yahweh

יהוה

HebrewH3068Proper Noun“the LORD, Yahweh, ...”

Appears 6528 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 2:4Gen 2:5Gen 2:7Gen 2:8Gen 2:9Gen 2:15Gen 2:16Gen 2:18Gen 2:19Gen 2:21Gen 2:22Gen 3:1Gen 3:14Gen 4:3Gen 8:20Gen 9:26Gen 12:7Gen 12:8Gen 13:13Gen 13:14Gen 13:18Gen 15:6Gen 18:17Gen 19:24Gen 21:1Gen 24:1Gen 24:3Gen 24:26Gen 24:35Gen 24:48Gen 24:52Gen 24:56Gen 25:21Exo 3:2Exo 3:18Exo 5:3Exo 8:10(6)Exo 9:23Exo 10:13Exo 12:29Exo 12:36Exo 13:3Exo 13:9Exo 13:12Exo 13:15Exo 13:21Exo 14:1Exo 14:8Exo 14:31Lev 6:2(5:21)

Root family

hayahהָיָהto be3562H1961
- yahwehיהוהLORD6528H3068
  - yahיָהּLORD50H3050
    - remalyahuרְמַלְיָהוּRemaliah13H7425
    - ya'areshyahיַעֲרֶשְׁיָהJaareshiah1H3298

Names & words formed with this

Word studyResearch-gradenoun

What yahweh means

the personal name of the God of Israel: his own name, the name he gives himself, by which his people are to call on him and know him as the God who is with them.

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyContested

This is not a title like "God" or "Lord" but a name, the one Israel's God claims as his own. Where the common word for God can be used of any deity, this name belongs to one God alone and is never given to another. It is the name spoken in worship, sworn by in oaths, and built into thousands of Israelite personal names (the "-iah" and "Jeho-" pieces in names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Jehoshaphat all carry it).

The name looks like a form of the old Hebrew verb "to be" or "to become," and the Bible plays on that connection at the burning bush, where God answers Moses with the words usually translated "I am who I am" or, as many now read them, "I will be who I will be" (Exodus 3:14). On that reading the name is less a statement about God's timeless existence than a promise of his presence: he will be there, with his people, as the one he chooses to be for them. The scholars who study the name caution that this is a meaningful play on its sound, not a dictionary definition of where the name came from, which is older than Israel's reflection on it.

Because the name carries the whole story of the covenant, it gathers up everything that story tells about this God: that he made the world, rescued Israel from Egypt, gave the law, keeps his promises, and tolerates no rival. To speak the name is to invoke that particular God and no other. That is why later Jewish reverence grew so careful around it, and why the same name stands at the heart of the call to worship him alone.

Gen 2:4Gen 2:5Gen 2:7Gen 2:8Gen 2:9Gen 2:15Gen 2:16Gen 2:18Gen 2:19Gen 2:21Gen 2:22Gen 3:1

What yahweh does not mean

Three traps to avoid. First, in most English Bibles this name is printed "the LORD" in small capital letters, while the ordinary word "lord" (a master, a human superior) is printed normally. The small capitals are the signal: "the LORD" is this personal name, not the title "lord." (Where the name stands right next to the word Adonai, "Lord," English avoids saying "Lord Lord" and prints the name as "GOD" in small capitals instead; in this collection that combined form is filed under a separate number.) Second, "Jehovah" is not how the name was ever pronounced. It is a medieval blend: the four consonants of the written name combined with the vowels of a different word (Adonai, "Lord") that readers said aloud in its place. Reading those mismatched pieces together produced "Jehovah," which the standard grammars call an impossibility. "Yahweh" is scholarship's best reconstruction of the original sound, but it too is a reconstruction, and the true ancient pronunciation cannot be recovered with certainty. Third, do not read the later Greek and Christian word "Lord" (and its theology) back into the Hebrew name as if they meant the same thing; the substitution of "Lord" for the name was a development of reverence, not part of the name's own meaning.

What scholars say about yahweh

The standard lexica and theological dictionaries (HALOT, BDB s.v. יהוה; van der Toorn in DDD) agree on the essentials and flag the open questions. The name is almost certainly a verb form, a third-person form of the old root "to be / become" (the older form behind the common verb הָיָה), making it unusual as a deity's name, which are normally nouns or titles; Frank Moore Cross argued it was clipped from a longer cultic phrase. Exodus 3:14 is read by nearly all critical scholars as a meaningful play on the name's sound (van der Toorn calls it "a theological etymology," Mark Smith "a theological wordplay"), with the verb pointing forward ("I will be") to God's promised presence rather than to abstract existence (Buber and Rosenzweig, von Rad, Moberly). The vocalization Yahweh has been the scholarly reconstruction since Gesenius, supported by early Greek spellings (Theodoret's Iabe, Clement's Iaoue), by the personal-name elements, and by the short form Yah; the Masoretic "Yehowah" is not a real form but a reading device (the consonants of the name with the vowels of the substitute Adonai), and "Jehovah" is a sixteenth-century misreading of that device, judged impossible by Gesenius and Joüon-Muraoka. The avoidance of pronouncing the name hardened between the Persian and early Roman periods (already absolute in Philo and Josephus, codified in the Mishnah), and Greek manuscripts substitute or preserve the name in several ways. Live debates: whether the verb is simple ("he is/will be") or causative ("he creates"); whether the root is Northwest Semitic "to be" or a southern Arabic root "to blow"; whether the cult of this God originated south of Israel; and when strict monotheism crystallized.

Where scholars disagree about yahweh

What the name means as a verb, in particular whether it is simple ("he is" or "he will be") or causative ("he brings into being, he creates").

majorityA simple form of the verb "to be," meaning "he is" or "he will be," tied to God's promise of presence rather than to creation. The chief argument is that the causative form of this verb is found nowhere else in Biblical Hebrew, so claiming one only for the name is special pleading.; Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God (Fortress, 1988), 33-49; Karel van der Toorn, "Yahweh," in DDD, 2nd ed. (1999), 912-913; Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (Oxford, 2001), 142-145
minorityA causative form, "he causes to be" or "he creates," originally part of a longer title of the high god El, "the one who creates the heavenly hosts," which would explain the otherwise strange phrase "the LORD of hosts."; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973), 60-75; David Noel Freedman, "The Name of the God of Moses," JBL 79 (1960): 151-156; Theodore J. Lewis, The Origin and Character of God (Oxford, 2020), 210-227

How the name was originally pronounced.

majoritySomething close to Yahweh, the reconstruction standard since the early nineteenth century, supported by early Greek spellings of the name, the elements built into Israelite personal names, and the short form "Yah."; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. יהוה; Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Cambridge: Open Book, 2020)
contestedThe true ancient pronunciation cannot be recovered with certainty; the avoidance of speaking the name is so old that the living tradition was lost, and surviving evidence such as the Samaritan witness may reflect learned recitation rather than continuous oral use.; Karel van der Toorn, "Yahweh," in DDD, 2nd ed. (1999), 910-919

The deeper origin of the name and the cult of this God: whether the root is the Northwest Semitic verb "to be" or a southern Arabic root "to blow," and whether the worship of this God began south of Israel.

majorityThe name comes from the Northwest Semitic verb "to be," and the cult of this God most likely originated south of Israel, in the Edomite, Midianite, and Sinai region, before spreading into Israel.; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973); Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (Oxford, 2001); Karel van der Toorn, "Yahweh," in DDD, 2nd ed. (1999); Daniel E. Fleming, Yahweh Before Israel (Cambridge, 2021)
minorityThe name derives instead from a southern Arabic root meaning "to blow," fitting a picture of a southern storm and warrior god rather than a verb of being.; Ernst Axel Knauf, "Yahwe," VT 34 (1984): 467-472; Thomas Romer, The Invention of God (Harvard, 2015), 33-35
minorityThe evidence for a southern origin is weaker than often claimed: the poems placing this God in the south may be late literary compositions, not early memories, and the earliest secure attestations of the name are northern.; Henrik Pfeiffer, Jahwes Kommen von Suden (FRLANT 211; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005); Christian Frevel, "When and from Where did YHWH Emerge?" Entangled Religions 12/2 (2021)

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. יהוה, הוה/היהlexicon
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. יהוה, היהlexicon
Karel van der Toorn, "Yahweh," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), 2nd ed. (1999), 910-919dictionary
Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973), 60-75monograph
Frank Moore Cross, "Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs," HTR 55 (1962): 225-259article
Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (Oxford, 2001), 142-145monograph
Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names (Fortress, 1988), 33-49monograph
R. W. L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament (Fortress, 1992)monograph
Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1 (Harper, 1962), 179-187monograph
Theodore J. Lewis, The Origin and Character of God (Oxford, 2020), 210-227monograph
Thomas Romer, The Invention of God (Harvard, 2015), 33-35monograph
Paul-Eugene Jouon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (PIB, 2006), section 16freference
Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Cambridge: Open Book, 2020)monograph
Martin Rosel, "The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch," JSOT 31 (2007): 411-428article

What yahweh means

the personal name of the God of Israel: his own name, the name he gives himself, by which his people are to call on him and know him as the God who is with them.

Related words

The English words used to translate yahweh

How yahweh differs from similar Hebrew words

yahweh in the other biblical languages

What scholars say about yahweh

Where scholars disagree about yahweh

Sources

All attested forms of יהוה

noun