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  • How To Pronounce God’s Name in the Bible

    How To Pronounce God’s Name in the Bible

    God's name in the Leningrad Codex

    Article by:

    Brandon Wood

    What is God’s name?

    Recently, a debate has erupted amongst Bible scholars over how to pronounce God’s name in the Bible.

    In the ancient Hebrew language, God’s name is presented as a four-letter word known as the “Tetragrammaton,” יהוה. In English, this is “YHWH.” It appears almost 7000 times in the Old Testament. The language didn’t have any written vowels. Jews from the period would pass down how each written word sounded verbally. This continued until the language ceased being used, largely due to Israel going into captivity in Babylon.

    Sometime after they were taken to Babylon, the ancient Jews, for several reasons, stopped pronouncing God’s name. This led to the problem we have today. Since the pronunciation of words was totally reliant on the Jewish people verbalizing what they read from the Old Testament Scriptures, no one today truly knows how to pronounce God’s name.

    God’s name in the New Testament

     The New Testament, written in Greek, uses the Greek word meaning “Lord” when quoting the Old Testament verses containing the Tetragrammaton. Similarly, when the Old Testament was brought into the Greek language, the Tetragrammaton was translated into the word “Lord” as well since they didn’t know how to pronounce the actual word.

    Eventually, translators started trying to figure out how the Tetragrammaton might have been pronounced. As the Greek was translated through the centuries, the pronunciation “Jehovah” became a popular way of transliterating the “YHWH” found in the manuscripts.

    “Jehovah” was used in many bible translations that we’ve seen through the years, most of them choosing to leave the word “Lord” in its place. Newer research has started to lean towards another translation of the Tetragrammaton. Many modern scholars believe that a better translation of YHWH would be “Yahweh.”

    The debate

    And here lies the debate. “Jehovah” and “Yahweh” sound very different. Many go so far as to say that one or the other are actually false gods. I won’t bother repeating the rhetoric, a simple Google search will lead anyone down the rabbit hole if they wish. But the fact that there is so much tension between the two camps, one says that “Jehovah” is God, the other says it’s “Yahweh,” makes one wonder: since those are so different, which one is correct? What is God’s name?

    How we forgot God’s name

    The first time the Tetragrammaton is used in the Old Testament is found in Genesis 2:4. In this verse, it’s presented in what seems like a normal fashion: with the name (the Tetragrammaton) before the title “God.” It’s used several times after that in the same chapter, setting up the foundation for the LORD’s ownership and authority over his creation. The fact that this is thrown in there without introduction is interesting and suggests that the readers would have been familiar with who exactly God is when this was written.

    Their familiarity with God’s name was likely due to them having heard the name due to it being passed down to them through their generations or from the teaching of Moses, who is believed by many to have written these scriptures.

    God introduces himself

    In Exodus 3:15, Moses is told by God that his name is YHWH. Verse 14 provides extra details about the name’s meaning as “I am who/what/that I am.”1 This name is significant for several reasons. It speaks to the nature of God as one who is, or one who has being. In contrast to the gods of the surrounding people, “the LORD (YHWH) God of [Israel’s] fathers” exists in the sense that he just is, rather than having been created. YHWH is self-sustaining and has authority over his creation and over the kingdoms of man.

    The Jews wanted to protect God’s name

    With time, the Jews started to not pronounce the name, instead opting to use the Hebrew word “Adonai,” which means “Lord.” There are thought to be several reasons for this.

    The first is that they were concerned with misusing it, and thus violating the commandment to “not use the LORD’s name in vain.”

    Another reason they could have prohibited its use would have been to preserve its sanctity and prevent its misuse by other people groups in the region, who had a practice of invoking the names of other people’s gods in their cursing and insults. The Jews limited its use, at some point after the Babylonian captivity, solely for the traditions and services of the priests in the Temple2.

    This lack of common usage by the people eventually led to only a few knowing how to pronounce YHWH. This was exasperated by the fact that their language didn’t have any written vowels. So they couldn’t simply look at how it was spelled to learn it again.

    A New Testament tradition

    Once the New Testament authors came along, most people, including these authors, quoted the Old Testament verses with the Tetragrammaton using the Greek version of the word “Lord.” They kept using “Lord” instead of God’s name, which has led to a tradition of many translators today doing the same thing.

    Many say we should continue with this tradition. They often cite the same reasons as the ancient Jews did: the name is special, so we don’t want to mispronounce or misuse it; or, the Apostles, even under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, didn’t translate it as a name, they used the word “LORD” instead, so we should do the same.

    Others say they want to have a translation that accurately shows the original words. “The LORD” is not original to the text, so they work to try to figure out how it would be pronounced.

    Why God’s name translated as “Jehovah?”

    The Roman Empire, which was the home of early Christianity, spoke in Latin. Latin doesn’t have the letter “Y” in it, and the closest thing to it would be the “I” or, more likely, its variant the “J,” which made the “Y” sound like in the word “yes.” Latin also doesn’t have a “W,” instead the “V,” which could also be written as a “U,” would have been used. When Latin translators worked on the Tetragrammaton, in their transliteration of the letters they used JHVH.3

    Reviving a dead language

    As stated earlier, the ancient Hebrew language had no written vowels. This became a problem as the language began to die, anyone looking at the Hebrew writing couldn’t read it very well. The Masorites, who were Jewish scholars and scribes in the 5th through the 10th centuries AD, worked on reconstructing the Hebrew language. They added vowel symbols to the letters so those reading the Hebrew could sound out the words.

    In their process, they added the vowels of the Hebrew word “Adonai,” which means “Lord,” to the letters of the Tetragrammaton to remind the readers that “Adonai” was to be used in its place.4

    At some point in the Middle Ages, translators began to interject the vowels from the Hebrew word “Adonai” into the Latin transliteration of the Tetragrammaton of “JHVH.” This gave us the name which in Latin would have been pronounced something like “Yahowah.”5

    Latin began to spread and other languages sprang out of it in Europe. The Latin letters took on the new sounds of the local languages producing what we know today in English as “Jehovah.”

    Why do they now translate God’s name as “Yahweh?”

    From here, scholars merely had to work backward. Now they conclude that “Yahweh” would be a better pronunciation. The evidence we currently have is that there was no “J” sound in Ancient Hebrew. The “V” sound is still being debated and most scholars think that it was pronounced more like a “W” in ancient times.

    On top of that, there are plenty of names of places and people in the Old Testament that contain the “YH” of the divine name which are pronounced with a “yah” sound, such as Jeremiah(יִרְמְיָה), Josiah (יֹאשִׁיָּה), and also the Hebrew word “Hallelujah” the “jah” is pronounced as “yah.”

    There are also some early Greek manuscripts that speak about how the Tetragrammaton would have been transliterated into Greek. These manuscripts use the transliterations “ἰὰ οὐὲ”6 (“Iaowe”)or “Ἰαῶ”7 (“Iaoh”)which would read similar to “Yahweh.”

    The basic argument that those translating it this way tend to use is that, since this is a proper noun, a name, then we should seek to translate it as close to how it would have been pronounced in the original language, which most scholars agree would be “Yahweh.”

    This is a relatively new understanding. There are only a couple of modern translations of the English Bible that have decided to translate the Tetragrammaton as “Yahweh” instead of keeping with the tradition of “Jehovah” or “the LORD.”

    So which is Better? “Jehovah” or “Yahweh?”

    Those who translated the Tetragrammaton as “Jehovah” did so with the best information they had at the time. They did it in an effort to accurately represent the word in our language. We are discovering new things about ancient languages all the time. Inevitably, our understanding of how an ancient word could have been spoken will change.

    At this time, the evidence seems to indicate that the English “J” sound in “Jehovah” came into being through the natural process of English’s separation from the other languages in Europe. Many scholars believe that the “V” sound was also not original to the ancient Hebrew language.

    “YH” is not always translated as “Yah” in Biblical names

    There are also a lot of other names in the Bible that contain the “YH” from the Tetragrammaton. When brought into English, they have a “Jah” or “Jeh” sound. One of them is Elijah, which translates as “God is [the LORD],” or “God is Jah.”

    Most notably of all the names in the Bible containing the first half of the Tetragrammaton is the name “Jesus.”

    In Hebrew, “Yeshua” would have been Jesus’ name. In Greek, it’s translated as “Iesous.” You’ll notice that the first two letters in “Iesous” match the first two letters in “ἰὰ οὐὲ” from the Greek transliteration of “YHWH” above. When Latin speakers translated this, they replaced the “Ie” sound with a “J,” which as stated earlier made the “Y” sound in Latin which led to other languages pronouncing it with the “J” sound later like we do in English. He was NEVER known as “Jesus” with the English “J” sound when he was alive. His friends, family, followers, and enemies would have all pronounced his name in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.

    Why stop at changing just one name?

    All of this, and yet, with the exception of those in the Hebrew Roots movement, there doesn’t seem like much of an effort or desire to call him by his name as it would have been originally written.

    So, if we are going to change some of the names in our English Bibles to reflect how they would have been pronounced at the time they were written, why would we not change all of them? We are going to strive to pronounce God’s old covenant name correctly, why not do the same for Jesus’ name?

    It seems the only good answer to this is to accept that it comes down to how different languages change over time. Is “Yahweh” a better translation than “Jehovah?” Based on the evidence, it’s probably a little bit closer to how it was originally pronounced, but no one knows for certain, and the best we can do is a scholarly guess.

    This is ok.

    God knows that we don’t have all the information. We should trust that he will be gracious toward our best efforts to honor him. Considering that, whether we think “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” is correct shouldn’t matter.

    BUT WAIT. There’s one good reason why God’s name should matter.

    God’s name is important.

    In Exodus, the name itself means something of significance, teaching us about his very nature as one who is, apart from all other things. It teaches us that he is eternal, from everlasting, self-sustaining. It differentiates him from the false gods which surround his people. He uses it as a firm foundation to swear by in confirming his covenant with his people.

    Obviously, we should care about His name.

    At the same time, he knows the importance of his own name. If God knows the significance of his name, and he has the ability to make it known to anyone he wants, then why would he allow it to be forgotten?

    This article from “Theologyfirst.com” provides a very good Biblical explanation of why.

    The loss of the true pronunciation of YHWH seems providential.

    The Jews first started the practice of not pronouncing the Tetragrammaton around the same time they went into exile in Babylon.8 They likely had little to no knowledge of its pronunciation by the time Jesus was born around 600 years later.

    At the same time, the Apostles who wrote the New Testament, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quoted the Old Testament verses containing the Tetragrammaton as “the LORD.” If God’s name, YHWH, was supposed to continue in mainstream usage, surely they, and the Holy Spirit, would have included its use in the New Testament. To our knowledge, they didn’t, and there have since been 2000 years of mostly using “the LORD” instead.

    God chooses to reveal his name to us

    In the Old Testament, the LORD chose to reveal himself to Moses with his Old Covenant name of YHWH. But now, in the New Testament, we are given a new and better covenant by Jesus, the Son of God who IS also God. In fact, the name “Jesus,” containing the first two letters of the Tetragrammaton, means “The LORD Saves.” What’s interesting is that when the angel in the gospel of Matthew is telling Joseph to name the child in Mary’s womb “Jesus,” he says to name him Jesus because “he shall save his people.” The angel is saying that Jesus is the LORD by interpreting the name “The LORD saves” as “He will save…” referring to the child himself.

    Honor was given to the name YHWH as God in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, we see it taught that the name of Jesus is to be given the same honor as God. Many verses prove the deity of Christ, and there are many verses that quote the Old Testament passages about God and point to it being about Jesus.

    Conclusion

    It’s clear in the New Testament that Jesus is equal with God, and being equal, he is worthy of and given the same honor as God. As an equal in the trinity, the name of “Jesus” is on par with the name of “YHWH.” Even as an equal, Philippians 2:9-10 says that God “highly exalted him and gave him a name above every name.”

    That’s why I conclude that “Jesus” is the name of God we should all be concerned with, rather than “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.”

    We should be more concerned with the name of Jesus than both of those names for several reasons:

    1. “Jesus” not only contains the old covenant name for God, “YHWH,” but it conveys much more information. The name “Jesus” teaches the Gospel message, “The LORD saves,” this is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).
    2. The old covenant, which is passing away according to Hebrews 8:13, was given to us with the name, “YHWH,” the sound of which has been forgotten. But this new and better covenant we’re now in is established with the name of Jesus, the name above every other name, which we’ve all heard and know.
    3. It’s to the name of Jesus that every knee will bow. It’s Jesus Christ that every tongue will confess is Lord(Philippians 2:10-11).

    What ever his old covenant name sounds like, how ever it gets translated, it is clear that in the new covenant, God’s name is Jesus.

    Footnotes:

    1. Alter Robert (2018) The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (Volume 3) W.W. Norton ISBN 978-0-393-29-2503 ↩︎
    2. Marlowe, Michael. “יהוה The Translation of the Tetragrammaton.” Bible-Researcher, Sept. 2011, www.bible-researcher.com/tetragrammaton.html. ↩︎
    3. “Is Jehovah the True Name of God?” GotQuestions.Org, God Questions Ministries, 12 May 2014, www.gotquestions.org/Jehovah.html. ↩︎
    4. “Yahweh.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 4 Mar. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh. ↩︎
    5. “The Anchor Bible Dictionary / 6, ‘Yahweh.’” Edited by David Noel Freedman et al., Internet Archive, New York : Doubleday, 1 Jan. 1992, archive.org/details/anchorbibledicti0006unse/page/1010/mode/2up. ↩︎
    6. Stromata v,6,34; see Karl Wilhelm Dindorf, ed. (1869). Clementis Alexandrini Opera (in Greek). Vol. III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 27 ↩︎
    7. Origen, “In Joh.”, II, 1, in P.G., XIV, col. 105. Footnote says that the end of name Jeremiah is reference to the Tetragrammaton which the Greeks pronounce  Ἰαώ ↩︎
    8. “Yahweh.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 4 Mar. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh. ↩︎

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  • “Sin No More:” Objections to The Simple Gospel

    “Sin No More:” Objections to The Simple Gospel

    Veronese, Bonifacio. Christ and the Adultress. 1500, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.

    Article by:

    Brandon Wood

    ,

    Summary:

    Since I originally posted my article about the “Simple Gospel,” I’ve received a number of objections to it. “The Bible says to ‘sin no more’” was one of the more common objections: “The Bible says ‘Sin no more,’ after we get saved we must cease from our sin or lose our salvation.” In light of the context, however, this objection simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Bible uses the phrase “Sin no more” only two times. In both instances it could easily be argued that the opposite of the objection is being taught.

    Let’s be clear.

    Christians should strive to sin no more. But the Bible makes it clear that our sins are forgiven and we’re saved by grace. If you believe in the Son you HAVE eternal life (John 3:36). Jesus died once to pay for all our sin (Hebrews 10:12). Where sin abounds grace abounds even more (Romans 5:20). And if anyone sins we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). Below is my refutation of this objection.

    The Bible Says “Sin No More”

    The following is a response that I wrote to an objection I received regarding my post about “The Simple Gospel.” The objection was that there are scriptures which tell us how we are to live after we’re saved and that we “must repent of our sins and go sin no more.” There are those which teach that once we get saved, we are to refrain and repent from all sin, or risk losing our salvation. Each time we sin, they say, we must repent or else we could be sent to hell even though we’ve believed.

    Another objection raised appeared to have been taken from another source using 1 Corinthians 15:31 and 2 Corinthians 4:16 to teach that we must repent daily from our sins to maintain our salvation. The goal in my response below, was to show that the scriptures mentioned don’t teach the idea that we must repent of our sin or else lose salvation, and in some cases, they actually demonstrate that God extends his mercy and grace regardless of a person’s sinful actions afterwards.

    *I originally wrote this response in a hasty fashion on a Facebook comment. The italicized text below shows a quote of the original comment, and the [brackets] show where I have altered the text from my original comments on Facebook to add clarity, correct what I originally said, or change the wording to be more conducive to a blog post format.

    My response:

    “I wrote this post to show exactly what the gospel is. I remember being afraid of dying and going to hell when I was young, knowing that I believed in Jesus but I wasn’t perfect. No one can totally repent of all their sins, and anyone who says that they have no sin “deceives themselves and the truth is not in them. (1 John 1:8)”

    Obviously, an issue of this importance should rest on what the Bible says. There are definitely a ton of scriptures telling people how they should conduct themselves after they get saved, but NONE of them point to a person losing their salvation if they don’t follow those instructions. In fact, many times they are followed by assurances that the person is still saved, but that they [should] act like it. Mistakes do happen, but willful rebellious sin still happens too. If the person has faith in Christ, then none of their behavior changes their status from saved to unsaved.

    It’s worth noting that [anyone being told] to “sin no more” occurs [only] twice in the whole [Bible]: John 5:14 and John 8:11.”

    “Sin no more” comes AFTER mercy is already given

    “In John 8:11, a woman is accused of adultery and the people want to stone her. […] Jesus, the one without sin who has every right to cast the first stone, stays [after the others leave] and tells the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, sin no more.” His response clearly shows that he recognizes her sin, yet he still shows her mercy. He gives her this command to sin no more, but in no way does he indicate that [this] mercy [he’s shown her] is at all predicated on her behavior in the past, present or future.

    In John 5:14, Jesus comes to a pool where the lame and sick gather once a year to touch the water in hopes of being healed. He finds a man and asks him “Wilt thou be made whole?” The man replies by saying that he has no one to help him into the pool. Jesus heals him, and when he finds him later on says: “sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” It doesn’t [say explicitly] what the man’s sin was, but we should note that this man was attempting to heal himself using a superstitious tradition apart from God, which could easily be considered sinful in a number of ways. [Specifically, in the text, Jesus asks him if he would be “made whole,” which is often used as a euphemism for obtaining salvation.] This provides US with a great metaphor for a person who is seeking salvation (being “made whole”) by their own [efforts]. When Jesus tells the man to “sin no more,” [there isn’t anything specific to point to other than the man’s attempt to be made whole apart from God. If this is the sin Jesus is referring to, then to “sin no more” would mean that the man should not return to his seeking to be made whole apart from God.] He’s [already] been made whole, he doesn’t need to seek anymore wholeness; [if he’s been made whole, then how could he be made any MORE whole?]

    When we attempt to keep our salvation by repenting of our sins, we are really admitting that Jesus’ work was not enough for us, and we are returning to the wrong way of being made whole by our own works.”

    We need to take a pause:

    “Sin no more” could mean “just trust Jesus”

    This provides a great example for us. This man was using something other than the power of God to be “made whole,” a term which is often used to represent a picture of salvation. When Jesus comes to him, it’s clear that the man humbly recognizes his inability to do the work required on his own. Jesus makes him whole by his own power, the man doesn’t have to do anything of his own effort! There is no indication of his sinfulness before he is healed, so when Jesus says to him sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you, the only thing we can point to specifically is his efforts to be “made whole” apart from God.

    If we are trying to gain our salvation by repenting from our sins, how are we any different from this man, trying to be made whole apart from God? And if, after receiving the healing work from Christ, we return to our old efforts of trying to be “made whole” with our own works of repentance instead of trusting solely in Jesus’ work to save us, then how are we any different from this man who Jesus warned?

    Jesus warned him and US that a worse thing could come unto us. A person who thinks they can lose their salvation if they sin again needs to read Hebrews 10:26 and realize that Jesus paid it all once. If that one sacrifice doesn’t forgive and atone for ALL of our sin, past, present, and future, then there remains no other sacrifice for sin. If you can gain salvation, then lose it again, that’s a HUGE problem.

    Back to my response:

    “What’s interesting about these two [passages] is that they actually teach the opposite of what many try to use them for. We’re told we must repent of our sins to be saved, but here, Jesus extends [life-saving] mercy to this woman despite there being zero evidence of her repentance. We are told that we must keep doing the work of repenting [from] our sins [to keep our salvation], but here, Jesus tells the man not to return to trying to make himself whole on his own.

    As for the two verses shared from 1 Corinthians 15:31 and 2 Corinthians 4:16, those verses were taken completely out of context.

    1 Corinthians 15 is not in any way about dying to sin or dying because of sin. It’s about how some in the church at the time denied the resurrection of Christ. Paul points out to his audience (which are saved believers) that if Christ didn’t rise from the dead then everything they do is in vain. In [verse 30], Paul asks his readers why they endure all [the persecution they do] if Christ didn’t rise from the dead. In verse 31, Paul says that he “dies daily” [in the sense that he faces deadly persecution all the time]. Just as Jesus taught, Paul takes up his cross and follows Him despite the danger [of persecution and it’s worth it BECAUSE Jesus did in fact rise from the dead].

    2 Corinthians 4:16 is yet another piece of evidence that the body and spirit of the believer are treated just as I explained in this post. The outward man (the body[/flesh]) dies because of sin, but the inward man (the spirit) is renewed because of righteousness which is by faith (Romans 3:22, Romans 8:10). Our body dies because of sin, whether due to its typical ailments or due to the return of Christ ([at that time,] our body will be transformed or changed, 1 Corinthians 15:52). The body we have right now WILL NOT go to heaven, it CAN’T even if we DID completely stop sinning (1 Corinthians 15:50)”

    Just to clarify:

    This topic of the difference between the believer’s body and their spirit, which I describe in the main article as the “duality of the human being,” is not one which is central to the Gospel. The Gospel can be told and believed in full without it. I only chose to expound on it because it could help one to understand the result of salvation with a little more clarity. This is especially helpful to those who might get caught up on the idea that no sin will enter heaven as, for example, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says. Understanding the separation between the two can help explain how it’s possible that one who is born again is capable of committing sin while still being saved. When we are born again, our spirit is immediately renewed and it could be said that, in a spiritual sense, we are the children of God. But our flesh is still infected with sin, the law of sin is still “warring within [our] members (Romans 7:23).” That’s why our flesh still sins and dies even though we believe and are saved and “have everlasting life (John 3:36).” If we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then we believe also that he will also one day raise our mortal bodies from the dead (1 Corinthians 6:14); It’s then that our bodies are saved from sin entirely.

    In conclusion:

    “Let me be clear, [we] believe that after a person gets saved they should try their best to abstain from all sin. But the Bible teaches that Christ offered his body once and that we are sanctified by his one sacrifice FOREVER (Hebrews 10:10-12) [and that if “anyone of us sins, we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1).”] The Bible DOES NOT [teach] that a person will lose their salvation if they sin after getting saved and it DOES NOT [teach] that they will or must sin any less to keep their salvation.”

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