Is "God" the Name of a Pagan Deity?

The quotes below are from a comment on a Facebook post in the Common Sense Bible Study group.

The name גד has ancient origins as a false deity in many places around the world, and it is mentioned in Isaiah 65:11 specifically. You cannot deny this. It was used in Europe when the first printing presses rolled out the first bibles and it was a name of one of their foremost deities before the catholic church invaded their land. These are facts and there are many more like them.

Yes, Gad is used in Isaiah 65:11 to refer to the god of fortune that was commonly worshiped in ancient Semitic cultures. However, the word itself just means "fortune" and was applied to the corresponding god more as a nickname than anything else. If someone today decided that there was a god that governed how much light is put out by light bulbs, but didn't know its name, he might call it "the god of lumens". If he started a religion to worship this god, eventually his followers would probably just start calling their god "Lumen" because it's easier. Same thing here. "Gad" was not really the name of the god, but of the god's area of responsibility.

This is almost exactly the same way that ba'al was first a common Hebrew word that simply meant master or husband, but was later used like a proper name for a particular false master. It was a perfectly good word coopted for nefarious purposes. Interestingly enough, YHVH uses the word "ba'al" to refer to himself more than once in Scripture.

The rest of this claim is historical fiction as far as I can tell. I haven't found a single source for the existence of a deity named Gad or God anywhere outside of the Ancient Near East. The English word, god, descends from an old Germanic word that meant almost exactly what it means in English today: a supernatural being. It was never the proper name of any deity. Someone probably made that up because they wanted to impress their friends with their arcane knowledge, what Ryan (IIRC) refers to as more-special-than-thou syndrome.

In the ancient Semitic languages, including Hebrew, gad means fortune or troop, depending on the language and context. This has absolutely no connection to the ancient Germanic word. The German languages, including English, are part of the Indoeuropean family of languages. English and Hebrew share one major element in common: they are both spoken by humans. But that's about it. If a word in Biblical Hebrew sounds similar to a word in Old English or German, there is next to zero chance that the words are actually related in any historical way.

In Exodus 23:13, YHWH specifically says we are not to have the names of other deities even found in our mouths...

And yet the Bible, all of which is clearly meant to be read aloud, contains many names of pagan deities. God commanded the prophets to speak the names of pagan deities on many occasions, for example in Jeremiah 46:25 which contains the name "Amon of No" (strangely translated as "multitude of No" in the KJV).

The same pagans (and Israelites!) who worshiped Ba'al also used the name YHVH to refer to multiple pagan deities. They were only following the example of the Hebrews with the golden calf at Mt Sinai. Since YHVH became the name of one or more pagan gods, does that mean we can't use that name for the original YHVH anymore?

Clearly Exodus 23:13 can't mean that we absolutely must never speak the name of a pagan deity under any circumstances, or else God commanded the prophets to sin. Rather, it means that we must never pray to them, call on them, speak or act in their names, or swear by them. In other words, don't speak of or to them as you should to YHVH.

...yet you would teach as many people as you can in your warped desire to break this command wantonly and to justify your own wrongdoing.

To which I can only respond with Exodus 20:16, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

Why not just drop your pride and be wrong for once? Why not just let go of you and say to Him, "Okay, Father." Why not just use the name HE told you was His instead of fighting so hard against Him and everyone who would oppose you, instead of insisting on using what YOU want to call Him.

Like adonai, baal, and elohim, "god" and "father" are both titles, not names. They are both titles applied to countless false deities as well as to the one true Creator (also a title and not a name). YHVH also said to call him Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai, Father, Yeshua, Emmanuel...and even Ba'al.

I am perfectly willing to admit when I'm wrong. I have done so many times, and I'm sure I will make and correct many more mistakes if God (YHVH, if you prefer) allows me the time.

But you're going to have to use some actual evidence of error--as opposed to historical fantasy--before I'll take you seriously.

Random Thoughts on Mishpatim

More random thoughts for your amusement and edification:

• Ex 21:12-14 - Premeditated murder is worse than murder, but both deserve death. Motive and state of mind are irrelevant. The insane and incompetent should be executed for murder along with the cold-blooded killer. Not that I trust any level of our current governments with that responsibility. If somebody I respected was in charge, maybe. See the below comment on Ex 22:1 for one possible way to reduce the ratio of ass to brain and heart in the judiciary.
• Ex 21:15,17 - Striking one's parents in a way that might put their lives in danger or even mortally cursing them also deserves death.
• Ex 21:16 - Kidnapping is stealing a life and should be punished by death.
• Ex 21:18-19 - If you hurt someone you have to make it right. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" is not retribution, but restitution.
• Ex 21:20-21, 26-27 - Slaves have rights. They are not to be mistreated, but cared for, provided for, educated, and set free with a hefty retirement. Even so much as a lost tooth is cause for freedom. The slavery that is often described as having taken place 150 years ago in America bears almost no resemblence to the slavery allowed by God's Law. A biblical slave had more legal protections than your average American tax payer today.
• Ex 21:22-25 - This isn't just about miscarriage, but also premature delivery. Even so, the guilty man is to pay a fine, and the fine is to be commensurate with the injury caused. That was always the true meaning of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." It was always about restitution, not retaliation.
• Ex 21:28-36 - If you knowingly do things that put other people in danger, you should be treated as if you are the danger. Be careful. If you dig a pit, you will fall into it.
• Ex 22:1 - Punitive damages for theft should be given to the victim. Judges and police should not be paid, especially not out of fines levied on the guilty, but should be strictly volunteers. In the amount of the fine, no allowance is made for either poverty or wealth. The punishment must be the same regardless of the perpetrator's ability to pay.
• Ex 22:2 - If a thief is caught in the act of breaking into your home, you may assume that he is there to hurt you or your family, and you should not be punished for killing him. Concerning Yeshua's instructions to turn the other cheek: He was not teaching pacifism. He was telling you to be slow to anger, and to not retaliate. "Do not lay hands on anyone quickly," whether for good or evil, but if someone is breaking into your home in the middle of the night when you are there, they are demonstrating a willingness to hurt or kill you to get your stuff. They don't deserve any sympathy, and certainly not the protection of the law.
• Ex 22:3-4 - If stolen goods are recovered intact, the thief should give the items back plus 100% of their value. Once again, poverty or wealth on the part of the perpetrator are irrelevant. If he can't afford the fine, he should be made to work it off.
• Ex 22:5-6 - The key in dealing with accidental damages is restitution. The idea is not to punish someone for making a mistake, but to get them to make it right. Punitive damages for real negligence should be strictly limited regardless of the resources of the perpetrator.
• Ex 22:7-9 - If someone claims something that is not his, the punishment is the same as if for outright theft. He tried to steal through argument rather than force, but he still stole.
• Ex 22:10-15 - No one is to be held at fault for damages to borrowed property due to causes beyond the borrower's control. The lender accepts a certain amount of risk in the mere ownership of a thing. However, if the damage is due to the borrower's negligence or misuse, then he is to make it right.

Chiasm in Acts 6 on the Appointment of Deacons

• v1 - Disciples increasing; conflict between Hellenists and Hebrews
• v2-4 - Selection of pool of deacons to be confirmed
• v5 - Stephen and seven others finally selected
• v6 - The deacons are selected and confirmed
• v7 - Word increased, disciples increased, and priests became obedient

The early followers of the Way had a recurring problem with more fundamentalist Jews (called "the Circumcision", including members of both the Pharisees and the Sadducees) treating Hellenists (less traditional Jews who had adopted more Greek culture) and former gentiles as common or second-class citizens. In this situation, the local congregation was dominated by the Circumcision who made sure that their own widows were given preference in the distribution of charity.

When the Hellenists complained, the Twelve agreed that it wasn't right and asked the other disciples to nominate some men from among themselves to manage care of the widows. They nominated Stephen and six others who were confirmed by the Twelve.

The passage (Acts 6:1-7) is arranged chiasticly. On its own, that's not so remarkable; it's a logical arrangement and could have been entirely unconscious on Luke's part. Except for that bit about the priests becoming obedient to the faith. It seems out of place, but is clearly intended to be part of this passage. So what did Luke mean by including it?

The opening point of the chiasm includes the growing number of believers and the resulting conflict between the Jews and Hellenists. The nature of a chiasm is that the final point mirrors the first point or at least corresponds to it in some meaningful way. The final point in this chiasm again includes the growing number of believers, but instead of adding the conflict, it adds the resolution to the conflict: a large number of priests, who were predominantly Sadducees, became obedient to the faith. 

The priests in v7 were either the same as the Jews in v1 or else they were instigators of the problem, advising those who had been handling the distribution unfairly before. In either case, they were impressed by the way the disciples managed the situation, and placed themselves under the spiritual authority of Twelve in response.

A Little More on the Name of God

Accents & pronunciations change over time. Even if you know exactly how a word was spelled three hundred years ago, you cannot know exactly how it was pronounced. For example, Americans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Brits, who were once a single people and still speak the same language, all pronounce the same letters differently. If you picked up an English text written by a 17th century Virginia planter you could not pronounce the written words exactly as he did, even though you could read and understand them plainly.

Now consider the tetragrammaton, YHVH. If a little time and geography make it impossible for English speakers today to know exactly how a familiar English word was pronounced just three centuries ago, how much more is it impossible for English speakers today to know how a Hebrew word was spoken two or three thousand years ago? It's not just a different language separated by millennia. It's an entirely different alphabet with no vowels! Even if we could be 100% confident about what vowels should go between the consonants, nobody alive can know exactly how to pronounce the consonants, let alone the assumed vowels.

There are only two ways to know how to pronounce YHVH for certain: 1) Go back in time and hear it pronounced by Yeshua or one of the prophets; 2) Get a direct revelation from YHVH himself.

Anything else is just academic speculation and anyone who tells you otherwise is just blowing hot air.

Restitution, not Vengeance

"An eye for an eye & a tooth for a tooth" was never meant to be understood literally. It's about restitution, not vengeance.

 The basics of Torah are simple and easy to understand, but there is also profound depth and an assumption of minimal mental competence. Torah was written for adults able to make logical connections, not for children who need everything spelled out.

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." (Exo 21:22-25)

Points to consider regarding this commandment:

• It is directed at people who have come before a court of law for an injury done to one person by another.
• It sets the financial penalty to be imposed by judges on a guilty party.
• It does not command anyone to remove another's eye, tooth, hand, or foot, nor to burn or strike anyone.
• Although it has applicability in principle, it is not directed at people involved in private disputes of any kind that have not been brought to court.
• It does not mandate that the injured person must accept the payment ordered by the court. 
• It does not mandate that the injured person bring the case to court at all.

Words Are Just Labels

Sometimes when people start getting back into Scripture, they discover things they never knew were there, they get convicted, they get excited... And sometimes they get a little carried away by things they read or hear without considering the greater context. For example, in Exodus 23:13, God said "Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips."

Years ago, when I was first getting really serious about trying to obey God, I thought this meant we needed to stop using "Tuesday" and "January" because they were named for pagan gods.

Some people take that even further and say we shouldn't use words like "lord" and "god" because the True God shouldn't be made to share his titles with false gods.

But then there's this:

For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. Isaiah 54:5

We all know this is talking about YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (The all-caps LORD always means that the original Hebrew read "YHWH".) There's absolutely no question about it. Isaiah is relaying a message from God about Himself to the people of Israel. Did you also know that the Hebrew word God used to describe himself as a "husband" is ba'al, the exact same word used as to refer to the chief Canaanite god? It can be translated as husband, master, lord, etc.
In other places, God YHWH calls himself El and Adonai, which translate almost exactly to god and lord, respectively.

All words and sounds are abused and co-opted at times for sinful purposes, but there is no such thing as a "pagan" word or sound any more than there can be a pagan hammer or a pagan screwdriver. Words are just tools used to convey information, and, just like hammers, they can be misused.

Some nouns carry more information than others, but in the end they're just labels. God, lord, ba'al... these are generic nouns that are sometimes used as proper nouns, just like Father, Doctor, or President. The chief Canaanite god was often called Ba'al, but YHWH also called himself ba'al.

If pagans worship a god of the trees and they call it Tree, are we then forbidden to use the word "tree" ever again? Of course not. Even if there was a real being masquerading as the god of the trees, that word doesn't belong to him, and it's not really his name.

When God said "Don't let the names of false gods pass your lips" in Exodus 23:13, he didn't mean, "Don't speak the phonetic equivalents of their names and don't ever use those nouns again." No. What he meant was, "Don't call on false gods. Don't swear by their names, don't honor them by talking about them in a favorable manner, don't pray to them, don't act in their names, and don't speak for them."

Words are just tools to represent information through speech and writing. Don't confuse the labels for the realities, and don't let the world dictate your speech.

The Sacred Name

Image used by permission of Yeshua.org.

When Paul wrote to his non-Jewish followers across the Roman Empire, he didn't call himself "Shaul." He called himself Paul. He didn't call the Messiah "Yeshua haMashiach." He called him "Iesous Christos."

It's ok to use transliterations, abbreviations, and even translations to refer to Yeshua/Jesus, especially when trying to communicate with non-Hebrew speakers. It's ok to use Hebrew names too. Just make sure you are using them in such a way as to teach the truth, not as stumbling blocks that drive people further from the truth.

Our Messiah's name isn't a collection of letters or sounds. Those things are just convenient labels. His name is the whole picture of who He is: Redeemer, Savior, Wonderful, Counselor, Anointed, Son of the Living God, the Word of God, the Law Giver, our Passover Lamb, our Atonement, High Priest, the Rock that Saves.



Some believe that the introduction of the letter J represents some kind of corruption or conspiracy to keep people from pronouncing the name of Yeshua. The letter is only 400 to 600 years old, and Hebrew has no J at all, so how can "Jesus" possibly be the Messiah's name?

There are two objections raised here.

The Letter J Is Only 400 Years Old!

The letter J wasn't invented to keep people from pronouncing the name correctly. The reality is exactly the opposite. J was created to show when the letter I was being used as a consonant, such as in the words "job" and "majesty". Before the letter J was invented, both of those words were spelled with I instead of J.

Every language that adopted the letter J into its alphabet pronounces it differently. Germans pronounce it like an English Y. Spanish speakers pronounce J like H, Y, or Kh, depending on regional dialect.

Have you ever heard someone from Mexico pronounce the English word "yes" as if it began with a J, like "Jyes"? Evidently, English speakers used to pronounce a consonant I with a J or Zh sound, exactly as many (not all!) Spanish speakers pronounce Y today.

English already had the letter Y, so why didn't they use that for consonant I? Two reasons:

• The letter Y was already doing double duty as a Th sound, as in "ye olde shop", which would have been pronounced as "THE old shop", not "YEE old shop". 
• Some consonantal Is that were pronounced like Y, evidently did get the Y letter at some point. I don't know if that was before or after the shift to J or if there was a rule about whether the letter was at the beginning or end of a syllable, followed by one or another vowel, etc.

Sometime in the mid to late Middle Ages, Latin speakers began to pronounce consonantal I (especially initial consonantal I) with a J sound. This pronunciation was picked up by French and other speakers long before King James commissioned his Bible. I'm not sure if Medieval Latin adopted this pronunciation from English speakers or not, but I suspect that English adopted it from Celtic languages and not from Latin. 

At some point, Latin scribes began adding a tail to the letter I when it was pronounced like J, and this new letter was also adopted by other European languages, even when those languages didn't have the J sound. When Iesus became Jesus, the pronunciation didn't change. Spanish speakers continued to pronounce it as Hay-soos, Germans continued to pronounce it as Yezus, and English speakers continued to pronounce it as Gee-suhs, just as they had when it was still spelled with an I.

The change to J didn't change how anything was pronounced. It reflected a pre-existing reality of regional accents. The English took the J sound from the Celts and the J letter from European scholars of Latin.

Note (2025/04/04): Rob, of the RobWords YouTube channel, says that the earliest occurrence of the letter J appears to have been in 1524 and describes the sound shift in English much as I do but ascribes it to French influence. See here: A guide to our alphabet.

There Is No J in Hebrew

If you didn't already pick this up from my discussion of the invention of J, let me spell it out for you: All letters were invented at some point and no Latin letters exist in Hebrew. There is no Y, I, E, S, U, W, or A in Hebrew. Those are letters from the Latin alphabet and Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet.

What people should actually be saying is that there is no J sound in Hebrew, but even that depends on how you pronounce the letter J. If you speak Spanish or German, then there is definitely a J sound in Hebrew.

In fact, the Latin letter J is a descendant of the Hebrew letter yod, or I should say they are both descendants of a common ancestor. The paleo-Semitic/Hebrew yod became the Greek and Latin I and the (slightly more modern) Hebrew yod י. Then the Latin I became the I, J, and Y.

Saying that Hebrew has no J is like saying that English has no י. Of course, it doesn't, because English and Hebrew use completely different alphabets.

Philologically speaking, though, J = I = י. So, in a way, Hebrew does have a J. It's just shaped differently.

If you don't like the way Jesus is pronounced by English speakers, then pronounce it the way a German would, which is probably much closer to the Greek form used throughout the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Apostolic writings of the New Testament: Ἰησοῦς.

If you feel that the Apostles were wrong to write his name using Greek characters and grammar, then spell and pronounce it in the Hebrew manner. I prefer to use the form Yeshua, myself, but I'm not about to use the Hebrew characters in my English articles because I'm trying to communicate with people. Your priorities might be different, and that's certainly your business.

(Updated November 19, 2019.)

(Updated September 9, 2020.)

Party for National Health

Nighttime images help track disease from the sky

According to this article, Nigeria used satellite images of city lights to correlate population movements to epidemic outbreaks. After the harvest season, there is a small population boom in the cities as migrant agricultural workers look for off-season employment. The close proximity of people combined with insufficient sanitation promotes the spread of diseases such as the measles. Interesting stuff.

It made me wonder about God's three feasts of ascent (Unleavened Bread/Passover, Shavuot/Pentecost, and Sukkot/Tabernacles) where essentially the same thing happens. Three times each year, the entire nation (or at least representative men from each house) is supposed to gather in Jerusalem. Ancient Israel had superior hygienic practices than most of the rest of the ancient world, but that many people suddenly crammed into a much smaller space is sure to facilitate the sharing of germs.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

The men pick up the viruses and whatnot in Jerusalem and bring them back home and spread it around at the farm. If the mitzvot (commandments) concerning cleanliness were strictly observed the chances of a serious outbreak were minimized, yet the whole community could be exposed to and inoculated against new strains of disease.

The Feasts of Ascent might have served a secondary purpose as national pox parties.

The Authority of a Father over an Adult Daughter

Mishpatim lists a seemingly random set of commandments, but a closer look shows that they are not really so random. The common theme is property rights.

Exodus 21:1	Introduction
Exodus 21:2-11	Rights of a master over a slave.
Exodus 21:12-36	Rights of a person over his own life and limb
Exodus 22:1-15	Rights of the owner of livestock, crops, and other property
Exodus 22:16-17	Rights of a father and future husband over a daughter and future bride
Exodus 22:18-23:19	God's expectations of those to whom he has delegated authority
Exodus 23:20-23	God's expectations of those under delegated authority
Exodus 23:24-33	Rights of God over his property
Exodus 24:1-18	Closing

A word about the rights of fathers over their daughters...I once wrote that a father always has the right to veto his daughter's choice of husband. I am no longer so strongly convinced.

Matot (Numbers 30-32) says that a father may annul the vows of his unmarried daughter still living in his house. I have had occasion since then to learn something of the life of an unmarried daughter who is not still living in her father's house, and it seems to me that Matot should be taken literally on that point. If she left her father's house with his consent and has lived on her own for many years, then she should probably be accorded the status of a widow or divorcee, responsible for her own finances, decisions, and vows. A situation like that would have been extremely rare in ancient Hebrew culture, so there would have been no particular reason to include it.