{Word Study} Yod

WORD STUDY – YOD
John 8:6: “This they said tempting him that they might have to accuse him.  But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground.”
YOD – An abbreviation for the sacred name of God  – Jehovah
During the day of Jesus the religious teachers taught that the divine name Jehovah refers to the aspect of mercy while the divine name Elohim refers to the aspect of Justice.  In the creation story you have the divine names of Jehovah and Elohim combined (Lord God) to teach us that the world can not endure on justice alone nor mercy alone.  He had to mingle justice with mercy for the world to endure.  Hence when God speaks to Moses as Jehovah He is speaking from the aspect of mercy and when He is speaking as Elohim He is speaking from the aspect of judge and administering justice.
In John 8 some scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in adultery to Jesus and advised that the Law of Moses commanded that she had to be stoned.  In an attempt to test Jesus they asked what they should do, follow the law or not.  Jesus gave his famous answer: “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  Before he gave this answer, however, he wrote something on the ground.   Scripture does not tell us what he wrote and there has been much speculation.  I asked a rabbi about this story and he suggested that due to the dramatic response from the religious leaders and that fact that Jesus did not speak but wrote on the ground, it is very possible he simple wrote out the Hebrew letters “Yod” and “Hei,” or maybe just simply a “Yod.”  A scribe or Pharisee would instantly know what that meant.  He would have written out the abbreviated form of the sacred name of God – Jehovah.   He could have spoken the name “Elohim” and that would have meant justice or stone her.  But to appeal to the name that was so sacred it could not be uttered, the name that these religious leaders would automatically associate with mercy, would have a profound affect.  Then to say “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone” would have left these leaders speechless for they could not say that they were without sin and they had to admit that they themselves must appeal to Jehovah – mercy and not Elohim – justice.
I like to think that all Jesus wrote on the ground was a simple “Yod.”  The smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet was used to save a woman’s life and win an argument with scribes and Pharisees.  Then after he spoke he knelt again and this time he wrote out Isaiah 1:18, the words spoken by the “yod.” Those  religious leaders knew that long before there was a law that condemned this woman, there was at creation Jehovah or mercy.  You will not find mercy applied to any other god.