When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, Moses asked God for his name. He wanted to tell the enslaved Israelites who had sent him to deliver them. God told Moses to tell them “I AM has sent me to you” (Ex. 3:14) and also “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” (v. 15). The name “the LORD” (yhwh) God says “is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (v. 15).

These texts from Exodus have prompted questions surrounding God’s name, not all of which can be answered with certainty. However, we mustn’t get lost in the scholarly weeds but remember why God revealed his name. The dominant theme throughout Exodus, and a prominent theme throughout all of Scripture, is God’s self-revelation that we might know him. God has revealed himself to us by his name yhwh and has revealed his character through his mighty acts of salvation and judgment so that “all the peoples of the earth may know that [yhwh] is God; there is no other” (1 Kings 8:60).

Meaning of God’s Name

Names can have meanings based on their etymology. My name, Jonathan, means, based on its Hebrew origin, “The LORD has given.” Similarly, scholars have tried to determine the meaning of God’s name based on its root.

God actually reveals two names to Moses. The name “I AM” in Exodus 3:14 is the expected translation coming from the Hebrew “to be” verb (hyh). The apparent similarity between the name “I AM” and the name “LORD” (v. 15) can be somewhat seen when we transliterate the Hebrew words into their respective English forms, namely yhwh and ʾhyh. The normal spelling of the “to be” verb in Hebrew is hyh; the alternate spelling, hwh, occurs but is rare (e.g., Gen. 27:29). Thus, it’s often argued that the names yhwh (“LORD”) and ʾhyh (“I AM”) both come from the same word, the Hebrew “to be” verb, though in different forms.

If this analysis is correct, yhwh would then be translated “he is.” To be clear, we ought to understand the translation of yhwh “he is” not as an incomplete sentence (“he is what?”) but as “he exists.”

While “he is” or “he exists” is the possible translation of yhwh, some theologians have argued that the name yhwh is a statement of God’s aseity. This term is used in theology to describe the biblical truth of God’s self-sufficiency and complete independence and autonomy. God isn’t dependent on or influenced by anything external to himself. It’s possible that the meaning of yhwh as “he exists” may contribute to the comprehensive biblical evidence for this attribute of God. However, given the narrative context of Exodus, God’s primary purpose in providing the name yhwh may not be to establish a theological principle of his self-existence at that juncture in the story.

Others argue for a “providential” or “redemptive-historical” understanding of the name yhwh. Within the Exodus narrative, Moses needs a name to give to the Israelites for who will deliver them from Egypt. God provides his name, yhwh and the name “I AM,” to communicate to Israel that he’ll be present with them to deliver them.

Such an understanding seems to fit Exodus’s context, in which God leads Israel out of Egypt by his presence in a pillar of smoke and fire (13:22) and Moses requests God’s presence to lead them into the promised land (33:14–15). Such an understanding views the name yhwh not as a statement of God’s aseity but as a statement of his redemptive presence with his people. While this understanding derives the meaning of yhwh from the narrative context, it must be pointed out that such an understanding of the name isn’t derived etymologically.

Pronouncing God’s Name

We don’t know the original pronunciation of the name yhwh in Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew was originally written with only consonants, and it wasn’t until centuries later that Jewish scholars added the vowels to preserve the ancient pronunciation. The vowels of the Masoretic tradition—one tradition among a few—became the standard pronunciation, particularly among Western scholars.

God provides his name, yhwh and the name ‘I AM,’ to communicate to Israel that he’ll be present with them to deliver them.

In this Masoretic tradition, however, vowels were never added to the consonants yhwh to preserve its ancient pronunciation. Instead, these Jewish scholars took the vowels of the Hebrew word for “Lord” (ʾǎdōnāy) and added them to the consonants yhwh. This mismatch of consonants and vowels was to prompt the reader to not pronounce the name yhwh out of reverence but the word “Lord” (ʾǎdōnāy) in its place. Thus, each time the reader came across the name yhwh, he or she would pronounce the name ʾǎdōnāy. As a result, the original pronunciation of the name hasn’t been preserved.

In the 19th century, the German scholar Wilhelm Gesenius popularized the vocalization of the Hebrew consonants yhwh as “Yahweh” by studying the Greek transliterations of the name yhwh. The pronunciation as “Yahweh” is now typical, though it can’t be conclusively verified.

In English Bibles, when the words ʾǎdōnāy or yhwh appear, both are translated with the English word “Lord.” However, to mark the distinction between the underlying Hebrew words, whenʾǎdōnāy occurs it is simply translated “Lord” (e.g., Gen. 15:8), whereas when yhwh occurs it is translated with “LORD” in small caps (e.g., v. 13).

Occasionally, one finds in the Hebrew Bible ʾǎdōnāy yhwh. To avoid the redundant reading of ʾǎdōnāy ʾǎdōnāy in Hebrew (or “Lord LORD” in English), in such instances, the Masoretes added the vowels from ʾělōhīm (“God”) to yhwh to prompt the reading of ʾělōhīm (“God”) instead of ʾǎdōnāy. When this occurs—when the word yhwh appears with the vowels from ʾělōhīm—English Bibles read “GOD” in small caps (e.g., v. 2).

As already noted, yhwh possibly means “he is,” but it doesn’t mean “I AM,” nor does it mean “LORD” any more than it means “GOD.” The renderings “LORD” and “GOD” in English simply reflect the ancient tradition of reading ʾǎdōnāy or ʾělōhīm instead of yhwh.

Where Did the Word ‘Jehovah’ Come From?

The word “Jehovah” is neither English nor Hebrew, nor is it a name for God. It’s a misnomer from combining the vowels of one word with the consonants of another. As noted above, the Jews added the vowels from ʾǎdōnāy (“Lord”) to the consonants of yhwh to indicate that the reader should read “Lord.” So if the consonants from yhwh are read with the vowels from ʾǎdōnāy, the result is the mistaken word yǎhōvāh. This “word” anglicized becomes Jehovah.

To illustrate this mistaken result, it would be like taking the vowels from “porcupine” and adding them to “elephant” to produce the word oluphinte; a “word” that is neither English nor a name for any animal.

Know the Lord

What then can we know? Pharoah asked, “Who is [yhwh]?” (Ex. 5:2) and was given 10 plagues that he might “know that there is no one like [yhwh], our God” (8:10). Israel was delivered from Egypt by God so they would “know that I am [yhwh] your God” (6:7), and as a result, God’s fame spread to the Canaanites who heard “how [yhwh] dried up the water of the Red Sea” (Josh. 2:10).

While we may not know the exact origin, meaning, and pronunciation of the name yhwh, far more importantly we can know him—we can know yhwh. God’s revelation of his name was ultimately for us to know him.