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BSN: I AM – YHWH – YAHWEH – JEHOVAH – (LORD)

Alternate spellings sometimes found: YHVH, Yahwe

These names – “I AM,” “YAHWEH,” “JEHOVAH,” and others – are various English transliterations and translations of the Old Testament’s most personal name for God. We don’t usually encounter them directly because English translators usually translate the name as “LORD” (all caps in the NASB OT)

  • This OT name for God may be rendered as any of the following ways, depending on the translation: THE LORD, YHWH, YAHWEH, YHVH, JEHOVAH. This name occurs over 6,000 times in the Hebrew OT (see below for exact counts in the NASB 1995) – This name is also called the “tetragrammaton” because of its importance and because it consists of four Hebrew letters.
  • This name was presented by God to Moses at the burning bush in Ex 3:13-15. It is the most frequently used name for God in the Old Testament…by far.
  • The main reason this name is not translated more consistently is that Jews have historically been skittish about uttering it out of fear of violating the Lord’s commandment not to take His name in vain. They usually substituted “Lord” when called upon to say the name aloud. By contrast, Moses and the Prophets showed no such reluctance in writing it.
    • Jews will also say “Ha Shem” (meaning “the Name”) to avoid saying the name.
  • The first verse in which YHWH appears is Gen 2:4
    • In Gen 1-3, YHWH appears 19x, all as “the Lord GOD”
    • In Gen 4, YHWH appears 9x, all as “the LORD.”
  • The Septuagint translates “YHWH” as “Kurios” (the Greek word for “Lord”).
  • Following suit, most English translations translate the name as “Lord.” Others may use Yahweh or Jehovah, either occasionally or throughout.
YHWH in the NASB

In the front matter of the New American Standard Bible, arguably the most literal of modern English translations, it says this about how they translate the name of God in the Old Testament:

THE PROPER NAME OF GOD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: In the Scriptures, the name of God is most significant and understandably so. It is inconceivable to think of spiritual matters without a proper designation for the Supreme Deity. Thus the most common name for the Deity is God, a translation of the original Elohim. One of the titles for God is Lord, a translation of Adonai. There is yet another name which is particularly assigned to God as His special or proper name, that is, the four letters YHWH (Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah 42:8). This name has not been pronounced by the Jews because of reverence for the great sacredness of the divine name. Therefore, it has been consistently translated LORD. The only exception to this translation of YHWH is when it occurs in immediate proximity to the word Lord, that is Adonai. In that case is it is regularly translated GOD in order to avoid confusion.

It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no complete certainty attaches to this pronunciation.

These are the fifth and sixth paragraphs under the heading “Principles of Translation,” found in the front matter of the NASB 1995.

Occurrences of these words in the NASB:

  • ELOHIM – 2,250x (usually translated as “God”)
  • ADONAI – 444x (usually translated as “Lord,” except as described in the NASB preface above)
  • YHWH – 5,789x (Concordance counts are usually, including this case, of verses in which the word occurs, not of individual occurrences of the word. Because YHWH shows up multiple times in many verses, the actual occurrences of this word in the OT are closer to 7,000. It is usually translated as “the LORD.”)
  • Thus, YHWH occurs in about 2.6x as many OT verses as ELOHIM, and in about 13.0x as many OT verses as ADONAI. More simply put, YHWH (“I am”) occurs in more than twice as many OT verses as ELOHIM (“God”) and ADONAI (“Lord”) put together.
Exodus 3:14

13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, “What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”
14 God said to Moses, “aI AM WHO aI AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘aI AM has sent me to you.’”

aRelated to the name of God, YHWH, rendered LORD, which is derived from the verb HAYAH, to be.

Exodus 3:13-14 NASB 1995, with footnote
Isaiah 42:8

“I am the LORD, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.

Isaiah 42:8 (no footnote)

The phrase occurring here “I am the LORD” (which = “I am I am”) also appears in 156 other verses (all OT), three of which (Ex 29:46; Num 15:41; Ezek 17:24) have it twice. In some of these, it is combined with “God” as in “I am the LORD your God” or “I am the LORD their God” or something similar.

Related, the phrase “I am the Lord GOD” (which = “I am the Lord I am”) appears five times: Ezek 13:9; 23:49; 24:24; 28:24; 29:16. (Note that these five will show up in a search for [“I am the LORD”] because search makes no distinction between upper and lower case; I have adjusted the counts accordingly.)

Verses Relevant to Ex 3:14 and Is 42:8
  • Ex 6:2 God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD;
    Ex 6:3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, bLORD, I did not make Myself known to them.
    (b Heb YHWH, usually rendered LORD)
  • Gen 4:26 To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD.
  • Ex 23:20 “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
    Ex 23:21 “Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him.
    Ex 23:22 “But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
    Ex 23:23 “For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them.
  • Acts 7:30 “After forty years had passed, AN ANGEL APPEARED TO HIM IN THE WILDERNESS OF MOUNT Sinai, IN THE FLAME OF A BURNING THORN BUSH.
    …
    Acts 7:35 “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘WHO MADE YOU A RULER AND A JUDGE?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.
    …
    Acts 7:38 “This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.
    …
    Acts 7:53 you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”
  • Heb 2:2 For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty,
    Heb 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,

Jesus Is Lord

References to Jesus as YHWH

“I AM” Statements by Jesus

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