Meaning of Names of God
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Jimmy the Greek
Puritan Board Senior
YHWH, which has been variously transliterated as Jehovah, Yehovah, etc., is God's personal covenant name.
These four letters are known as the Tetragrammaton -- the four letters -- all consonants. In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God, and is not read aloud. In the reading aloud of the Scripture or in prayer, it was replaced with Adonai (Lord). The MT added the vowel pointing from Adonai to the four letters indicating the practice. This is what has led to the english words Jehovah and Yehovah. Since this is viewed as an unlikely pronunciation, today it is often translated as Yahweh and related to the Hebrew "I am" of Exodus 3. Some modern translations used the word LORD in caps to indicate YWHW versus Adonai (Lord, cap first letter only).
Of all the names of God, the one which occurs most frequently is the Tetragrammaton. The Biblia Hebraica texts each contain the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) 6,828 times.
See also, http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=220 for more on the names.
These four letters are known as the Tetragrammaton -- the four letters -- all consonants. In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God, and is not read aloud. In the reading aloud of the Scripture or in prayer, it was replaced with Adonai (Lord). The MT added the vowel pointing from Adonai to the four letters indicating the practice. This is what has led to the english words Jehovah and Yehovah. Since this is viewed as an unlikely pronunciation, today it is often translated as Yahweh and related to the Hebrew "I am" of Exodus 3. Some modern translations used the word LORD in caps to indicate YWHW versus Adonai (Lord, cap first letter only).
Of all the names of God, the one which occurs most frequently is the Tetragrammaton. The Biblia Hebraica texts each contain the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) 6,828 times.
See also, http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=220 for more on the names.
Kevin
Puritan Board Doctor
The Hebrew scribes used to write the Tetragrammaton with no vowels, however as an aide memoire they would put the vowel marks for Adonai in the text. This was done to remind the reader to read Adonai when he saw YHWH in the text. At the time of the Reformation when the study of Hebrew was revived the assumption was that the vowels indicated were part of the word, hence Jehovah rather than Yahweh in English.
Consider the answer to WLC 101, the preface to the ten commandments: "Wherein God manifesteth his sovereignty, as being JEHOVAH, the eternal, immutable, and almighty God; having his being in and of himself, and giving being to all his words and works." Divines used to believe Jehovah Elohim is a perfect description of the absolute Deity -- Jehovah referring to the eternal being and Elohim to the plurality of persons. These days YHWH is confined to what "biblical theologians" extract from His dealings with the nation of Israel. Names like Adonai were (and still are to some degree) considered as describing relative perfections -- in this case it is His lordship over the creature.
It is interesting to observe the way the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of Westminster consider the name of God as "anything whereby He maketh Himself known," both in relation to the third commandment and the first petition of the Lord's prayer. Here they were following Calvin's way of explaining the name of God in his comments on such passages as Ps. 8.
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