LORD, Lord, Jehovah, or Yahweh: Has the Biblical God a Name?

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

-Exodus 3:14, NIV Translation

If you have read the book of Exodus, you likely have wondered what this verse is about. When asked for their name, a human being who claims to be ‘themself’ is likely out of their mind. So, why would GOD1 utter such a statement of superficial insanity?

To unpack the delicacy, we must revisit the original Bible: the Exodus, as the authors2 have written it in ancient Hebrew. The ‘I AM’, as in ‘I AM has sent me to you’, was written as יהוה, which scholars believe can be translated in English as ‘[they] who causes to be’ (p.259 Albright, W. F. 1957). In one word, that is the creator, of everything, including our universe.

Therefore, it is not clear from this verse alone whether יהוה is the name of GOD, or GOD is suggesting that they be addressed as the creator.

In the next verse, GOD continues:

God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

-Exodus 3:15, NIV Translation

Verse 15 suggests יהוה as the name of GOD, with one caveat:

Is the translation of the New International Version accurate?

In another Bible translation, the King James version, the same verse is translated as:

And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

-Exodus 3:15, King James Translation

In the King James Translation, the last mention of GOD’s ‘name’ is translated differently as ‘memorial’. Accordingly, the argument that יהוה is the personal name of GOD then hinges solely on the phrase ‘this is my name for ever’.

According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) Hebrew Lexicon, שֵׁם, the original word for ‘name’ in ‘this is my name forever’, can also be translated as ‘glory’ or ‘reputation’. Therefore, the verse could also be translated as ‘this is my reputation forever’.

Interestingly, it often does not matter whether the original authors meant ‘name’ or ‘reputation’. יהוה (I AM), when appeared elsewhere than in Exodus 3:14, is translated varyingingly as LORD in all capitals (King James, English Standard, New International, and New American Standard), or Lord with only initial capitalisation (New Revised Standard, Good News, New Century, and New King James). Whether by ‘This is my שֵׁם forever’ the original authors meant ‘name’ or ‘reputation’, no misinterpretation is made since there is no stipulation on GOD’s personal name to begin with.

However, not everyone is satisfied with such cautious evasion.

Although the dominant translations, accounting for more than 67% of US readership as of 2017, have refused to name GOD, the New Living Translation, the Lexham Bible, and Holman Christian Standard Bible translated יהוה (I AM) as Yahweh, while American Standard, the Darby, Young’s literal, and New World translated יהוה (I AM) as Jehovah, thereby taking a stance on GOD’s personal name.

One group has been particularly zealous on learning the personal name of GOD:

You guessed it:

The Jehovah’s Witnesses.

According to their website, GOD’s name is ‘of the utmost importance’, as it uniquely identifies GOD, and the usage of their personal name ‘reveals our interest in [them].’ Said personal name, which they believe is best rendered as ‘Jehovah’ in English, is of such importance and favour that they inserted it into the New Testament 237 times in their denominational translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, despite admitting that no known ancient Greek New Testament manuscript found today contains said name.

The Witnesses’ passion for the name ‘Jehovah’ is likely driven by their fundamental difference with mainline Christianity: their denial of the Holy Trinity. Witnesses do not consider Jesus GOD themself, rendering GOD an abstract existence. The Witnesses, therefore, are particularly interested in establishing GOD as a ‘real Person’ through the use of GOD’s ‘personal name’.

So, is the name of GOD ‘Jehovah’, as the Witnesses passionately preach?

Most certainly NOT.

To justify ‘Jehovah’, Jehovah’s Witnesses quote Isaiah 42:8, which in ancient Hebrew is approximately written as:

Jehovah’s Witnesses translate this verse as:

‘I am Jehovah. That is my name.’

-New World Translation 1961

The ‘Jehovah’ in New World Translation comes from the word ‘יהוה’ in the original scripture. That is, if you recall, the ‘I AM’ in Exodus 3:14. This word, termed the Tetragrammaton, appears in the Hebrew Scriptures about 5,400 times (Toy & Blau 2021). Current consensus holds ‘YHWH’ to be the most accurate denotion of said word and ‘Yahweh’ the pronunciation in English (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2024).

So, where did the name ‘Jehovah’ come from?

Jehovah, as explained by Joüon & Muraoka in their 1966 book A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica), is likely a fusion between הוה (I AM) and אֲדֹנָי‎ (Adonai, which means master or lord). The vowels of ‘Adonai’ are inserted into ‘I AM’, forming יְהֹוָה‎ (Yahovah) (Joüon & Muraoka 1966). Peter Gallatin, the confessor of Pope Leo X., Latinised the name into ‘Jehovah’ in his De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis (Folio xliii., Gallatin 1518).

Were the alterations an accident?

No.

The historical Jewish tradition is not to utter הוה (I AM) literally as ‘Yehwah’ but as אֲדֹנָי‎ (Adonai) or אֱלֹהִים (Elohim, which means God) (Jewish Encyclopedia 1906). As a visual reminder to utter ‘Adonai’ or ‘Elohim’ in lieu of ‘Yehwah’, Common Era scribes customarily wrote the vowels of ‘Adonai’ or ‘Elohim’ under הוה (I AM), practising ‘Qere and Ketiv’ (Denote pronunciation and writing). The practice is neatly explained by AnonMoos at English Wikipedia:

The ‘Qere and Ketiv’ practice on הוה (I AM) may have caused great confusion. Ancient Hebrew writing denotes only consonants, expecting readers to supply the vowels themselves (Lewis, T. J. 2020). As such, readers unfamiliar with the traditional Jewish evasion of ‘Yahweh’ are visually tempted to utter ‘Yahovah’, as those are the vowels (Qere) and consonants (Ketiv) they face.

Any mistake that can be made will eventually be made, which is certainly the case with medieval Christian scribers. We do not know when and how the use of ‘Yahovah’ or its more Latinized counterpart ‘Jehovah’ became popular in Bible transcriptions, but since the 1500s, numerous widely-circulated Bible translations accepted the coinage: John Roger’s Matthew Bible in 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, the Authorized King James Version of 1611, and more recently, the American Standard Version in 1901, and the New World Translation in 1961 all featured some variation of ‘Jehovah’, such as ‘Iehouah’.

Despite modern scholarly consensus that the tetragrammaton הוה (I AM) is more accurately pronounced as ‘Yahweh' in English (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2024), ‘Jehovah’ remains popular among Anglophone Christians rejecting the traditional Jewish evasion, while ‘LORD’ remains the standard across mainline Christianity. The stance on GOD’s name, being deeply controversial and profoundly personal, transcends reason, just like Christianity itself. It is unlikely that in the near future, we will read ‘I AM YAHWEH’ in the ‘New New International Version’ or hear from Yahweh’s Witnesses.

1: In this article, GOD in all capitals is mentioned 30 times. I decided against using LORD (my preference) in this article to minimise implicit bias.

2: The authorship is not declared in Exodus. Moses is unlikely to be the sole author of Exodus, as historically attributed. There are significant thematic and stylistic differences between chapters of the scripture. Some scholars hypothesise that three distinct authors composed the Exodus, possibly over multiple centuries before the book came into its final form in the 6th or 5th century BCE.