The Bible has one personal name for God, the four letters usually written YHWH, and many titles. Abraham meets God as “God Most High” and “God Almighty.” Hannah prays to “the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah calls him “the Holy One of Israel.” Jesus prays “Abba, Father,” and the first Christians confess that “Jesus is Lord.”
Each title says something different, and each poses its own problem for a translator. Some have a clear meaning. Some have a meaning nobody is sure of. Some look alike in English but are different words in Hebrew. This article walks through the main ones. The divine name itself, and the choice between “the LORD,” “Yahweh” and other renderings, has an article of its own: see The divine name in translation.
Elohim: a plural word for one God
The Bible’s first sentence names God with the word אֱלֹהִ֑ים (ʾĕlōhîm). It is the ordinary Hebrew word for God, used thousands of times. It is also, in form, a plural.
That can surprise readers, and it has been explained in several ways. The usual explanation, and the one our record for Genesis 1:1 gives, is that Hebrew often uses a plural form to express greatness or fullness. The word is plural in form, but its verb is singular, “he created,” as it is throughout the chapter, so it names the one God. Grammarians sometimes call this a plural of majesty. Christian readers since the early church have also seen in it a hint of the Trinity, though most scholars think the grammar alone does not carry that weight.
The same word can be a true plural. In the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other ʾĕlōhîm before me” means “other gods” (Exodus 20:3). Context decides. In a few places it is not clear whether the word means God, gods or something else, and our records say so.
- In Psalm 82:1, God takes his stand “among the gods.” The meaning decision takes them as the members of God’s heavenly council, but marks this uncertain, and a footnote gives the other views: that they are human judges, called “gods” because of their office, or Israel at Sinai.
- In Exodus 21:6, a slave who chooses to stay with his master is brought “to God.” The record takes this as before God, perhaps at a sanctuary, but notes in a footnote that some read the word as “the judges,” as the same word may mean in 22:7–8.
A related singular form, ʾĕlôah, appears mostly in poetry, especially in Job.
El and its titles
The shorter word ʾēl is the common word for “god” in Hebrew and its sister languages. In the texts from ancient Ugarit, on the coast of Syria, El is also the name of the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon. In the Bible it stands alone as a word for God, but it is best known from a series of titles in Genesis, in which El is joined to a second word.
El Elyon, “God Most High.” Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of אֵל עֶלְיֽוֹן (ʾēl ʿelyôn), blesses Abram by “God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:18–19). Elyon means “highest.” The record notes that the title is used for the LORD in the Psalms, and that Abram himself identifies the two a few verses later: “I have lifted my hand in an oath to the LORD, God Most High” (14:22). A footnote there adds that the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch lack “the LORD” in that verse, while the Hebrew text, which we follow, has it. The word “Creator” is itself marked uncertain, since the Hebrew can also mean “Possessor,” and a footnote says so.
El Shaddai, “God Almighty.” When God appears to Abram at ninety-nine, he says, “I am אֵ֣ל שַׁדַּ֔י” (ʾēl šadday, Genesis 17:1). This is the title of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (28:3; 35:11; 48:3). In Exodus 6:3 God says to Moses that he appeared to the patriarchs “as God Almighty.” Shaddai alone appears often in Job and in poetry, as in Psalm 91:1: “in the shadow of the Almighty.”
The meaning of Shaddai is one of the open questions of Hebrew study. “Almighty” goes back to the ancient Greek and Latin translations. Some scholars connect the word with a term for “mountain,” which would make it “God of the mountain.” Jewish tradition explained it as “the one who is sufficient.” Others have suggested different roots. None of these is certain. Open Word Bible follows the traditional “God Almighty” at every level, but the meaning decisions for Genesis 17:1 and Exodus 6:3 are both marked uncertain, and footnotes give the other proposals. The record for Exodus 6:3 adds that it is “a title, not God’s personal name.”
El Olam, “the Everlasting God.” At Beersheba, Abraham “called on the name of the LORD, אֵ֥ל עוֹלָֽם” (ʾēl ʿôlām, Genesis 21:33). Olam means a time without limit. Balanced says “God Everlasting,” and Readable “the God who lives forever.”
El Roi, “the God who sees.” Hagar, alone in the desert, is the only person in the Bible who gives God a name. She calls him “a God who sees” (Genesis 16:13). The record notes that this can mean “the God who sees me” or “the God whom I have seen,” and the line that follows is so difficult that a footnote gives two other readings.
These El titles mostly cluster in Genesis. Exodus 6:3 seems to explain why: the patriarchs knew God as El Shaddai. Yet Genesis also uses the name YHWH many times, in the story and in the patriarchs’ own words. The record for Exodus 6:3 takes the verse to mean that the fathers did not know the name in its full meaning, which God would now show by rescuing Israel. It marks this uncertain, and a footnote gives two other readings: that the clause is a question, or that the name itself was new to Moses.
Adonai: “my Lord”
ʾĂdōnāy means “my Lord.” It is built from the ordinary word for a master, ʾādôn, in a special form used only for God. People used it in prayer and when addressing God with respect. Abram’s question in Genesis 15:2 begins with it, and then adds the divine name: אֲדֹנָי, followed by YHWH.
Because Jewish readers said Adonai aloud in place of the divine name, English Bibles have to do something when the two stand together, or “the Lord LORD” would result. By long custom they print “Lord GOD,” with GOD in capitals to show that the name stands behind it. Open Word Bible does the same, and with the divine name setting on, the phrase reads “Lord Yahweh.” The rendering decision for Genesis 15:2 says so, and notes that “Sovereign LORD,” another modern choice, was considered.
In Isaiah’s vision, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne” (Isaiah 6:1), the word is Adonai, not the name. The record notes that verse 5 then names the one on the throne as “the King, the LORD of hosts.” In English the difference is shown only by capitals: “Lord” for Adonai, “LORD” for YHWH.
“My lord” in Psalm 110
The difference between Adonai and the ordinary word for a master matters most in Psalm 110:1, the Old Testament verse the New Testament quotes most often. Our Balanced level reads:
Of David. A psalm. The LORD declares to my lord: “Take your seat at my right hand, while I lay your enemies beneath your feet like a footstool.”
The record explains that the second “lord” is not Adonai but ʾădōnî, the everyday way of addressing a superior, above all a king. The Hebrew text points it differently from the title used for God in verse 5. So the drafts write “my lord” in lower case, and Readable says “my lord the king,” so that it is not taken for God.
In Greek, though, both words became kyrios, “Lord.” When Jesus quotes the psalm, he asks how David could call his own descendant “Lord” (Matthew 22:41–45). Here the drafts write “The Lord said to my Lord,” with both capitals, because the Gospel is reading the psalm as about the Messiah. A meaning decision for Matthew 22:44 explains: the first “Lord” stands for God’s name, “my Lord” for a different Hebrew word used of a master or king, and “in Greek both are ‘Lord.’” The same verse is rendered two ways in two places, and the records say why.
The LORD of hosts
The title יהוה צְבָא֖וֹת (YHWH ṣəbāʾôt) appears for the first time in the Bible when Elkanah goes up to Shiloh to worship “the LORD of hosts” (1 Samuel 1:3). It appears over two hundred times after that, most often in the prophets.
The meaning decision for 1 Samuel 1:3 explains the word. Ṣəbāʾôt is the plural of a word for an army, a great company drawn up in ranks. It is used of Israel’s armies, of the sun, moon and stars, and of the heavenly beings around God’s throne. Joined to God’s name, it presents the LORD as the King who commands every power in heaven and on earth. The record links the title in Samuel to the ark, “enthroned on the cherubim,” and to David, who goes out against Goliath in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel (17:45).
The main English choices are surveyed in The divine name in translation. Open Word Bible’s Literal level keeps the traditional “the LORD of hosts.” Balanced and Readable say “the LORD of Armies.” The rendering decision gives the reason: “hosts” today most often means someone who welcomes guests, and “Armies” states the meaning plainly while keeping the picture of a commander. “Almighty” was considered and set aside, because it turns the picture into an abstract quality. Isaiah’s vision, at Balanced, reads:
And they kept calling to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Armies! All that fills the earth is his glory.”
The New Testament twice keeps the Hebrew word in Greek letters, “Lord Sabaoth” (Romans 9:29; James 5:4). Literal keeps “Sabaoth” in both places. At Balanced the drafts are not yet consistent: James 5:4 says “the Lord of Armies,” but Romans 9:29 says “the Lord of hosts.” That is the kind of difference reviewers will need to settle. Revelation uses a different Greek word, “the Almighty,” for the same title (Revelation 4:8), and the record there notes that it “stands for ‘of hosts.’”
The Holy One of Israel
When Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple, the seraphim called “Holy, holy, holy.” The record for Isaiah 6:3 notes that Isaiah’s favourite name for God, “the Holy One of Israel,” grows from this vision. In Hebrew it is קְד֥וֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל (qəḏôš yiśrāʾēl).
The meaning decision for Isaiah 1:4, where the title first appears, puts it this way: “the God who is wholly other and pure, and who has bound himself to Israel.” It appears about twenty-five times in Isaiah, across every part of the book, and only a handful of times elsewhere. The record notes that one of those, 2 Kings 19:22, is itself Isaiah’s word to King Hezekiah.
The title holds two ideas together. “Holy” means set apart: God is unlike everything he has made. “Of Israel” says that this God has made himself Israel’s own. In 1:4 that makes their contempt more shocking. Later in the book it makes his promise more sure: “your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel” (41:14). Every level keeps the title as it is. Here a translation has nothing to explain away, and a reader meets it as Isaiah’s own phrase.
Abba, Father
The New Testament keeps one Aramaic word for God: Αββα (abba), “father.” Jesus uses it in Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you” (Mark 14:36), and Paul says that believers cry the same words by the Spirit (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). In all three places the Aramaic word is followed by the Greek word for “father,” as if the first churches kept Jesus’s own word and added its translation.
In the twentieth century, Joachim Jeremias made abba famous. He argued that it was the intimate word a small child used, something like “Daddy,” and that Jesus’s use of it in prayer was without parallel in the Judaism of his day. The idea spread widely in preaching. In 1988 James Barr published an article with the title “Abba Isn’t Daddy,” arguing that the word was used by adult children as well as small ones, and that it meant simply “father,” spoken with warmth and respect. Most scholars now accept Barr’s correction, while many still think Jesus’s way of addressing God as Father was distinctive.
Open Word Bible’s meaning decision for Mark 14:36 follows this. It describes abba as “the word a son or daughter used for their father, at any age,” and lists “a child’s word only” as the alternative it set aside. Every level keeps “Abba, Father,” as the Greek does. The records for Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 add that believers address God the way the Son does.
Kyrios: Lord
In the Greek Old Testament, the divine name was usually rendered κύριος (kyrios), “Lord.” The same word could be a polite “sir,” the title of a master over slaves, or the title of an emperor. Its meaning in the New Testament depends on who uses it and how.
That makes Philippians 2:11, “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” one of the most important sentences for a translator. A meaning decision there, with a footnote, gives the sense as “the title that the Greek Old Testament gives to God.” It sets aside the weaker sense of “a master or ruler, a title of respect” because Paul is echoing Isaiah 45:23, where the LORD says that to him alone every knee will bow. Yet, the record adds, the confession is “to the glory of God the Father”: giving Jesus this name does not take glory from the Father.
The same thing happens in Romans 10:13, where Paul quotes Joel: “all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” The record notes that in Joel’s Hebrew, “the Lord” is the divine name, and that Paul, having just said “Jesus is Lord” (10:9), applies the words to Jesus.
Because English has only one word for kyrios, Open Word Bible writes “Lord” in such places and lets the reasoning record name the Hebrew behind it. In the New Testament the capitals of “LORD” are never used, because the Greek has no divine name to mark.
What the titles do
A translation could flatten all of these into “God” and “Lord.” Readers would lose little information, but a great deal of the texture. Abraham’s God is the Most High, the Almighty, the Everlasting God and the God who sees. Isaiah’s God is the Holy One who belongs to Israel. Jesus’s God is Abba. Each title came out of a particular encounter, and each tells the reader something about how that person knew God.
Open Word Bible keeps the titles at every level wherever they are titles, and explains them in the meaning decisions. Where a title has an uncertain meaning, like Shaddai, the record says so. Where the same English word stands for different Hebrew words, like “Lord” in Psalm 110, the record shows the difference. These are AI-assisted drafts, and none has yet been reviewed. Reviewers will check them, starting with places like Romans 9:29, where the drafts have not yet settled on one wording.
For the related question of how the New Testament reads the Old, including its use of kyrios, see How the New Testament quotes the Old. For the four letters themselves, see The divine name in translation.
Open Genesis 17, Isaiah 6 or Mark 14 to see the records for each title.