What Is His Name?
The Holy Spirit is magnifying and restoring the ancient foundation of biblical truth. For many centuries these truths have been covered in obscurity by the doctrines of men and their historical religious traditions. Our Savior said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32). The Heavenly Father’s desire is to have redeemed righteous children who “worship Him in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:24).
The prophet Joel proclaims: “whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be saved, …” (Joel 2:32). Proverbs asks a vital question that is foundational to this series: “Who has ascended into heaven and descended? … Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name? Surely you know!” (Proverbs 30:4). Do you know? Is the Creator’s name God or Lord? Perhaps Jehovah?
“The Creator of heaven and earth has an incomparable and sacred name, which He will not share with other gods—for He will give His glory to no other””
Most world religions have an object of worship that they call Lord or God; however, these are titles, not proper names. The noun god or God can be defined as anything that is worshiped by men as a deity, and lord or Lord as one who has power and authority from headship or leadership. The dictionary defines God as “… any of various beings conceived of as supernatural, immortal and having special powers over the lives and affairs of people and the course of nature; deity, especially a male deity.”1 Multitudes from innumerable religions call their deity(s) by the common title God. The name of the pagan god Baal, in the Old Testament, means “lord.”2This is the origin of the word Baalzebub (Beelzebub) or “Lord of the flies.”3 We must ask then, who is their “God” and “Lord”? The more important question is “What is the Name of YOUR God—the one you call Lord?” The Creator of heaven and earth has an incomparable and sacred name, which He will not share with other gods—for He will give His glory to no other (see Isaiah 42:8). His name throughout the Scriptures is called holy and exalted. In the Old Testament, the names of pagan gods are spelled out (e.g., Molech, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Baal, Marduk and others), yet His divine and most holy name has been substituted, with rare exceptions, with the generic title LORD.
“This Is My Name Forever”
He declares in His Word: “For nothing is hidden that shall not become evident, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17). Let us search the holy Scriptures and petition the Holy One to reveal to us that which has been hidden with regard to His most holy name, and the truth and power which His name embodies. Two reference points help to clarify the use of His divine name, YAHveh, as proclaimed to Moses at the burning bush. In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that name as “LORD” in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word rendered “Lord,” for which small letters are used.4
Here we see the intervention of man’s devices in substituting the common title of “Lord” in place of His sacred name, YHVH or YHWH. Read right to left, this is phonetically spelled: Yod Hey Vav Hey. This explanation is to be found in the prefaces of most English Bibles.
“Overwhelming scholarly opinion holds that YHVH [Yod Hey Vav Hey] was in Moses’ time pronounced Yahveh”
Second, a footnote on Deuteronomy 28:58 expresses with perplexity: “One of the oddities of history and revelation is the loss of the proper pronunciation of the Hebrew YHWH, the most intimate and personal name of God in the OT [Old Testament]” (emphasis added)5 Many dictionaries render YAHveh (or YAHweh) as the accurate spelling and pronunciation of the original name of the Almighty. The Hebrew letter “vav” is represented in English by the letters “V” or “W.” However, Jewish scholarship leans towards the “V” as the ancient and correct representation of the letter “vav.” “Overwhelming scholarly opinion holds that YHVH [Yod Hey Vav Hey] was in Moses’ time pronounced Yahveh” (emphasis added).6
Because the most conservative scholarship of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures supports the use of YHVH, we will be reinserting His original name, YAHveh, in place of the substituted LORD in all Scripture verses quoted on this website.
In Exodus 3, Moses, the deliverer of Israel, is timid yet obedient in his call to go to Pharaoh to deliver the Jews from bondage. Before going to Pharaoh, Moses asks:
“Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘WHAT IS HIS NAME?’ What shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM;”7 … ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” And God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘YAHveh, the God of your fathers, 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 My memorial-name [to be remembered] to all generations.” (Exodus 3:13-15)
Did He intend for His Name to be forgotten? The Scripture says: “let YAHveh be found true, though every man be found a liar …” (Romans 3:4). YAHveh is the same yesterday and today and forever.
His Name Was Hidden
“The name of the Mighty One of Israel has been buried in obscurity by tradition”
The Almighty’s true and holy name, consisting of the Hebrew letters Yod Hey Vav Hey, appears approximately 7,000 times in the Old Testament. In recent times it is often referred to as the Tetragrammaton, a Greek word meaning “four letters.” Is the title LORD an acceptable substitute for His original and ancient name YAHveh, or is this in fact an invention of man? The Scriptures speak: “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). What has happened is the death of a vital truth! The name of the Mighty One of Israel has been buried in obscurity by tradition. At some point in history, Jewish leaders concluded that YAHveh’s name was too holy to be spoken by common man. The priests were concerned that the name of the God of Israel would be irreverently used, especially by Gentiles.
Desiring to protect the holy name, the convention was instituted which permitted only the high priest of Israel to pronounce His holy name one day a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This soon became a tradition erroneously based on the commandment not to misuse or take YAHveh’s name in vain (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus. 19:12, 24:10-16, 23). From here, the Jewish Orthodoxy and subsequent Gentile translators transgressed His mandate for all mankind to remember, proclaim, and revere His holy “memorial-name” (Exodus 3:15). Israel’s history is laced with grave consequences due to their substituting and forgetting YAHveh’s name. The hiding of His memorial-name under substitute titles has grievously contributed to the diminishing of His abiding presence and glory, causing a diluted, compromised form of religious worship continue through Judaism and Christianity throughout many centuries to this present time.
His name was hidden under the substituted title Adonai in Hebrew and Kurios in Greek, both of which are translated “LORD” in English. Many Orthodox Jews have used the title Hashem, meaning “The Name.” These are consequences of man’s traditions, which have nullified YAHveh’s mandate to “remember My name.”
Scribal Errors
The dictionary supports the fact that Jehovah is not a biblical name and has no warrant or authentic place in the Scriptures. The form Jehovah did not exist as a Hebrew word. … The transliteration, Jehovah, is the result of pronouncing YHVH with the vowels of Adonay, … and is, therefore, no indication of the proper Hebrew pronunciation. … The pronunciation Jehovah began to be popularly used by Christian scholars in the early part of the sixteenth century.8
Thus, the vowels of Adonai and/or Elohim, mixed with YHVH, rendered in error, YeHoVaH, or Jehovah. “The people who introduced this name were medieval Christian Hebrew scholars; Jews never acknowledged such a name. The defense of this Christian hybrid is the same as the defense of the Jewish avoidance of pronouncing the name—tradition!”9
It must be emphasized that the English letter “J,” as we know it, does not exist in Hebrew. “J”, the tenth letter of the English alphabet, is one of the few relatively modern additions to the Semitic-Greek-Etruscan-Latin line of development that gave rise to the alphabet.”10 In fact, “J” was the last letter to be added to our alphabet. In the translation of Scripture, the letter “Y” in Hebrew was commonly replaced by the English letter “J” in the late Middle Ages. This method explains the innumerable changes in Scripture such as the name Eliyah becoming Elijah and Halleluyah becoming Hallelujah.
Once again, the Almighty wants us to ask ourselves, “What is His name?” Are we part of a heritage of believers who have continually, from generation to generation, remembered His holy “memorial-name”? YAHveh speaks to us through the prophet Ezekiel: “So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel [and all Gentiles joined with her]; and I will not let them pollute [dissolve] 11 my name any more: and the heathen shall know that I AM [YAHveh], the Holy One in Israel.” (Ezekiel 39:7 KJV — emphasis added)
There is controversy regarding the original language of the New Testament Scriptures (Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek). It is unthinkable, however, that the Jewish apostles when writing the New Testament would have substituted YAHveh’s self-proclaimed memorial-name with the generic Greek title Theos (God) or Kurios (Lord).
This confusion was an inevitable byproduct of the early Gentile translators. Many were oblivious or indifferent to the vital importance of remembering and maintaining YAHveh’s holy “memorial-name”. But the Holy Spirit who separates us from falsehood will set you free from such confusion as He continues to shine the light of revelation to reveal man’s doctrines and traditions, which replaced biblical truth.
References
1 Webster’s New World Dictionary, college ed., s.v. “God.”
2 “Baal means ‘lord’ or ‘owner’ and was often used as a general term for god.” Footnote to Hos 2:13. Ryrie Study Bible — nasb (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), p. 1377.
3 “Beelzebub. The prince of demons (Mt 12:24); the Greek form of the Hebrew name Baal-Zebub (‘lord of flies’), …” Footnote on Mt 10:25. The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, 1985), p. 1457.
4 Ibid., p. xii.
5 Ibid., p. 279.
6THE TORAH, A Modern Commentary (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregation, 1981), p. 426
7 HAYAH, the Hebrew root verb meaning “I AM,” is also the root of the divine name, YAHveh.
8 Collier’s Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (New York: Macmillan Educational Company, A Division of Macmillan, Inc., 1989), p. 534.
9 New Open Bible Study Edition — nasb (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1990), p. 70.
10 Multimedia Encyclopedia, ver. 1. (I. J. Gelb and R. M. Whiting, Grolier Inc., 1992), s.v. “alphabet.”
11 Strong’s Concordance, s.v. #2490 — pollute, “to dissolve.”
