YHWH

The Tetragrammaton

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 in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). In English, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton are represented by the consonants Y, H twice and W. 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” 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.

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)

Why is the name missing from many Bible translations?

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.

In the Christian Scriptures

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” 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 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, 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 (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. 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.”
• Jewish sources indicate that Christians of Jewish origin used the Tetragrammaton in their manuscripts. The Toseft, a collection of Jewish oral laws compiled around the year 300, states what should be done with Christian manuscripts that might have caught fire on the Sabbath: "The books of the evangelists and the books of the minim [the 'minim' is believed to have been the name given to the Jewish Christians] must not be saved from the fire. Let these books burn where they are, together with God's name [YHWH] in them." In the same source, the words of Rabbi Yoseh of Galilee, who lived at the beginning of the 2nd century, are quoted. He said that on other days of the week, "God's name [YHWH] should be cut out of them [Christian manuscripts] and these cuts should be hidden, and the rest should be burned."
• 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.”

The divine name featured in Greek Septuagint Fragments

The name "YHWH" is used predominantly by Jehovah's Witnesses, based on their deep respect for the divine name. When settlers of different religions arrived to settle lands in North America, the name YHWH was widely used. It is still used by several regions by other denominations.

Related pages

• Tetragrammaton
• YHWH