An Adonaist is a sect or party who maintain that the
Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
vowel points ordinarily annexed to the consonants of the word "
Jehovah", are not the natural points belonging to that word, and that they do not express the true pronunciation of it; but that they are vowel points belonging to the words,
Adonai and
Elohim, applied to the ineffable name Jehovah, which the Jews were forbidden to utter, and the true pronunciation of which was lost; they were therefore always to pronounce the word ''Adonai'', instead of Jehovah.
[http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/adonists Webster's 1828 Dictionary]
''Adonai''
Jews also call God ''Adonai'', Hebrew for "Lord" (Hebrew: ). Formally, this is plural ("my Lords"), but the plural is usually construed as a respectful, and not a
syntactic plural. (The singular form is ''Adoni'', "my lord". This was used by the Phoenicians for the god
Tammuz
Dumuzid or Tammuz ( sux, , ''Dumuzid''; akk, Duʾūzu, Dûzu; he, תַּמּוּז, Tammûz),; ar, تمّوز ' known to the Sumerians as Dumuzid the Shepherd ( sux, , ''Dumuzid sipad''), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with shep ...
and is the origin of the Greek name
Adonis
In Greek mythology, Adonis, ; derived from the Canaanite word ''ʼadōn'', meaning "lord". R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 23. was the mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite.
One day, Adonis was gored by ...
. Jews only use the singular to refer to a distinguished person: in the plural, "rabotai", literally, "my masters", is used in both Mishnaic and modern Hebrew.)
Since pronouncing
YHWH
The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ...
is avoided out of reverence for the holiness of the name, Jews use ''Adonai'' instead in prayers, and colloquially would use ''
Hashem
HaShem ( Hebrew: ''hšm'', literally "''the name''"; often abbreviated to 'h′'' is a title used in Judaism to refer to God. It is also a given name and surname.
Religious usage
* In Judaism, '' HaShem'' (lit. 'the Name') is used to refer ...
'' ("the Name"). When the
Masoretes
The Masoretes ( he, בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה, Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in ...
added vowel pointings to the text of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
'' Ferrara Bible
The Ferrara Bible was a 1553 publication of the Ladino version of the Tanakh used by Sephardi Jews. It was paid for and made by Yom-Tob ben Levi Athias (the Portuguese Marrano known before his return to Judaism as ''Alvaro de Vargas'',In a numb ...
go further and substitute ''Adonai'' with ''A.''
References
{{reflist
Tetragrammaton