YHWH / Jehovah
"Let them praise the name of the LORD:
for His Name alone is excellent;
His glory [is] above the earth and heaven."
Psalm 148:13 (KJV)
Editor's Note:
As there is considerable variance among Bible scholars as to former customs and
translations of the oldest, most important, and most frequently-used name of God
in the Bible, the neutrality and factual accuracy of this article may be disputed.
What follows here is a summation of those ideas and conclusions on which most scholars agree.
Still don't understand why it's important to know God's names?
The purpose of man — the reason we were created — is to worship and glorify God. "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). In order to truly worship and glorify God, we must not only know about Him, but we must know Him personally based on what we know about Him.
The word "glory" in the Greek New Testament is "doxa", which means an opinion, estimation, or reputation in which one is held. It refers to all that we give to God as praise, thanksgiving, obedience, reverence, and service — because of who He has revealed Himself to be and what He does (past, present, and future.
The many names God gives us about Himself in the Bible impart to us revelations of His character, His works, and His relationship to us. It's in the knowing and understanding of these names that we gain greater insight, love, respect, and reverence for who He is.
The Messiah has a name: Jesus (Yeshua). So, also, the God of the Old Testament has revealed Himself by a name. I believe, as Bible Scholar T. E. McComiskey so rightly wrote, "a blessing is lost when no attention is paid to the difference in usage of a title and the actual name of the God of Israel."
The name YHWH is used more than any other name in the Bible.
Of all the names of God, the one which occurs most frequently in the Biblia Hebraica (Hebrew Bible) is the Tetragrammaton (from the Greek: "word with four letters"), which is spelled (in the Hebrew alphabet)
(yodh) 
(heh) 
(vav) (heh) or, reading right-to-left, 
(YHWH). It is the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel. YHWH (written as "LORD" in most English Bibles) means "the self-existent one" and denotes God's personal name and His eternality ("I AM"). It is often used in relationship to God as a personal Redeemer and Covenant-keeper. (Interestingly, "Yodh" is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and it always and only refers to YHWH.)Most litterateurs agree that the Tetragrammaton is a form of the Hebrew root "Havah" ("to be" or "to exist"). Thus, YHWH becomes "He who brings into being" (cf. Exodus 3:12, 14: "I will be with you" and "I will be who I will be").
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Tetragrammaton appears 6,828 times in the Hebrew Bible. Other Bible scholars say the name appears approximately 5600 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, while yet another source claims the name is used more than 7000 times in the Old Testament and 1000 times in the New Testament. Regardless of which numbers are correct, we cannot overlook the fact that God obviously wants us to know His name, most likely for what it reveals about who He is!
Used more than any other name in the Bible, YHWH is first seen in Genesis 2:4: "This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that YHWH God made earth and the heavens."
However, God did not reveal Himself to mankind as YHWH until Exodus 3:14 when God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM," and "You shall tell the children of Israel this: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
Then later in Exodus 6:2-3, He said to Moses: "I am YHWH; and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by My name YHWH I was not known to them."
From the choice of words in the above-referenced Scriptures, it's obvious that God desires us to understand the manner of His character; that He wants us to know, not only His name, but to know Him through His name!
Exodus 14:4 further supports the view that the name YHWH embodies aspects of God's character. It says: ". . . and the Egyptians will know that I am YHWH." It isn't likely that God intended in this declaration that they would simply learn the name of the Hebrew God. There is a strong element of Divine self-disclosure within it.
The modern spelling includes vowels to assist in pronunciation. Many pronounce YHWH as "Yahweh" or "Yahveh" (Yä-wá or Yä-vá); but the exact pronunciation has been lost to us for several centuries.
Some people render the four-letter name as "Jehovah".
God's personal name was so sacred to most Jews that they didn't want to write or even speak it for fear of violating the commandment "You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain" (Exodus 20:7) and "You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel. I am Yahweh who makes you holy." (Leviticus 22:32)
Thus, the Jewish practice was to read "Adonai" (Hebrew "Adonay"), meaning "Lord", in place of "YHWH" (Adonai means "master" or "sovereign ruler" and generally denotes authority and position). And they read "Elohim" in place of the Hebrew compound name "YHWH Adonay" to avoid the duplication of Adonay (Elohim means "mighty one" or "strong one"; it denotes the power and pre-eminence [conspicuous glory] of God).
To remind the reader that he was not to pronounce "YHWH" but instead was to read the word as "Adonay", they placed the vowels of Adonay (a-o-a) under the Tetragrammaton YHWH, thus creating
. The first English translators who transcribed God's name into English had no reason to believe that the vowel points of might be incorrect, so they transcribed "YaHoWaH" into English just as it was written.Today the English transcription "Jehovah" is used by many English-speaking Protestant Christians and also by Jehovah's Witnesses. Most modern scholars, however, believe that "Jehovah" is an implausible rendering, based on their belief that the written form
(read normally, "Yehovah") was only intended to indicate to the reader of the Bible in Hebrew to pronounce it "Adonai".The American Standard Version (ASV) of the Bible uses the name "Jehovah" (5818 times), whereas most other English versions, unfortunately, continue to translate YHWH as LORD (capital letters), not to be confused with "Lord" (Adonai/Adonay). The King James Version of the Bible uses the word "LORD" 5557 times. The only English Bible I've found that uses the name "Yahweh" consistently (5794 times) is the online World English Bible, which I use for most of my Scripture references.
Regardless of the editorial decision of substituting LORD for YHWH or of using the name "Yahweh" or "Jehovah", we must keep in mind that Yahweh or YHWH is the name that God used in revealing Himself to His ancient people. In reading the text of the Old Testament, it is my hope that we would develop an affection for usage of the name itself over such usages as "God" or "Lord" (see Exodus 3:15; Psalms 102:15-16, 113:1-4, 135:1-6, and 148:13.