Adonai
From the middle of the Second
Temple period until today, it has been an accepted practice among Jews to
pronounce the word Adonai (meaning “my Lord”) in place of the name YHWH,
and as a result readers have difficulty distinguishing between the original Adonai
and YHWH. In fact, Adonai is quite rare in the written text of the
Bible. In contrast to the more than 6,800 occurrences of the Tetragrammaton
YHWH in the Bible, Adonai appears only some 440 times, of which
approximately three hundred are in the phrase Adonai YHWH (pronounced Adonai
Elohim), five in the phrase “YHWH Adonai” (pronounced Elohim
Adonai), and 134 times without YHWH. (The Masorah indicated this in the
notation 134 vaddain).
I have discovered a major
difference between the use of Adonai in the Torah, Joshua, Judges, and
Samuel and its use in the subsequent biblical books, from Isaiah, Amos, and
Kings until the end of the biblical era. Adonai only becomes an actual
name of God in the books of Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and Kings. For example, in
Amos, “He showed me: behold, the Lord (Adonai) was standing beside a
wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand” (7:7), and “I saw
the Lord (Adonai) standing beside the altar” (9:1); in Isaiah, “In the
year that King Uzziah died, I beheld the Lord (Adonai) seated on a high and
lofty throne” (6:1); and in Kings, “For the Lord (Adonai) had caused the
Aramean camp to hear a sound of chariots, a sound of horses” (2 Kings 7:6). Before
this period, it was used only in those functions also served by the title adoni
(my lord) when addressing human beings. In the former books of the Bible Adonai
could be found only within a quotation of direct speech, never in the
narrative voice, and always within a plea of supplication, sometimes with the
suppliant expression bi- or the exclamation ahah.
On the other hand, it must be
noted that nowhere in the Bible is the term adoni (my Lord) used in
addressing God, as might be expected. From this we can conclude that the word Adonai
was originally no different than adoni. Both were terms used to
address someone of a higher status. From a linguistic perspective, biblical
Hebrew includes both the singular form adon and adonim, a plural
form used as a singular noun (the pluralis majestatis) as in “And I will
place the Egyptians at the mercy of a harsh master (adonim)” (Isa.
19:4), and “And if I am a master (adonim), where is the reverence due
Me?—said the Lord of Hosts to you” (Mal. 1:6). These forms are similar to ba’al/be’alim
and Eloah/Elohim. There is an interesting differentiation in
use between adon and adonim. When the word stands alone, adon is
the common form and adonim is rare. However, when the word has a
personal pronoun suffix, the word base becomes plural, as in adoneinu, adonekha,
adonekhem, adonav, adoneha, and adoneihem. The word
remains singular only in first-person singular (adoni). Therefore, Adonai
is really the most natural form of address, and adoni is actually
the irregular form. It seems that at a certain time, probably quite early, a linguistic
distinction was made between the term used to address a person and the same
term when used to address God by designating the form derived from the plural
to God, and that derived from the singular to people. Once there was a specific
term for addressing God, it naturally developed into an actual name of God,
though its previous function was not effaced. This development occurred
apparently in the time of Isaiah and Amos. In biblical books from before this
period, both forms of the word, Adoni and Adonai, are still only terms
of addressing a superior, whether human or divine. This distinction between the
biblical books corresponds to the order in which they appear in the Bible,
rather than that hypothesized by scholars. (Yoel Elitzur, “The Names of God and the Dating of the Biblical Corpus,”
in The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible, ed. Tova Ganzel,
Yehudah Brandes, and Chayuta Deutsch [Brighaton, Mass.: Academic Studies Press,
2019], 436-38)
