WHO TOOK THE YOD (Y) OUT OF THE SCIPTURE?
By R. Bernal
I was reading the other day about how vast the universe is. There is no telling how long man has looked up into the heavens in amazement and wondered about its size. It is so huge that the human brain has to stretch its imagination to its limits to even begin to get an idea of how enormous it is. Scientists use a measuring rod of billions of light-years trying to put a size to the universe, yet in reality they have no idea if it even has an end. On the other hand, other scientists are busy trying to find the smallest particle of matter. As it stands now it also boggles the mind trying to understand how small matter’s building blocks can be. Of course, the Scripture tell us what we need to know. But man in general does not believe the Scripture. Perhaps some day scientists will come to realize that matter really begins as nothing material and that universe does not have a material end to it. It seems to me that the infinite vastness and smallness only goes to prove that everything material is based in spirit, that is, on our Almighty Creator, Yahweh and His son Yahshua.
It is amazing how our Creator designed so many billions of things with perfection in the tiniest of details. When we study the things made we can see that perfection all around us. How everything works and held in place is perfect perfection, not only in the enormous parts of the universe, but also in the tiniest of things. Even those things that at first do not appear perfect to our human reasoning are perfect when we consider how they fit into the big picture.
If everything our Creator made is perfect, it stand to reason that the original inspired Scripture that He left for us, as long as they remain as He inspired them, are also perfect with every word carefully placed and numbered to mean something important. (Those who know Hebrew and the Hebrew numbering system can attest to that.)
Perhaps the original Scripture are so perfect that our fleshly human brain cannot understand them without Yahweh’s Spirit to guide us. Interpreting the Scripture without the help of His set-apart Spirit is the reason that there are so many different interpretations of the Scriptures, with most of them falling way short of the truth. In fact, the more intelligent the spirit-less persons doing the interpretations are, the more misleading their interpretation are.
As we are informed in Rev. 12:9; and other places, that Shatan the devil deceives the whole world (1 Yahkhanan (John) 5:19, 2 Korinthios 4:4 and Ephesios 2:2). Shatan uses some of the most intelligent Christian people, without them even being aware that they are being used, to explain away much of the Set-apart Scripture. Not understanding Shaul’s writings or what being spiritual and being under grace truly means they use those concepts to go against much of the Word of Yahweh. But the truth is that every word in the Scriptures is there for a purpose, and not one word can be taken out of it. As we read in Deut. 4:2, which says:
“Do not add to the Word, which I command you, and do not take away from it, so as to guard the commands of Yahweh your Elohim which I am commanding you.”
According to Malakayah (Malachi) 3:6 and Heb. 3:8 our Creator does not change: Therefore the command still stands. And even those Christians who read only the New Testament have no excuse to take words out of the Scripture, because Rev. 22:19 also makes it very clear that nothing can be taken out. Those who ignore or do away with an inspired Word of the Set-apart Scripture have not seriously taken to heart what Rev. 22:18-19 says; it reads: “For I witness to everyone hearing the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, Elohim shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, Elohim shall take away his part from the book of life.
And out of the set-apart city, which are written in this book.”
It is made very clear that anyone who takes a word out of the Scripture will have their name taken out of the Book of life. What could be worse than that? There are no exceptions in that warning. No matter are how good, loving and spiritual a person believes himself or herself to be, they are not allowed to take one words out or put a word in the inspired Scripture. It is very clear; we are not to tamper with His inspired Set-apart Scripture. We can correct, in fact we should correct those translation that deviate from the true inspired Scripture, such as restoring the Sacred Names that the translators removed and replaced with pagan names and titles. Restoring is one thing, but it is clear that we are not to add a word to the Scripture nor remove a word from them. Our Savior, Yahshua ha Mashiach says in Mattithyah (that is the real name of the Apostle we know as Matthew) 5:17-18, “Do not think I came to destroy the Torah or the prophets, I did not come to destroy but to complete. For truly, I say to you, till the heaven and the earth pass away, one yod (Y) or one title shall by no means pass from the Torah till all be done”
Many people, in fact most of the world, do not believe in our Savior’s words. They believe that not only one word of the Law was done away but also that all the Law was destroyed, nailed to the cross they say. A lot of those lawless people come to that conclusion because of what Shaul (known es Paul) writes in Colossians 2:14, which read: “Having blotted out the certificate of debt against us – by the dogmas – which stood against us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the stake.”
This is how this verse is translated in the Scripture, a South Africa translation. The King James Version translates it as: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.”
Shaul says nothing about doing away with Yahweh’s Law and Commandments. Yet Christians say, “The Law was nailed in the cross.” Those who know the truth know that it was the dogmas, the handwritten ordinances, or the certificate of debt that was against us that was nailed to the stake. Yahweh’s Law and His prophets were not and are not against us and are still a very important part of His Set-apart Scripture.
What our Savior says in Mattithyah 5:17-18 is still and always will be a very important part of the Scripture.
I wanted to review how perfect our Creator is and that we cannot take anything out of the Scripture, because I want to focus on certain words that our Savior’s uses in Mattithyah (Mattew) 5:17-18. I believe those words cannot be twisted. Those words are, “One yod (Y) or one title shall by no means pass from the Torah till all be done”
For years when I read that verse I did not give much thought to the words “one yod or one title”. I merely took to mean that even the smallest part of the Law and the prophets would not be done away with, and, of course, it does mean that. No one, not Shaul or any of the apostles are authorized to take even a small part out of the Torah and the prophets.
There is one letter that our Savior specifically said would not be taken out. That letter is translated as the word “jot”. Looking at the word “jot” a little deeper, we find that Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, number 2503, this is what it says:
“Iota, ee-o-tah: of Heb. Origin [the tenth letter of the Heb. Alphabet]: “iota”, the name of the ninth letter of the Gr. Alphabet, put (fig.) for a very small part of anything: --jot.
Strong’s tell us that “jot” is translated from the Greek “iota.” But we know that Yahshua was not speaking in Greek. Strong’s tell us that it is from Hebrew origin; in fact it is the tenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.
I looked up the tent letter of the Hebrew alphabet and found that it is the YOD, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Written in Modern Hebrew it looks somewhat like an elegant apostrophe. Most of us should be familiar with the Hebrew YOD because it’s the first letter of our Almighty Creator’s Name.
Continuing my study I found out that the Hebrew “YOD” is the equivalent of our English Y, that’s why we transliterate our Creator’s Name into English as Yahweh, with the YOD or Y as the first letter of His Name.
It struck me that when the Scripture were translated into English, why was the Hebrew YOD, or its equivalent the Y, left out of all the Hebrew names? Hebrew names might not be part of the Law, but if the “Law” is translated from the Torah, then it could mean all of the Pentateuch, or the five Books of Mosheh (Mosheh is the real name of the so called Moses). Being that the names are part of the Pentateuch, it seems to me, that the YOD should not have been removed from the names. It seemed to me that by removing the YOD it’s like trying to be little Yahshua’s words. Nothing should be removed from the Scripture, but just to show respect to Yahshua’s words the YOD should specially not be removed. Yahshua plainly said not one YOD would be taken out, yet man has taken out not only one YOD, but also most of them.
Most Hebrew names of either people or places have had the YOD (or Y) removed in most Scripture translations. Could that be a coincidence? O could it be that the YOD was removed as an intentional affront to Yahshua’s word? It seems to me that no one in his or her right mind who believes in the Set-apart Scripture would dare to challenge our Creator’s word. But there is someone who will challenge Him and has done it constantly, even though he knows that he cannot win, that is Shatan, Satan the devil. It seems to me that Shatan certainly instigate the removal of the YOD as an affront to our Savior’s word. What reason would man on his own have for removing the YOD out of the Scripture? If it was Shatan’s work that removed the YOD out of the Scripture, is there anything we should do about it? The average worldy man will just score another one for Shatan and leave it at that?
I can say myself, “well, I didn’t take the YOD out. Let the blame fall on the guilty one.” But then, if I go along with Shatan’s scheme, can I truly say that I’m blameless? Shatan the manipulator can whisper in my ear, “What can you do about it? It’s to late. The people are used to it. Accept the changes just as every one else does. It’s just a little YOD. No big deal”. But it seems to me that it is a big deal. It is removing a specific letter of our Savior said would not be removed. That fact seems important enough to me.
When I first became interest in learning the truth, I would read material from many sources, including from the Jehovah’ Witness. Some of their writings made a lot of sense, for example, their investigation as to the “stake” or “tree” that our Savior was impaled on. In their material I had read that when errors are discovered there is no excuse to continue in that error. So, when I found out that Jehovah was not our Almighty’s true Name, I wanted to know why the Jehovah’s Witnesses were not aware of that. I found out that they were aware of it, but they stubbornly refuse to correct the error. The reason they give is that they continue “to use the form ‘Jehovah’ because of people’s familiarity with it for centuries.” In other words, they justify using the false name because it would be too difficult to get their followers to change. So much for correcting error when they find it, needless to say, I no longer could trust their writings. Notice
also that there is no YOD or Y in Jehovah. Therefore, I can’t help but think that the false name Jehovah must have Shatan’s approval. We, I believe, should not do as the Jehovah witnesses do, that is, continue in error because of people’s familiarity with certain errors.
Getting back to the removal of the YOD, we can say that Yahshua chose it because it is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It makes sense. The word “title” is Strong’s number 2762 and is also translated from the Greek. This is what Strong’s says about it: “keraia, ker-ah-yah; fem. of a presume der. of the base of 2768; something horn-like, i.e. (spec.) the apex of a Heb. Letter (fig. the least particle):--title.
According to Strong’s the translation comes from “the apex of a Hebrew letter.” So it also means something very small, like a dot. It is plain that our Savior means that not the least bit can be removed from the Law and the prophets. But still, since He mentioned the YOD in particular, why remove it? What necessity was there to remove it? Our Savior said it would not be done away with, so even if He did use it because it is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet there is not reason to remove it. It seems to me that the right thing to do is that all the “yods” in the Hebrew names that have been removed in our English translation of the Scripture should be restored with the English Y. Because our Savior Yahshua said that not one YOD would be removed, I feel better if I go along with what He said. It’s something to think about.