After playing shin megami tensei 4 and shin megami tensei 4 apocalyse, whenever you heard yhvh being pronounced it was always censored. Ever wonder why? Well this video goes over just that. Shin megami tensei 4 and apocalypse use the word YHVH on several occasions and never is it said without the censorship, and that is with good reason, the holy energy the word YHVH carries should not be taken lightly. Demons, angels, average people, even Stephen, are unable to say his name. shin megami tensei lore has always been well researched even the lore of shin megami tensei 4 apocalypse, despite how people like to rag on that game. I decided to make this video to show people how to pronounce YHVH properly as well as give a little explanation on behalf of the shin megami tensei lore.
This is not your average censorship, how to pronounce YHVH is to not pronounce it at all. Though I did a poor showing of that in the video, oh well it was for the sake of shin megami tensei lore explanation. Shin megami tensei 4 and shin megami tensei 4 apocalypse had fantastic voice overs in both japanese and english, and the amount of research they put into not only the demons design but the overall lore of the stories behind them. YHVH in shin megami tensei is amazing and I hope you could learn a little bit more about him. Smt and megaten in general are home to some of my favorite games ever and the smt lore is a major factor in why they are so great. Also I personally love shin megami tensei 4 and shin megami tensei 4 apocalypse. If you liked learning about the lore of smt and the lore of shin megami tensei 4 specifically like and subscribe.
Why is YHVH censored in the games? Well it’s a lot more in depth than you think. Yahweh, Adonai, Elohim, and Yehova are all names used for God in the Hebrew bible, but YHVH (Do the censor) is the most holy name of God. OK we can stop with the censor now, the pronunciation of YHVH is not known for certain as the modern Hebrew tongue is very different from ancient Hebrew, but I’ll go over some interpretations. This is the tetragrammaton 4 letter name of God found over 6,500 times in the Hebrew bible. Hebrew text is to be read right to left. The letter on the far right is “yud” believed to have a “Y” sound, the two repeating letters are “hey” believed to have an “H” sound, the final letter is “vov” which could be a consonant or a voul, as a consonant it would have a “W” or “V”sound, but as a voul it would have an “O” or an “U” sound. If we tie this back to SMT they clearly are interpreting it as a consonant, specifically the “V” sound. With all that the proper pronunciation of the lord’s name in SMT is… YOD HEY VAV HEY. Interesting huh? Well in the ancient Hebrew text there were no vowels so no one can say for sure, that is just his name spelled out. Modern interpretations are in agreement that he is currently pronounced Yahweh, Yaw-Way or Yahovah Yah-ho-vah depending on the manuscript you read. Well now that you know how to pronounce his name, make sure you never say it OR ELSE! I can hear the earth shaking outside my window as I’m recording this. YHWH is too holy to be spoken and even saying his name could cause miracles to happen.
