BIBLE STUDY

Jehovah, God's Name

Also: YHWH, tetragrammaton, God's personal name, what is God's name, Yahweh, the divine name

The personal name of the true God, appearing nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures as YHWH and rendered Jehovah in English. It means 'He causes to become.' God said it is his name forever, Jesus made it known, and most Bibles have removed it.

(Ex 3:15) Thus you are to say to the sons of Israel, "Jehovah, the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

A name, not a title

"God" and "Lord" are titles, and they are shared. Scripture speaks of many gods and many lords (1 Corinthians 8:5), and Satan himself is called the god of this system. A title cannot identify which god is meant. Jehovah's name belongs to him alone: "you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth" (Psalm 83:18). It means "He causes to become," the One who brings his purpose to pass, and he will not give the glory that belongs to it to anyone else (Isaiah 42:8).

What Jesus did with it

Jesus taught his followers to pray first of all, "let your name be sanctified" (Matthew 6:9), and at the end of his ministry he said, "I have made your name known to them and will make it known" (John 17:26), so that the Father's love would be in them. The apostles described the congregation as "a people for his name" (Acts 15:14). A name cannot be sanctified, made known or called upon if it is never spoken.

The objections

The exact ancient pronunciation is uncertain because Hebrew was written without vowels, but the name itself is not in doubt; it is written nearly 7,000 times. Jesus' name was Yeshua and English speakers say Jesus without any loss of identity. "Jehovah" is the established English form, and everyone knows who is meant. Most surviving Greek manuscripts use titles, but the Hebrew Scriptures Jesus and the apostles quoted contained the name, and its later removal was tradition, not instruction.

Why it was removed

Of every name in the Bible, only God's has been taken out and replaced. That is not an accident of translation. A nameless God is easier to redefine, to fear, or to ignore, and confusion about who God is has been Satan's method from Eden. Restoring the name restores the relationship.