four-letter Hebrew name of the national god of Israel
The transliteration of God's personal name as revealed in the Bible, represented by the four Hebrew consonants יהוה known as the Tetragrammaton, and appearing nearly 7,000 times[1] in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). In English, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton are represented by the consonants YHWH. As was true of all written words in ancient Hebrew, the Tetragrammaton contained no vowels. When ancient Hebrew was in everyday use, readers easily provided the appropriate vowels. YHWH, JHVH, Yahweh, or Jehovah is by far the most frequently occurring name in the Bible. While its writers refer to God by many titles and descriptive terms, such as “Almighty,” “Most High,” and “Lord,” the Tetragrammaton is the only personal name they use to identify God.
The Tetragrammaton
YHWH God himself directed Bible writers to use his name. For example, Joel wrote: “Everyone who calls on the name of YHWH will be saved.” (Joel 2:32) And psalmist wrote: “May people know that you, whose name is YHWH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83:18)
The reasons vary. Some feel that Almighty God does not need a unique name to identify him. Others appear to have been influenced by the Jewish tradition of avoiding the use of the name altogether, perhaps out of fear of desecrating it based on what it says at Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11 to not take up God's name in vain. Still others believe that since no one can be sure of the exact pronunciation of God’s name, it is better just to use a title, such as “Lord” or “God.” Many feel these reasons lack merit.
Matthew 4:10 featuring the divine name, "YHWH", in the Aramaic Bible in Plain English
While Bible scholars acknowledge that God’s personal name, as represented by the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), appears almost 7,000 times in the original text of the Hebrew Scriptures, many feel that it did not appear in the original text of the Christian Greek Scriptures. For this reason, most modern English Bibles do not use the name YHWH when translating the so-called New Testament. Even when translating quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in which the Tetragrammaton appears, most translators use “Lord”[2] rather than God’s personal name.
There are few translations that do use the divine name. As an example, The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures uses the name YHWH a total of 237 times[3] in the Christian Greek Scriptures. In deciding to do this, the translators took into consideration two important factors: (1) The Greek manuscripts possessed today are not the originals. Of the thousands of copies in existence today, most were made at least two centuries after the originals were composed. (2) By that time, those copying the manuscripts either replaced the Tetragrammaton with Kyʹri·os,[4] the Greek word for “Lord,” or they copied from manuscripts where this had already been done.
There is compelling evidence that the Tetragrammaton did appear in the original Greek manuscripts based on the following:
Copies of the Hebrew Scriptures used in the days of Jesus and his apostles contained the Tetragrammaton throughout the text. In the past, few people disputed that conclusion, but now that copies of the Hebrew Scriptures dating back to the first century have been discovered near Qumran [5](an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park), the point has been proved beyond any doubt.
In the days of Jesus and his apostles, the Tetragrammaton also appeared in Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. For centuries, scholars thought that the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) was absent from manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Then, in the mid-20th century, some very old fragments of the Greek-Septuagint version that existed in Jesus’ day were brought to scholars. Those fragments contain the personal name of God, written in Hebrew characters.[6] So in Jesus’ day, copies of the Scriptures in the Greek language did contain the divine name.
The Christian Greek Scriptures themselves report that Jesus often referred to God’s name and made it known to others. (John 17:6, 11, 12, 26) Jesus plainly stated: “I have come in the name of my Father.” He also stressed that his works were done in his “Father’s name.”—John 5:43; 10:25.
The divine name appears in its abbreviated form in the Christian Greek Scriptures. At Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, the divine name is embedded in the word “Hallelujah.” This comes from a Hebrew expression that literally means “Praise Jah.” “Jah” is a contraction of the name YHWH. Many names used in the Christian Greek Scriptures were derived from the divine name. In fact, reference works explain that Jesus’ own name means “YHWH Is Salvation.”
Some Bible scholars acknowledge that it seems likely that the divine name appeared in Hebrew Scripture quotations found in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Under the heading “Tetragrammaton in the New Testament,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary states: “There is some evidence that the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name, Yahweh, appeared in some or all of the O[ld] T[estament] quotations in the N[ew] T[estament] when the NT documents were first penned.” Scholar George Howard says: “Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible [the Septuagint] which made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram within the biblical text.” [7]
God’s name at Acts 2:34 in The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson (1864)Recognized Bible translators have used God’s name in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Some of these translators did this long before the New World Translation was produced. These translators and their works include: A Literal Translation of the New Testament . . . From the Text of the Vatican Manuscript, by Herman Heinfetter (1863); The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson (1864); The Epistles of Paul in Modern English, by George Barker Stevens (1898); St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, by W. G. Rutherford (1900); The New Testament Letters, by J.W.C. Wand, Bishop of London (1946). In addition, in a Spanish translation in the early 20th century, translator Pablo Besson used “Jehová” at Luke 2:15 and Jude 14, and over 100 times [8] in his translation footnotes, he suggested the divine name as a likely rendering. Long before those translations, Hebrew versions of the Christian Greek Scriptures from the 16th century onward used the Tetragrammaton in many passages. In the German language alone, at least 11 versions use “YHWH” (or the transliteration of the Hebrew “Yahweh”) in the Christian Greek Scriptures, [9] while four translators add the name in parentheses after “Lord.” More than 70 German translations use the divine name in footnotes or commentaries.
God’s name at Mark 12:29, 30 in a Hawaiian-language translationBible translations in over one hundred different languages contain the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Many African, Native American, Asian, European, and Pacific-island languages use the divine name liberally. The translators of these editions decided to use the divine name for reasons similar to those stated above. Some of these translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures have appeared recently, such as the Rotuman Bible (1999), which uses “Jihova” 51 times in 48 verses, and the Batak (Toba) version (1989) from Indonesia, which uses “Jahowa” 110 times. [10]
The divine name featured in Greek Septuagint Fragments
Upon these findings there seems to be a clear basis for restoring the divine name, YHWH, in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
The name "YHWH" is used predominantly by Jehovah's Witnesses, based on their deep respect for the divine name and a healthy fear of removing anything that appeared in the original text of God's written Word.—Revelation 22:18, 19. When settlers of different religions arrived to settle lands in North America, the name YHWH was widely used. [11] It is still used by several regions by other denominations.
