Whatever happened to Yahweh?

By Lee Cannon

If you refer to "Yahweh" in casual conversations at church, you may get blank stares.

The name "Yahweh" seems to me to have become forgotten by most Christians, and perhaps Jews. Most Bible versions don't use it, and few Christians seem to have any concern about its absence. Its lack of use bothers me, since "Yahweh" has a prominent place in scripture and its rich meaning sends an important message for modern Christians.

In the minds of many, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" has come to be known as "Lord."
Even in most of our Bibles, few notice the subtle change from "LORD" to "Lord" from passage to passage.

The words look the same in English, but they translate to very different Hebrew names for God. "Lord" in most versions of the Bible comes from the Hebrew Adonai, which translates rather well to the English word "lord." "LORD," on the other hand, is a representation of the name of our Creator. The use of all capital letters in Bible passages is a clue that will show you when the Hebrew word Yahweh is being used.

Scholastic history tells the interesting rediscovery of the pronunciation of the name of God over the centuries. Scholars now generally agree that the name should be pronounced something like, "Yahweh," though in the Middle Ages the Germans pronounced it "Jehovah." The German "J" sounds like the English "Y," and the translators misinterpreted a subtle switching of vowels by some Hebrew writers.

Some time after the exile of the Israelites from Judah, Jewish writers began to avoid pronouncing Yahweh out of fear and respect for the sacred name. What better way to avoid taking the name of the Lord in vain than to avoid saying it entirely? Whenever they came to the name of God, they would instead say, "Lord." To remind themselves to avoid saying the sacred name, they substituted the vowels for Adonai in their texts and wrote the vowels for Yahweh in the margin.

In Hebrew, Yahweh sounds like the Hebrew word for "I am" or "I will be." It is the name Yahweh that makes Jesus' divine claim in John 8:58 so significant, "Before Abraham was born, I am." Similarly, Yahweh is the name provided to Moses in Exodus 3, when Moses asked God what he should say when people asked him for God's name. God answered, "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be" (Ex. 3:14 NAS). In His future actions, God would be increasingly revealed to Moses, not by just titles or descriptions.

It is at least ironic that so few Christians and Jews use or even know the name, since Moses was told on Mount Horeb that "This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations" (Ex. 3:15 NAS). Throughout Exodus, most of Yahweh's acts are explained with, "that you may know that I am Yahweh" (See Ex. 10:2 for example). The incomprehensible Yahweh wanted to ensure that people could come to know Him more fully, so He intervened in history in the story of the Exodus. If we want to know Him more fully, we need to know more than titles like "Lord" communicate. How would your wife feel if you called her "Hey, Woman" after 20 years of marriage? At some point, you would want to achieve a first-name relationship.

Yahweh is more than our Ruler, more than our Creator, more than our Deliverer. He is the God who reveals Himself through relationships with mankind ("the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.") He defies the limitations that people assign to Him; after all, He is who He is.