Jah or
Yah (
Hebrew: יהּ
Yahu) is a short form of
Yahweh (in consonantal spelling
YHWH;
Hebrew: יהוה),
the proper name of the
God of Israel in the
Hebrew Bible.[SUP]
[1][/SUP] This short form of the name occurs 50 times in the text of the Hebrew Bible, of which 24 form part of the phrase
Hallelu-jah.
In an English-language context, the name
Jah is now most commonly associated with the
Rastafari. It is otherwise mostly limited to the phrase
Hallelujah and
theophoric names such as
Elijah. In the
Authorized King James Version (1611) there is only a single instance of
JAH (capitalised) in only one instance, in
Psalm 68:4.
An American Translation (1939) follows KJV in using
Yah in this verse. The conventional English pronunciation of
Jah is
/ˈdʒɑː/, even though the letter
J here transliterates the
palatal approximant (Hebrew
Yodh). The spelling
Yah is designed to make the pronunciation
/ˈjɑː/ explicit in an English-language context (see also
romanization of Hebrew).
Rastafari use the terms "Jah" or sometimes "Jah Jah" as a term for God and/or
Haile Selassie I, who is also known by the Amharic title
Janhoy (literally "Your Majesty").[SUP]
[2][/SUP]