A real good read, Jonathan, a very nice discourse in language, pronunciation and history all combined into one.

In English, we say God, and it appears to be a real English word based on Germanic roots. I like that you state that Jehovah may originate from ‘love, affection, passion, desire’ and, though not identical, I think the word God has a meaning that is comparable.

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The word God can be explained in more than one way, but it is fairly easy to recognize the word Good in God. This seems like a simple jump, but don’t be fooled, the word Good is extremely complex.

Based on your words love, affection, passion, desire we can see a rather simple form of a positive connection with the word good. It is not as strong and deep as the specific words you provide, but it is a personal approach nevertheless (meaning, that what is considered good for a person is based on the perspective of that person, just like love and affection are based on an personal stance).

Another nice part of the word good is that it can apply to something of value, again in a general context. Goods in a store for instance, without declaring exactly what the goods are, is a word used to indicate something of value, something of a positive quality, and let me add: something that is hopefully desired (by others).

I think you can see what I am trying to establish. Jehovah and God are not identical words with identical meanings, but they can both be seen in a particular light.

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We know that the word God was already in use when the Germanic tribes believed in the existence of multiple gods. This can perhaps explain the more generic meaning of God as shown above because it was applicable to more than one.

When there are more than one god in play, an individual may have favorites, or a number may be considered for specific situations. This again supports the idea of using the word good rather than love or passion. Love and passion indicate dedication, while good can be applied to others without this causing jealousy.

We also know that the Jewish people did something few had done before them: They united themselves to an incredible level to escape Egypt. Their bond had to be incredibly strong to make such a move successfully. A love-affair therefore, if you allow me the freedom to call it that way, with their own people was required before the ‘extraction’ from Egypt could take place.

Like love, singling out a group to embrace made the Jews empower themselves, strengthen themselves to the point they were able to control their own destiny. They removed the set of gods they had before and that would have undermined them with trying to escape the Egyptians, and they replaced this with central command, if you allow me to call it out this way. That is a tremendous feat, but also truly a requirement in light of the all-powerful Egyptians.

It is complicated to fully know the setting in which words came about since we have so few sources to double-check. I do recognize the strength required at the psychological level to escape the Egyptians with the explanations you provided for the word Jehovah. They had to be united beyond the ordinary realm.

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I also found a fascinating link between the word God and the words Whole and Hole. Naturally, it is easy to recognize the positive connotation for something that is whole or wholesome. It is not that positive in light of Hole. Hole indicates something that is missing, not present.

Looking at Dutch (God) and German (Gott), another Dutch word (gat) is found that translates into hole. That makes a link with the homonym Whole stronger.

Again, rather at the simple level, two words are seen in context of one another in English that are similar to God and Whole. With allowing the ‘d’ to become a ‘t’ the words get and haul are found. Please, hear this out. I can use these two to make the distinction between Whole and Hole obvious.

With get a verb indicates an action to go towards a person or goods and bring them back with them. “I’ll get them.” Starting out without them, the proposed end result is to have collected them and brought them over.

With haul a verb indicates an action with the goods already in possession, moving them from A to B.

I hope you recognize that get starts out with something not there and then an action that will complete the situation in the future. With haul something is there and it is on the move. The goods were at A and next they will be at B (so A is the new empty location).

God, next to it being seen as positive, is also used for something occurring right now involving goods (our loved ones, our possessions) on the move and therefore involving two locations, a here and a there.

I am mentioning two because Dio, Due and Duo, or Dios and Dos appear to show the Latin version best for God in which there are two states, a here and a there. One with goods, the other vital as well but not with goods.

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Lastly, a question if you know of any older Hebrew word, Jonathan, that is similar to the Germanic word God. If indeed the word Jehovah originated with the struggle to escape Egypt, then there should be an older word for God. If my thinking is correct, it should have that more generic quality that we find with the word God.

Thank you so much for this article. I thoroughly enjoyed it.