this translation, accordingly, the word _Kyrios_, “Lord,” is substituted for it wherever it occurs. The New Testament writers naturally followed the custom of the Septuagint and of their age, and so also did the Masoretes of Tiberias. Wherever the holy name was met with, they read in place of it _Adônai_, “Lord,” and hence, when supplying vowel-symbols to the text of the Old Testament they wrote the vowels of _Adônai_ under the four consonants, Y H V H, which composed it. This simply meant that _Adônai_ was to be read wherever the sacred name was found. In ignorance of this fact, however, the scholars who first revived the study of Hebrew in modern Europe imagined that the vowels of _Adônai_ (_ă_ or _ĕ_, _o_, and _â_) were intended to be read along with the consonants below which they stood. The result was the hybrid monster _Yĕhovâh_. In passing into England the word became even more deformed. In German the sound of _y_ is denoted by the symbol _j_, and the German symbol, but with the utterly different English pronunciation attached to it, found its way into the English translations of the Old Testament Scriptures. There are two opinions as to what was the actual pronunciation of the sacred name while Hebrew was still a spoken language. On the one hand, we may gather from the contemporary Assyrian monuments that it was pronounced _Yahu_. Wherever an Israelitish name is met with in the cuneiform inscriptions which, like Jehu or Hezekiah, is compounded with the divine title, the latter appears as _Yahu_, Jehu being _Yahua_, and Hezekiah _Khazaki-yahu_. Even according to the Masoretes it must be read _Yeho_ (that is, _Yăhu_) when it forms part of a proper name. The early Gnostics, moreover, when they transcribed it in Greek characters, wrote _Iaô_, that is, _Yahô_. On the other hand, the four consonants, Y H V H, can hardly have been pronounced otherwise than as _Yahveh_, and this pronunciation is supported by the two Greek writers Theodoret and Epiphanios, who say that the word was sounded _Yavé_. The form _Yahveh_, however, is incompatible with the form _Yahu_ (_Yeho_), which appears in proper names; and it has been maintained that it is due to one of those plays on words, of which there are so many examples in the Old Testament. The spelling with a final _h_ was adopted, it has been supposed, in order to remind the reader of the Hebrew verb which signifies “to be,” and to which there seems to be a distinct allusion in Exod. iii. 14.(6)