Thank you generalpike for the detailed description of the UGLE Coat of Arms, and for your insight into its heraldry and history and significance.
I offer a small 'pedantic-semantic' correction, submitted in humility...
Rendering the translation of Hebrew lettering, "Holiness to the Lord" is nearly exact... "
Holiness to the LORD" is more precise.
All CAPS were used by translators of the KJV every time the name YHVH was translated as "LORD"...(four capital letters L-O-R-D were used to represent the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton Yod-Hey-Vav-Hay that make up the 'sacred' name of Y-H-W-H, or as it represented in the more Germanic tongue, 'Jehovah'). Same reason the translators printed the name JESUS in all CAPS at the start of the gospel of Matthew, as the name 'YHWH-SHUA' contains the four letter Tetra-grammaton. (Fun fact!)
Therefore, "Kodes la Adonai" is not quite correct...
...seeing as the Hebrew letter used here on the Coat of Arms (from right to left) are:
Koph - Dalet - Shin (Kodes or Kadosh) =
HolinessLamed (L') =
UntoYod - Hey - Vav - Hey (Yehovah) = the
LORD =
Yahweh (YHWH)...however you pronounce it!
Exact UGLE Coat of Arms translation reads: "
Kadosh L' YHWH"
For translation to be 'Adonai' - Hebrew letters Aleph (A) - Dalet (D) - Nun (N) & Yod (Y) would need to be present rather than the letters Y-H-V-H which are in fact written on the Coat...'Adonai' is more of a title than a name, from whence the term 'Don' as a lord, (or more accurately a 'judge'), is derived. A-don-ai is synonymous with the name of 'Dan' which means "Judge".
The title "ADON" was used by some translators, somewhat erroneously, to replace YHWH as the "Name" of God... most probably due to ignorance surrounding the fact that each letter of YHWH is an unvoiced fricative vowel that renders the pronunciation of the name YHWH as a breath, from whence arises the misconception that the name YHWH is "unutterable" as it is "too holy" to speak. (Insert Monty Python sketch here...!)
The root of the name YHWH is the verb 'havah' which, according to Strongs means:
"to breathe; to be
Or havah {haw-vaw'}; a primitive root (compare 'avah, hayah) supposed to mean
properly, to breathe;
to be (in the sense of existence) -- be, X have."
The name YHWH means (and is translated), 'the existent one', and it is 'spoken', or rather experienced as a breath - whence the concept of God breathing into Adam's nostrils the breath of life and he becoming a living 'being' from that point on: being a symbolic Old Testament type of 'receiving the Holy Spirit' as experienced by the New Testament church. Hence Jesus breathing on his disciples and saying 'receive ye the Holy Ghost' (John 20:22), fulfilled in Acts 2 when the Apostles were 'converted' with the accompanying evidence of speaking in an 'unknown tongue', or previously unlearned language - Acts 10:45-46, "And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues...") (see also Acts 19:1-7).
In Jesus discourse to Nicodemus, poorly translated John 3:8 "the wind
bloweth where it listeth, and ye heareth the
sound thereof...so is everone that is born of the Spirit"...should read more accurately, "the Spirit
breathes on whomsoever he will, and you hear a sound [Strongs 5456: phone (as in phonics) voice, language, dialect] thereof...so is everyone that is born of the Spirit..."
Herein lies the mystery of the title "Kadowsh L' YHWH"..."Holiness unto the LORD" as the OT type of being 'set apart' unto God (born of the Spirit), which is to be interpreted as: the "Holiness that comes from the Spirit of YHWH - the breath of God". ("Receiving the Holy Spirit" - with the bible evidence of speaking in other tongues as all 12 Apostles experienced).
Apostles were concerned with two things, being born of water and Spirit:
cp Acts 10:44-48 - Gentiles experience Salvation:
Spirit...speaking in tongues + water = Salvation
cp Acts 19:5-6 - Apostles Doctrine:
water + Spirit...speaking in tongues = Apostles ministry to "Disciples/Believers"
cp John 3:5,8 - Kingdom Entrance:
water + Spirit...voice speaks = sonship/new birth
cp Matt 3:16-17 - Jesus baptism:
water + Spirit...voice speaks = Sonship
cp Genesis 1:2 - Creation:
water + Spirit...voice speaks = light
Kind regards and thanks again for all the other neat info,
Pedro.