The Correct Use of God's Name
By Stephen Terry
The question of how to properly speak
and write God's name frequently comes up. To answer that question, we first
have to determine what God’s name is. It is not "God," or
"Lord," or "Jehovah." These are what we would call titles
not names. God's name is "YHWH." Because the Hebrews considered
God's name too sacred to pronounce, they substituted the word "LORD."
As a result its actual pronunciation has been lost over the centuries. In
Hebrew, "YHWH," is a form of the verb "to be." This
is why when Moses asked for His name, God said to tell the people that "I
AM" has sent you. This is the first person, singular conjugation for the
verb "to be." Perhaps God was simply saying that all being or
existence is in Him. Most religious Jews today would find speaking the name
"YHWH" to be sacrilegious.
So how do they handle this when reading the Bible and
coming across the name in the Hebrew text? They use the word "Lord"
instead which in Hebrew is the word "Adonai." To remind
themselves to say "Lord" they have the vowels for "Adonai"
written next to "YHWH." In the 12th century apparently English
translators did not understand this and they combined the vowels with the
Divine name of "YHWH" and came up with "Jehovah." With
apologies to the Jehovah's Witnesses and their
Those who say "Lord" are not using the Divine
name either as this is simply the word "Adonai" which was supposed to
be said instead of "YHWH." Religious Jews would probably confirm that
saying "Adonai" or "Lord" its English translation is
perfectly acceptable. In the King James Bible, one can see when
"Lord" is being substituted directly for the Divine name because the
word is written all in capital letters (LORD). Even then it is not the name of
God but the substitution of the word "Lord."
The word "God" is usually a translation of the
word "Elohim." This also is not the Divine name but is a plural form
of the Hebrew word for "God." The singular form would be
"El" as we see in "El-Shaddai." This is simply a title for
God similar to "Adonai" and is usually used in conjunction with Adonai or other titles. Some examples are "Adonai
Eloheynu" (The Lord our God), the previously mentioned
"El-Shaddai" (God, the Almighty), and "El-Elion" (God, the
Highest). None of these are God's name, but simply titles describing His attributes
and most devout Jews would have no problem speaking them.
So how would you pronounce or write the Divine name
accurately? Perhaps a better question would be since the Jews consider it
blasphemy to say, why would you want to even try? I am with the Jews on this
question. I prefer to simply use "Lord", or "God," or one
of His many titles rather than attempting to try to figure out how to correctly
combine the vowels and the consonants to recreate the Divine name. So you will
never hear me even combining the vowels for "Adonai" with the
consonants for "YHWH"(Jehovah). If saying "Lord"
(Adonai) or "God" (Elohim) was good enough for devout Jews, it is
good enough for me.
This Article is Provided
by Still Waters Ministry
