Is God's Name Jehovah or YHWH?

A Bible Professor Explains the TRUTH About God's Name

I’ll never forget the time I walked into church and heard the song Jehovah, by Elevation Worship. I hadn’t left the house, let alone been to church, in months due to an autoimmune condition that had derailed my life and left me a shell of myself. I couldn’t wait to participate in corporate worship with the Body of Christ, see folks, and hear live preaching.

Before I was even in the door of the sanctuary, a song lyric came into my ears that instantly lifted the veil of despair off me.

“Jehovah Nissi fight your battles, Jehovah Jireh meet your needs, Jehovah Raffa heal your body, Jehovah Shalom be your peace…”

As I listened to the words, I felt a surge of energy pulse through my body and instantly knew that the Lord had set me up. While I had wanted to go to church for weeks, this was the first Sunday I had gathered the strength and will to do so. It just so happened that before I even entered the sanctuary that day, as those lyrics pulsed through my body, I knew I had turned a corner.

Hearing that song, those powerful words being sung in that moment, made me sure that I was not going back. I was getting better, and soon I would be completely healed and able to resume living my life fully, to the glory of God.

But the question that remained in my mind for weeks afterward gave me a genuine dilemma: Is it right to sing a song to God that misrepresents his name?

The dilemma surrounding God’s name has been present in the English-speaking language since the term Jehovah was first invented around the time of the Reformation. God’s name, the one that He revealed to Moses at Mount Horeb (Exodus 3) and that is used over 6,800 times in the Bible, is YHWH.

You may be asking, how does one pronounce the name YHWH? And why are there no vowels in the name?

Those questions represent the exact dilemma people pondered for years; the dilemma that has left us with two different versions of God’s name. Thankfully, we know enough now to settle this dilemma once and for all.

The reason there are no vowels in God’s name is because there were no vowels in ancient Hebrew. It was an inflected language. Vowel sounds were made by native speakers who knew how to pronounce the words correctly, but vowels were not added to Hebrew until much, much later. In the 6th Century AD, roughly 2,000 years after Moses lived and wrote, the Tiberian Masoretes[1] invented a vowel system for the Hebrew language so that non-native speakers could begin to read and speak the words. Vowels were added to nearly every word of Hebrew, except for one.

To Jews the world over, God’s personal name is holy. While it can be written down in certain situations, it is rarely, if ever, spoken.[2] The reason that Jewish people do not pronounce God’s name or ever attempt to translate, alter, or transliterate it is out of reverence for the second commandment; “You shall not take the name of YHWH your God in vain, for YHWH will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7).

Whether this is right or wrong is a question for another time; what you need to know is that while adding vowels to the Hebrew language during the 6th-7th centuries AD, the Tiberian Masoretes did not add vowels to God’s name; they left it as is. After all, the need to pronounce the name of the Lord was not necessary, since devout people in Judaism almost never attempt to vocalize the holy name of God.[3]

Scholars debate what happened in the ensuing years. Still, the most likely sequence of events is that eventually, in an attempt to vocalize the name YWHW, non-native Hebrew speakers added the vowels and vowel sounds that accompany the word Adonai (“lord” in Hebrew) to the four letters that make up God’s name, YHWH. When the vowel sounds from the word Adonai were added to YHWH, it went from being a two-syllable word to a three-syllable one. Yah-Weh became Ya-Ho-Way.

Eventually, the English “j” sound, which does not exist in Hebrew[4] came to replace the “y” sound represented by the first Hebrew letter in the name.[5] The third letter in the name, the Hebrew “waw” (pronounced “wow” in ancient Hebrew) was given a modern pronunciation, one that still exists today in reconstructed modern Hebrew, and became more of a “v” sound than a “w” sound. So, Ya-Ho-Weh became fully transformed into Ja-Ho-Vah.

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Scholars debate what happened in the ensuing years. Still, the most likely sequence of events is that eventually, in an attempt to vocalize the name YWHW, non-native Hebrew speakers added the vowels and vowel sounds that accompany the word Adonai (“lord” in Hebrew) to the four letters that make up God’s name, YHWH.

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By the time Hebrew scholars figured out what had happened, Jehovah had become a standard pronunciation for the name of God, even though it is impossible to read the word YHWH in Hebrew and come up with that pronunciation.

How can we be certain that “Yahweh” is the correct pronunciation, considering the fact that Jews have rarely ever publicly vocalized the name over the past 2,000 years?

Several Greek transcriptions dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD attest to the name of the Lord being pronounced “Yahweh.” The church father Clement, writing in the second century, presents the name in this way. This seems to be the tradition that existed for the earliest Christians who were discipled by the Hebrew and Aramaic-speaking apostles of Jesus.

So, what about the word “Jehovah”? Is it right for Christians to use this word, even though it is a misconstrued, invented word that is the direct result of mispronouncing and mis-transcribing the name YHWH? While I don’t personally use the word in any formal settings (unless I’m teaching on this subject), I don’t believe that God is offended by this pronunciation of his name. What started as a genuine mistake by men of God like Tyndale and the translators of the Geneva Bible continues to this day to be a misunderstanding by much of the English-speaking church.

While I believe it is right to clear up misconceptions about God’s name wherever and whenever possible, I would not go as far as to cease from participating in corporate worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ due to a misunderstanding of how to pronounce God’s name. If perfect understanding of Scripture, theology, languages, and philosophy were required to be a part of God’s family and to participate in corporate worship, we would all be disqualified.

[1] The Tiberian Masoretes were a group of Jewish scribes and scholars who worked in the city of Tiberias in ancient Galilee between the 8th and 10th centuries CE.

[2] Today, Jewish people don’t usually write or speak the name. In fact, the tradition has evolved over the years to the point where Jewish people today often won't even write the word God. Instead, they write G-d. The word "god," is a title that comes from the ancient Hebrew word El. It is not the name of the God of the Bible.

[3] Since ancient times, Jewish people have said “Adonai” in place of pronouncing the name YHWH. “Adonai” means “lord” in Hebrew. This is why the word “LORD” is used in almost every Bible translation in place of transliterating the name YHWH.

[4] There is no letter for J in Hebrew

[5] The four Hebrew letters which make up the name YHWH (יהוה) are yod, hey, waw, and hey.

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