- Name 2 of 70The LORD (Jehovah)
- HebrewYHWH (Jehovah)
- In plain wordsThe LORD, the God who is and who keeps His word
- Where to find itExodus 6:3, spoken to Moses in Egypt
Jehovah is the personal name of God in the Old Testament, the name He told Moses to carry to Israel. In Hebrew it is written with four letters, YHWH, and it is tied to the verb for being. The King James Bible usually prints it as LORD in capital letters, and in a few places spells it out: by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them
(Exodus 6:3). Elohim is a title. Jehovah is the name God picked for Himself.
The day God said His name to a discouraged Moses
The setting for this name is not a peaceful one. Israel had been slaves in Egypt for generations. God had already met Moses at a burning bush and sent him back to Egypt with a message for Pharaoh: let my people go.
It went badly. Pharaoh answered with scorn: Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?
(Exodus 5:2). Then he made the slaves' work harder. They now had to gather their own straw for making bricks and still make just as many. The Israelite foremen blamed Moses, and Moses took his complaint straight to God. neither hast thou delivered thy people at all
, he said (Exodus 5:23).
That is the moment God answered with His name. He did not give Moses a new strategy. He told him who was behind the promise.
God opened with four words, I am the LORD
(Exodus 6:2), and then went on:
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
Exodus 6:3
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had heard the name LORD, and Genesis uses it often. So what does God mean here? A common way to read it is that they knew the name but never saw everything it stood for. They got the promises and died waiting. Moses' generation would watch God actually keep those promises. In the Bible, to know a name often means to know the person by experience.
Pharaoh had asked, Who is the LORD? Over the next chapters of Exodus, he found out.
What Jehovah means: the four letters YHWH
Scholars call the four Hebrew letters of God's name the Tetragrammaton, which is Greek for four letters. In English they are written YHWH (or JHVH). Strong's Concordance links the name to hayah, the Hebrew verb to be, and explains it as the self-existent or eternal One. Self-existent means He does not get His life from anyone else. Everything else had a beginning. God did not.
Hebrew was first written without vowels, so the four letters do not tell us exactly how the name sounded. Over time, Jewish readers treated the name as so holy that they would not say it aloud. When they came to YHWH in the Scripture reading, they said Adonai, which means Lord. Many still do, or say HaShem, the Name.
That habit is where the English word Jehovah comes from. Encyclopaedia Britannica explains that Christian scholars combined the four letters with the vowel marks of Adonai, and because Latin has no Y, they wrote the first letter as I or J. The result was Jehovah. Most scholars today think the original sounded closer to Yahweh. Both are attempts to say the same name.
The King James translators handled it this way:
- LORD in capitals stands for YHWH almost everywhere. Strong's lists more than 6,500 of these.
- JEHOVAH is spelled out in four verses: Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2 and Isaiah 26:4.
- Jehovah also appears inside three place names: Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-nissi and Jehovah-shalom.
Key KJV verses about the name of the LORD
Here are some of the places where the Bible stops to talk about the name itself.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
Exodus 3:15
At the burning bush God told Moses this name was not temporary. A memorial is something that helps people remember. God meant for every generation to call Him by it.
That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.
Psalm 83:18
The psalm writer was surrounded by enemy nations. His prayer was that they would come to know the one true God by His name.
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
Exodus 34:6
When God explained His own name, the first words were merciful and gracious. Longsuffering means patient for a long time.
The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.
Proverbs 18:10
A strong tower was the safest place in an ancient city when enemies attacked. This verse is printed on the 70 Names of God shirt for a reason: the name of the LORD is somewhere to run.
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6
Israel had failed God many times. The only reason they were still standing was that He had not changed.
What the name Jehovah means for you today
A name is personal. You can talk about a force or an idea, but you can only call someone by name. When God gave His name to Moses, He was telling slaves they could speak to Him directly. That is still true. Prayer is not sending a wish into space. It is calling on Someone who told you His name.
Notice too who received the name. Not kings, not priests in a temple, but brick-making slaves who had stopped believing anything would change. If you are worn out and your situation got worse right after you prayed, as it did for Moses, you are standing right where this name was given.
And because He is the One who simply is, He does not shift with your circumstances. Friends move away. Jobs end. Feelings go up and down. He is the same.
- Next time you read the King James, watch for LORD in capitals and remember it is a name.
- Memorize Proverbs 18:10 and say it when you feel unsafe.
- Bring God your honest complaint, the way Moses did in Exodus 5, and then listen.
Jehovah is name 2 of the 70. Many names in the book are built on this one; you can see them together on the Jehovah names of God page. The next name joins this one with a title of authority: Adonai, Lord GOD.
