ury.(143)

6. Perhaps the most important process of spiritualization which the idea
of God underwent in the minds of the Jewish people was made when the name
JHVH as the proper name of the God of the covenant was given up and
replaced by _Adonai_--"the Lord." As long as the God of Israel, like other
deities, had His proper name, he was practically one of them, however
superior in moral worth. As soon as He became _the_ Lord, that is, the
only real God over all the world, a distinctive proper noun was out of
place. Henceforth the name was invested with a mysterious and magic
character. It became ineffable, at least to the people at large, and its
pronunciation sinful, except by the priests in the liturgy. In fact, the
law was interpreted so as directly to forbid this utterance.(144) Thus
JHVH is no longer the national God of Israel. The Talmud guards against
the very suspicion of a "Judaized God" by insisting that every benediction
to Him as "God the Lord" must add "King of the Universe" rather than the
formula of the Psalms, "God of Israel."(145)

7. The Midrash makes a significant comment on the words of the Shema: "Why
do the words, 'the Lord is our God' precede the words, 'the Lord is One'?
Does not the particularism of the former conflict with the universalism of
the latter sentence? No. The former expresses the idea that the Lord is
'our God' just so far as His name is more intertwined with our history
than with that of any other nation, and that we have the greater
obligation as His chosen people. Wherever Scripture speaks of the God of
Israel, it does not intend to limit Him as the universal God, but to
emphasize Israel's special duty as His priest-people."(146)

8. Likewise is the liturgical name "God of our fathers" far from being a
nationalistic limitation. On the contrary, the rabbis single out Abraham
as the missionary, the herald of monotheism in its march to
world-conquest. For his use of the term, "the God of heaven and the God of
the earth"(147) they offer a characteristic explanation: "Before Abraham
came, the people worshiped only the God of heaven, but Abraham by winning
them for his God brought Him down and made Him also the God of the
earth."(148)

9. Reverence for the Deity caused the Jew to avoid not only the utterance
of the holy Name itself, but even the common use of its substitute
_Adonai_. Therefore still other synonyms were introduced, such as "Master
of the universe," "the Holy One, bles