How many names of God are there in the Bible? The honest answer is that nobody knows, because the Bible never says. No verse lists them and no verse counts them. If you have seen a website promise "the 72 names," "the 100 names" or "the 7 names," each of those numbers came from a person making a list, not from Scripture. That does not make the lists wrong. It just means the number depends on what the list maker decided to count.
There is something fitting about that. The Bible says God telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names
(Psalm 147:4). He counts the stars. Nowhere does He hand us a count of Himself. The next verse adds that his understanding is infinite
. A God that large will not fit in a tidy number.
Why the count changes from list to list
Before you can count God's names, you have to decide what a name is. Bible readers usually sort them into three kinds, and where you draw the lines changes the total a lot.
1. The personal name: one
God has one personal name, the four Hebrew letters YHWH, printed LORD in capitals in the King James. He says so directly: I am the LORD: that is my name
(Isaiah 42:8). If "name" means only this, the answer is one.
2. Titles: dozens
Then come titles, the way a person can be called "Doctor" or "Coach" without that being their given name. Most High, Almighty, King of Glory, Lord of Lords and the Holy One of Israel are all titles. Count these and you are into the dozens.
3. Pictures and descriptions: many more
Finally there are word pictures. Look at just the opening of Psalm 18:
I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Psalm 18:1-2
In two verses David calls God strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, buckler, horn of salvation and high tower. Is that one name or seven? The book 70 Names of God treats "my fortress and my deliverer" as one entry, but gives My Buckler and My High Tower their own chapters. Another writer could split or join them differently and get another total. Multiply that across all 150 psalms and the prophets, and you can see why no two lists match.
More questions that change the number
- Do you count each language? El Shaddai and Almighty God are the same name, once in Hebrew and once in English. Some lists count them once. Some accidentally count both.
- Do you include the New Testament? Many lists add names of Jesus, such as the Good Shepherd or the Lamb of God, which raises the total quickly.
- Do you count places named after God? Jehovah-jireh was the name Abraham gave a mountain. Jehovah-nissi and Jehovah-shalom were names given to altars. They tell us about God, but they began as place names.
- Do you count descriptions? "Merciful and gracious" in Exodus 34:6 describes God. Few lists count it as a name, but some do.
Where the popular numbers come from
You will run into a few numbers again and again. Here is where each one comes from, in a sentence or two.
- 7. Jewish teachers have long named seven Hebrew names of God that a scribe may not erase once written, including YHWH, El, Elohim and Shaddai.
- 72. This number belongs to Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition, which builds 72 short letter groups from three verses in Exodus 14. These are not names that anyone in the Bible spoke.
- 99. The 99 names of Allah belong to Islam and are not covered on this site.
- 100 and more. These are devotional lists put together by modern authors, often mixing Old and New Testament names.
Each of these is a choice someone made. So is ours.
Why this site and the book use 70
In the introduction to 70 Names of God, Maurice Johnson writes that he had heard preachers say God has about seventy names. He wanted to know what those names were and what they meant to the people who first said them. His introduction is clear that the Bible never gives a list of seventy, and that seventy is simply the number of names chosen for the book.
The book also draws two boundaries, and they help explain the number. It stays with names for God the Father, and it takes every name from the Old Testament, from Genesis to the prophets. The New Testament comes in often, because so many of these names lead there, but it does not add to the count. Inside those lines, 70 names and titles each earn a chapter: the personal name, the great titles, and the pictures that people like Hagar, Moses, David and Isaiah used when they needed God most.
So when someone asks how many names God has, a good answer is: more than you will ever finish learning, and 70 is a very good place to begin.
Does the exact number matter?
Not really, and it helps to say so. Nothing in the Bible ties a blessing to knowing a certain number of names. The people who first spoke these names were not trying to collect them. Hagar went back to Sarai holding on to one name, the God who sees. Job held on to one, My Redeemer, while he sat among the ashes. What mattered was that each of them knew who God was in that moment.
So treat any number, including 70, as a doorway and not a finish line. A good list gives you a place to start and a reason to keep reading. Psalm 9:10 puts the real goal in one line: people who know His name learn to trust Him. Counting is the easy part. Trusting is the part that takes a lifetime.
Who gave God these names?
Another way to look at the question is to ask who did the naming. The answer may surprise you.
- God named Himself. He gave Moses the name I AM THAT I AM, and He called Himself
the LORD, whose name is Jealous
(Exodus 34:14) and the LORD that heals in Exodus 15:26. - Ordinary people named Him. Hagar, a servant, gave the name El Roi. Abraham named a mountain. Gideon, who was hiding his wheat from raiders, named an altar.
- Songwriters named Him. The Psalms gave us Shepherd, Hiding Place, Fortress and Lifter Up of Mine Head.
- Prophets named Him. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel added the Holy One of Israel, the Fountain of Living Waters, The LORD Is There and the Ancient of Days.
That is good news for you. Many of God's names came from people describing what they had found Him to be in a real situation. You are invited to know Him the same way.
How to start learning the names
You do not need to memorize 70 names this week. Here are three simple ways in:
- Go in order. Start with Elohim and the LORD, the two words that sit under almost every other name, then move through the list of names of God in the Bible.
- Take one a day. Read one name, read its verse in your own Bible, and use the name once when you pray. In ten weeks you will have met all 70.
- Start where you hurt. If you are lonely, begin with El Roi. If you are anxious, try Jehovah-shalom. If you feel unsafe, read Our Refuge and Strength.
If you want to know what the names mean in the original language, the Hebrew names of God page explains El, Elohim, YHWH and the rest in plain words. And if you like to keep a reminder close, the 70 Names of God shirt carries Proverbs 18:10, the verse that says the name of the LORD is a strong tower.