during Nehemiah’s governorship.—Neh. 10:1, 14, 21.

2. The last of the Aaronic high-priestly line listed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jaddua’s being the fifth generation after Jeshua allows for him to have lived during “the kingship of Darius the Persian.”—Neh. 12:10, 11, 22; see DARIUS No. 3.

JADE

A hard, durable, usually green-colored ornamental stone used for jewelry and carvings. It occurs as two distinct minerals, “nephrite” and “jadeite.” Nephrite (true jade) is the most common variety. It varies in density from translucent to opaque and is found in colors such as dark green, black, gray, yellow and white. Jadeite is more valuable than nephrite due to its more attractive coloring and rarity. Jade is particularly suitable for carving and engraving because of its composition.

A beautiful jade stone with the name of one of Israel’s twelve tribes engraved upon it adorned the “breastpiece of judgment” worn by High Priest Aaron, occupying the third position in the fourth row of stones. (Ex. 28:2, 15, 20, 21; 39:9, 13, 14) Jade was also included among the precious stones that decorated the “covering” of the king of Tyre.—Ezek. 28:12, 13.

JADON

(Jaʹdon) [perhaps, Jah judges; or, frail one].

A Meronothite who helped Nehemiah rebuild Jerusalem’s wall in 455 B.C.E. Jadon was apparently from the vicinity of Mizpah.—Neh. 3:7.

Josephus calls the unnamed prophet in 1 Kings 13 “Jadon.”—Antiquities of the Jews, Book VIII, chap. VIII, par. 5; chap. IX, par. 1.

JAEL

(Jaʹel) [mountain goat].

The wife of Heber the Kenite and slayer of Canaanite army chief Sisera. Though living at Kedesh, the point where Barak and Deborah rallied to fight against Sisera, Heber was at peace with the Canaanite oppressors. (Judg. 4:10, 11, 17, 21) After Sisera was defeated at Israel’s hand, he fled to Heber’s neutral encampment, where Jael invited him into her tent. She then covered him with a blanket. When he asked for water she gave him a banquet bowl of curdled milk to drink. After she again covered him up, he asked her to stand guard at the entrance of the tent. Thinking himself secure as her guest, the tired and weary Sisera soon fell fast asleep. Jael then quietly came in to him armed with a hammer and a tent pin that she drove through his head into the earth. When the pursuer Barak arrived, she showed him the army chief, dead at “the hand of a woman,” as Deborah foretold. (Judg. 4:9, 17-22) Jael’s courageous act against the enemy of Jehovah is extolled in the victory song of Deborah and Barak, which also pronounces Jael “most blessed among women.”—Judg. 5:6, 24-27.

JAGUR

(Jaʹgur).

A city in the southern part of Judah (Josh. 15:21), possibly the same as Gurbaal. (2 Chron. 26:7) Jagur is perhaps to be identified with Tell Ghurr, about twelve miles (c. 19 kilometers) E of Beer-sheba.

JAH

[Heb., Yah].

A poetic shortened form of Jehovah, the name of the Most High God. (Ex. 15:1, 2) This abbreviated form is represented by the first half of the Hebrew tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), that is, the letters yohdh (י) and heʼ (ה), the tenth and fifth letters of the Hebrew alphabet respectively.

Jah occurs fifty times in the Hebrew Scriptures, twenty-six times alone, and twenty-four times in the expression “Hallelujah,” which is, literally, a command to a number of people to “praise Jah.” However, the presence of “Jah” in the original is completely ignored by certain popular versions. (Dy, Mo, RS) The Authorized Version and An American Translation have it only once, as “Jah” and “Yah” respectively. (Ps. 68:4) In the English Revised Version it appears twice in the body of the text (Ps. 68:4; 89:8), and in the American Standard Version the full form, Jehovah, is substituted throughout, but these latter two translations in practically every occurrence of the contracted form call it to our attention in footnotes. Both the New World Translation and Rotherham preserve for the reader all fifty occurrences of Jah or Yah.

In the Christian Greek Scriptures “Jah” appears four times in the expression Hallelujah. (Rev. 19:1, 3, 4, 6) Most Bibles simply carry this Greek expression over into English untranslated, but G. W. Wade renders it, “Praise ye Jehovah,” and the New World Translation reads, “Praise Jah, you people!”

In point of time “Jah” could not have been a primitive form of the divine name used earlier than the Tetragrammaton itself. The latter full form, Jehovah, occurs 171 times in the primitive Hebrew text in the book of Genesis, but it was not until the account of events after the Exodus that the shorter form first appeared. (Ex. 15:2) The single syllable Jah is usually linked with the more moving emotions of praise and song, prayer and entreaty, and is generally found where the subject theme dwells upon a rejoicing over victory and deliverance, or where there is an acknowledgment of God’s mighty hand and power.

Examples of this special usage are abundant. The phrase, “Praise Jah, you people!” (Hallelujah) appears as a doxology, that is, an expression of praise to God, in the Psalms, the first being at Psalm 104:35. In other psalms it may be at the beginning only (111, 112), occasionally within a psalm (135:3), sometimes at the end only (104, 105, 115-117), but often at both the beginning and the end (106, 113, 135, 146-150). In the book of Revelation heavenly personages repeatedly punctuate their praise of Jehovah with this expression.—Rev. 19:1-6.

The remaining instances where “Jah” appears also reflect exaltation in songs and petitions to Jehovah. There is the song of deliverance by Moses. (Ex. 15:2) In those recorded by Isaiah a double emphasis is gained by combining both names, “Jah Jehovah.” (Isa. 12:2; 26:4) And there are still other texts using the poetic form Jah. (Ps. 68:4, 18; 77:11; 89:8; 122:4; 135:4; Song of Sol. 8:6) Hezekiah, in his poetic exultation after being miraculously healed when close to death, expressed heightened feelings by repetition of Jah. (Isa. 38:9, 11) The contrast is drawn between the dead, who cannot praise Jah, and those determined to live a life of praise to Him. (Ps. 115:17, 18; 118:17-19) Still other psalms display a prayerful appreciation for deliverance, protection and correction.—Ps. 94:12; 118:5, 14.

Of the 141 proper names in the Hebrew Scriptures that evidently originally ended in “Jah,” in the Masoretic text only 71 have uniformly retained their primitive spellings. It seems that the Sopherim, in their effort to hide the ending, sometimes added a waw ו (u) so that the one-syllable יה (Heb., Yah) became the two-syllable יהו (Heb., Ya·huʹ). (1 Ki. 22:40, NW, 1955 ed., ftn. a) In this, however, they were not consistent, for there are fifty-nine persons whose names are spelled sometimes with and sometimes without the added syllable, as is often observed in the footnotes of the New World Translation, 1963 large-print edition.—See AHAZIAH; AHIJAH; AMAZIAH; ATHALIAH; AZARIAH.

Still another device the Sopherim seem to have used to hide the “Jah” ending of proper names was to drop the final heʼ (ה), or replace it with another letter, or in some other way to alter the ending. So in one place (2 Ki. 18:2) Hezekiah’s mother is called Abi but in another account (2 Chron. 29:1) her name is given as Abijah. In another case it appears that both the father’s and the son’s names were altered from “Obadiah the son of Shemaiah” to “Abda the son of Shammua.”—1 Chron. 9:16; Neh. 11:17.