, in which the Lord seems to clothe himself and mysteriously approach us, should arouse deep reverence in us. And where this reverence is absent, there appears insolence, daring to the very blasphemy.
Blasphemy and blasphemy closely border each other. What good can we expect from those who deliberately use impudent words against God and His saints?
It is known that the first blasphemous word against God was uttered by the serpent - the tempter of the first people. Who expects anything good from a murderer from the beginning (John 8:42)?
The frivolous use of the name of God in ordinary conversations and sayings makes us indifferent to the name of God even in the case when we have to approve or reject something with an oath, at the request of legal authority.
It is terrible audacity to point to the Omnipresent God as a witness that we are telling the truth when we affirm a known lie or deny a known truth. False witnesses forget that God, Whom they call as a witness, the faithful and true witness (Apoc. 3:14), knows everything and can do everything - can, for example, in an instant expose a liar and at the same time severely punish him . If the Lord does not always convict false witnesses, it is, of course, because we have many of our own means to convict a liar. But where these means are insufficient, there the Lord Himself helps human truth to expose the untruth of false witnesses.
1) Someone named John, a boyar of Kiev, having become a monk in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, had with him his young son Zacharias. Feeling the approach of death, John entrusted his son to the protection of God, and left a thousand hryvnia of silver and a hundred hryvnia of gold to a certain monk named Sergius, also a former boyar, to save them until his son came of age and give them to him. Having thus ordered, John died.
Zechariah, having reached the age of fifteen, demanded his father's inheritance from Sergius. Sergius was amazed, as if not knowing what the young man was demanding, but, seeing the persistence of his demands, he took on the appearance of being offended and reproachfully told him: “Your father gave all his property to God: ask Him, not me. It’s not my fault that your father was so unreasonable that, while enriching the poor, he made his only son a beggar.”
At such unexpected treachery, young Zacharias began to cry and asked Sergius to give him at least half of the estate, although a third part, even a tenth: but Sergius resolutely refused. Then Zechariah demanded that Sergius confirm with an oath that he did not receive money from his father. Sergius, in front of third-party witnesses, goes with Zechariah to church and, standing in front of the image of the Mother of God, swears by heaven and earth that Zechariah’s father did not give him a single penny. To confirm the oath, he wanted to kiss the icon Mother of God, but an invisible force chained him to the place, he could not approach the image and, trembling with his whole body, he exclaimed: “Reverend Fathers Anthony and Theodosius, pray to the Mother of God, so that the angel of death does not destroy me.” After such a miraculous conviction of a false oath, Sergius returned the estate that belonged to Zechariah (Thurs. Min., March 24).
2) Two people came to Saint Miles, Bishop of Susa, accusing each other of theft and each of whom demanded that the other prove his innocence. When one of them agreed to swear, Saint Miles first admonished him not to use the name of God for evil and not to deceive his brother. But the wicked man, despising the admonition of Saint Miles, swore an oath. Then Saint Miles said to him: “If the oath is true, you will return home healthy, but if you use it for evil, then, like Gehazi, you will immediately be stricken with leprosy and return home in shame.” And the one who swore falsely was immediately struck down by leprosy (“Christian Reading,” part 26.)
3) And now God reveals His wrath against those who call upon His name in a false oath. The following incident can confirm this. The following was published in the Petersburg Gazette in 1874: a certain peasant bought eight pounds of fish from another for 9 rubles. 60 k. and left without giving the money. The person who sold the fish brought a complaint to the authorities. But the buyer assured that he paid the money and even swore in front of the icons: “God forbid that I go blind if I tell a lie!” After such an oath, he went to sell the controversial fish and on the way he suddenly became blind in both eyes, so that he could not continue his journey and stopped in a field. Then another peasant found him and brought him to the volost, where the perjurer confessed to the priest and the people that he had sworn falsely, that he had taken the fish without paying money.
It is permissible and necessary to use an oath when it relates to the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbor and is required of us by legal authority (Deut. 6:13; Rom. 1:9; 9:1-3; 2 Cor. 1:23; Heb. 6 , 16); and then we must pronounce it with reverence, affirming or denying that for which we have a firm intention, sufficient strength, and opportunity. Those who pronounce an oath or oath at the request of the legal authority usually, in the presence of a priest, raise their hand to heaven as a sign of invoking Him who lives in heaven as a witness and kiss the cross and the Gospel as a sign that the guarantee of the fidelity of their oath is the saving suffering of Jesus Christ, and that in case of infidelity or By violating the oath they take, they expose themselves to exclusion from participation in the salvation prepared by the sufferings of the Son of God on the cross and preached in the Holy Gospel. Those who break oaths are severely punished by civil laws (Priest Uspensky).
The third commandment teaches: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Literally, the name of the Lord, as a sacred thing, should not be used in everyday conversations, that is, without a sense of reverence for Him who revealed Himself to us in this name. The name of God becomes a fiery retribution and punishment for those who swear by it falsely, turn it into a joke or accompany the mention of it with abuse. When we pronounce the name of God, it is as if we are touching His robe with our hand.
When we pronounce the name of God, then all-seeing eye The Lord is directed into our hearts. The name of God must be pronounced with the same reverence with which we worship an icon and apply our lips to it. We can say that the name of God is a verbal icon of the One who is above thought and words, who is eternal and infinite, who is incomprehensible by thought and inexpressible in human language.
In spiritual terms, our heart should become that apocalyptic stone on which the mysterious name is written - this is the stone white, symbol of purity. The heart should become the soil on which the icon of God is written as His name. There is a reciprocal process here: a person’s life prepares his heart for prayer, and prayer sanctifies a person’s life.
The ancient fathers did not have books or developed teachings about the Jesus Prayer, but they had a purity of heart and thoughts that attracted the grace of God, and grace itself prayed in their hearts. They seemed to listen in reverent amazement to the ineffable words of this spiritual prayer: the Lord Himself was its teacher. The impurity and deceit of our hearts are the main obstacle to the Jesus Prayer.
It is difficult to paint an icon on a crumpled, uneven, cracked board. Our life does not correspond to prayer, therefore, despite all the books that reflect the experience of the holy fathers who succeeded in inner prayer, their advice, their methods are given (that is, speaking modern language, technique of prayer) – it is not grafted onto our heart.
Without correcting our lives, but only repeating the words of prayer, we want to combine the incompatible. And a poor man can invite a king to his wretched hut, but we call God into the dwelling of our soul, full of dirt, stinking from our mental depravity; where thoughts and images, born of malice and hatred, are milling about, similar to the swearing and fighting of drunken people. Into this filth, which we do not want to part with, we invite the King of kings! Therefore, prayer “divorced” from our life as a whole remains fruitless.
The rose cannot take root among the stones: its root dries up and the flowers fade. A person works on prayer, but does not see the result and therefore most often gives it up. He digs a well in the sands of the desert and cannot reach the water; All that remains from all the labor is a pile of dug up earth. Our mistake here is that we perceive prayer as something abstract in relation to our life, while prayer is an exam, and life is preparation for it. Salvation is achieved through the interaction of the Divine and human will. In this sense, not only man without God, but also God without man is “powerless.”
The Creator of the worlds gave man internal moral freedom, autonomy, and does not take His gift back. The Omnipotent and Almighty, as it were, limited Himself in front of the human person; He gave man the opportunity to freely direct and develop his will. This is the godlikeness of man, this is his greatness and responsibility. But this also conceals the metaphysical danger of freedom.
A person who engages in prayer, but does not change his life, seems to hope that God will accomplish his salvation Himself, that prayer itself will automatically turn into “salvation by necessity.” Therefore, failure awaits a person here, one might say, spiritual collapse. Prayer turns into a combination of words, and words into a combination of letters or sounds.
Prayer must be accompanied by a constant feeling of repentance, that is, dissatisfaction with one’s life, condemnation, rejection of it and the desire to start new life. This desire must be of a strong-willed nature; there must be the determination to translate it into deeds and actions. In each life situation a person needs to think: “How will this affect my prayer? Will I gain grace or lose it? To put it briefly, our whole life should be a background of prayer.
A person must constantly cleanse his heart of thoughts and passions. The most important and universal passion is self-love, which manifests itself as pride, this spiritual isolationism, opposing oneself not only to people, but also to God.
Then - three passions: love of money - attachment to money and things, which is often expressed in hoarding - hope for the external and dead; voluptuousness is the lust of the soul, the thirst for pleasure, the false desire to find happiness in the satisfaction of one’s passions, sweetness at the bottom of which there is bitterness, an illusion that, dissipating, leaves the soul empty; love of fame is a lie of the soul that turns a person into an actor playing on the stage of life for the approval and applause of the crowd that the person himself despises in the depths of his heart.
These passions, blinding a person, give rise to three others: unreason - when a person replaces main goal your life - communication with God - communication with the world; ignorance - when a person disconnects himself from the inner, spiritual life that gives true knowledge and wisdom, and switches exclusively to the study of external things, which makes him spiritually blind; oblivion - oblivion about eternity and death, about the lessons that life gives him.
This state is similar to intoxication: a person voluntarily surrenders to passions, forgetting what awaits him upon sobering up - the laughter of demons at his soul. A drunkard, waking up somewhere under a fence, robbed by his own friends, in his own filth, soon forgets about the shame he experienced and again reaches for wine. This is the constant oblivion of the sinner, the constant search for happiness in a dirty puddle. A person can experience the most severe suffering, but forget everything and learn nothing.
In general, the holy fathers point to the eight main passions, the eight plagues human soul, to the eight springs from which flow dead waters sin. These passions and the struggle against them are described in detail in the ascetic collection “Philokalia”. Without cleansing the soul of passions, without constant internal work on oneself, success in the Jesus Prayer is impossible: a person will be like scooping up water with a broken, leaky vessel, and the water will immediately pour out onto the ground, but the vessel will remain empty.
The spiritual plan of the third commandment is a return to the same apocalyptic image: on the white stone, that is, on the repentant heart, where internal tears wash away the dirt of passions, the Holy Spirit writes a new name. For such a soul, the name of Jesus Christ is always new; it is revealed to it in new depths, in new beauty, in its eternal uniqueness. The white stone means the possible renunciation for a person not only from sinful, but also from worldly thoughts in general, from that which is outside of God, from that which by its nature is alien to the soul. The white stone with a mysterious name written on it, which no one knows (this state cannot be conveyed in words, it belongs only to the one who experienced it), is the eternal glory of the saints, for whom God has become the entire fullness of their being.
To fulfill the third commandment means to subordinate your entire life to the name of God, to fill the time of your entire life and the space of your entire heart with it.
O. Rafail (Karelin)