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YAHWEH is the True Name of the Creator, our Heavenly Father, the Elohim (God) of Israel, and Father of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). In almost every English translation of the Bible, with the exception of some Messianic and one or two Protestant and Catholic editions, the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, YHWH, is traditionally rendered "the LORD" and sometimes "Jehovah". The three most important names, titles, or descriptions of the Creator are 'El ('God', singular form), 'Elohim ('God', plural form, representing either plurality of majesty or plurality of Persons in the Elohimhead/Godhead) and Yahweh (YHWH) when spoken by humans (meaning 'HE IS') or Ehyeh when spoken by Himself, of Himself (meaning 'I AM') - or to give His full name, Ehyeh-Esher-Ehyeh ('I am that I am' or 'I am, the One Being'). 'Yahweh' is also sometimes shortened or abbreviated to "Yah".
A common error made by messianics is to claim that Yahweh means 'I am'. Not once does our Heavenly Father refer to Himself as 'Yahweh' in Exodus 3:14. We learn what He calls Himself in verse 15, Ehyeh. which in Hebrew grammar is the qal-imperfect, first person common singular of the verb, hayah meaning 'to be'. Ehyeh means 'I AM'. When He gives Moses instruction at the end of verse 14, telling him to say, "I AM (Ehyeh) has sent me (Moses) to you all", He is saying 'Ehyeh' has sent me to you. In verse 15 He clarifies, saying, "Yahweh ('the LORD' in most English Bibles), the Elohim (God) of your fathers, the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob, has sent me (Moses) to you". Only then does He say 'Yahweh', the same word from 'hayah' (to be) but in the third person form, masculine singular meaning 'He is'.
Thus the Creator is teaching us that 'My Name means I am but when you say My Name, you are to say He is'. This means human beings should never address Him as 'Ehyeh' for that Name is reserved for His use exclusively. (There are one or two who mistakenly call Him by the infinitive, Hayah, 'to be', which is nowhere used of Him anywhere, and would in any case be blasphemous were we to use it or Ehyeh as we are not deity!) During the Millennium, the City of Jerusalem is to be renamed, "The LORD is There" (Ezek.38:35, NRSV), literally "He is (Yahweh) is there" or simply, "YAHWEH-SHAMMAH".
Various shortened forms of the Divine Name occur in Israelite names (yeho and yo at the beginning, and yahu and ya at the end), and in "HalleluYah" ('Halleujah', 'Praise Yah').
The word 'Jehovah' (or 'Yahovah') is not a proper name but a human invention that is owed more to an accident of history than anything else. Though the True Name was certainly known from the earliest times, the original Hebrew text ('YHWH') was never vocalised. In time, the rabbinical superstition arose that the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was too sacred to pronounce. Accordingly, from the Persian period onward, the Sacred Name was replaced by various titles and epithets. The most common alternative was the Hebrew 'adonay ('my LORD', 'my Master') which was substituted in reading and the vowels of this word were combined with the consonants YHWH to 'Yahovah' and, allowing for a shift in the initial vowel because of the yod rather than the alef) to give 'Jehovah', a form first attested to in 895 AD.
The pronunciation 'yahwéh' (emphasis on the last vowel) is based upon Hebrew grammatical rules and supported by the suffixed forms in names and numerous Greek renderings such as 'iaô, iaou, and especially iaé in early Christian/Messianic literature (e.g. iaoue by Clement of Alexandria).
The initial yod suggests a 3rd masculine singular verb form, and the vocalisation 'yahwéh' points to the causative form. The scholarly consensus favours derivation from the Hebrew root hwh (later hyh, 'hayah'), 'to be'. It is not, however, to be regarded as an imperfect aspect of the verb; the Hiph'il conjunction, to which alone such a form could be assigned, is not forthcoming for this verb; and the imperfective of the Qal conjugation could not have the vowel 'a' in the first syllable. Yahweh should be regarded as a straighforward substantive, in which the root hwh is preceded by the preformative y'.
Thus, yahwéh aludes to Elohim's (God's) creative activity and it is, strictly speaking, the only 'name' of Elohim (God). In Genesis, wherever the word shem ('name') is associated with the Divine Being, that name is always Yahweh. When Abraham or Isaac built an altar, he "invoked (called upon) the name of Yahweh ('the LORD')" (Gen.12:8, NRSV; also 13:4; 26:25).
In particular, Yahweh was the Elohim (God) of the Patriarchs, and we read of "Yahweh the Elohim (God) of Abraham" and then of Isaac and finally, "Yahweh, the Elohim (God) of Abraham, and the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob", concerning which Elohim (God) says, "this is My Name for the eon (age)" (Ex.3:15, CVOT).
Yahweh, therefore, in contrast with Elohim, is a proper noun, the name of a Person, though that Person is divine. As such, it is its own ideological setting: it presents Elohim (God) as a Person, and so brings Him into relationship with other, human, personalities. It brings Elohim (God) near to man, and He speaks to the Patriarchs as one friend to another.
A study of the word 'name' (shem) in the Tanakh (Old Testament) reveals how much it means in Hebrew. The name is no mere label, but is significant of the real personality of him to whom it belongs. It may derive from the circumstances of his birth (e.g.Gen.5:29), or reflect his character (Gen.27:36), and when a person puts his 'name' upon a thing or another person, the latter comes under his influence and protection. (See the Shem Tov or Good Name website).
Does, then, the True Name of Elohim (God) actually matter? Very much so provided it is understood that what is important is not so much the precise pronunciation but the character and personality which that Name is pointing to or representing.
We get a powerful hint at this emet (truth) in the revelation given to Moses at the Burning Bush. After the opening words of the recorded account, Elohim (God) introduced Himself thus:
"I am the Elohim (God) of your father" (Ex.3:6, NRSV).
This at once assumed that Moses would know the name of his father's Elohim (God). When Elohim (God) announces His purpose of delivering Israel by the hand of Moses, the latter shows reluctance and begins to make excuse. He inquires:
"If (when) I come to the Israelites...and they ask me, 'What (mah) is His Name? what shall I say to them?'" (Ex.3:13, NRSV).
The normal way to ask a name is to use the pronoun mî; to use mah invites an answer which goes further, and gives the meaning ('what?') or substance of His Name. This helps explain the reply, "I AM WHO (THAT) I AM" ('ehyeh 'esher 'ehyeh -  ), and He said:
"Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Ex.3:14, NRSV).
By this Moses would not think that Elohim (God) was announcing a new name, nor is it called a 'name' - it is just the inner meaning of the Name Moses already knew. We have here a play on words: 'Yahweh' is interpreted by 'ehyeh. One theologian even translates it as 'I will be as I will be' (M.Buber) and expounds it as a promise of Elohim's (God's) power and enduring presence with the Israelites in the process of deliverance. That something like this is the purport of these words, which in English sound enigmatical, is shown by what follows:
"Yahweh, the Elohim (God) of your ancestors (fathers), the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my Name forever (for the aeon/age)" (Ex.3:15, NRSV)
Much confusion has been generated by a common mistranslation that falsely gives the impression the Name Yahweh was not known prior to Moses:
"And Elohim (God) spoke to Moses and said to him: 'I am Yahweh ('the LORD'). I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shaddai (God Almighty), but by My name, Yahweh ('LORD'), I was not known to them" (Ex.6:2-3, NKJV).
One of the difficulties of rendering Hebrew to English is that in Hebrew there is no interrogative clause because in that language Hebrew questions often appear as statements made in a questioning manner or with a questioning tone that is impossible to write down. The context, however, clearly establishes that Yahweh as a name was known, as is attested several times. Accordingly a better translation would be:
"And Elohim spoke unto Moshe and said unto him, 'I am YHWH; and I appeared unto Avraham, unto Yitzchak, and unto Ya'akov, in El Shaddai, and by My name YHWH was I not known to them?" (Ex.6:2-3, HRV).
The full content of the name comes first ('ehyeh 'esher 'ehyeh), the name itself (Yahweh) follows.
Attempts to harmonise the text by not using the interrogative break down on a number of counts, not least of which El Shaddai is not a name and therefore cannot have been the 'name' which the Patriarchs used to call upon Yahweh. It is therefore to be regretted that so-called 'conservative' Bible translations that claim to represent the inspiration of Scripture (like the NKJV and ESV) typically fall back on liberal, atheistic theories as to the origin of the Torah to rescue their contradictory translation. You are then forced to conclude that all the earlier uses of 'YHWH' (prior to Exodus 6) used something else and that these were deliberately changed later to 'YHWH'. Messianic Evangelicals are not prepared to make such an assault on the integrity of the ground text of the Tanakh (Old Testament) when a simple linguistic explanation is available. Similar problems are met in many of Paul's writings where an interrogative is not immediately obvious because the intonation of the original is unknown and could only have been made known through the appointed bearers/readers of the letters. (See A Call for Unity in Christ: 3a-b. The Authority of Scripture, in two parts).
According to the Bible, Elohim (God) has only one true Name which is YAHWEH and is the Name by which He is to be known. (A case may be made for 'Yahuweh' but this sounds so similar to 'Yahweh' that we do not make an issue over it). Since the rise of the messianic movement, dozens of competing alternatives have been offered to bewildered believers - Yehweh, Yahuah, Yehovah, Yahwah, Hayah, etc., along with the better known (but seriously wrong) 'Jehovah'. The articles in this register will help you work through this confusion and to discover the prophetic importance for Messianic Israel in knowing who our Heavenly Father really is - His true Name but even more importantly than that, His true Character.
(17 May 2019 | Updated 21 February 2025)
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