The most frequent noun in the Hebrew Bible is a name. God’s personal name, written with four consonants usually transliterated YHWH, occurs about 6,800 times by the usual count. Scholars call it the Tetragrammaton, Greek for “four letters.” Every translation of the Old Testament has to decide what to do with it, and few decisions are so visible: the same verse can read “the LORD,” “Jehovah” or “Yahweh,” depending on the Bible in the reader’s hand.

The book of Exodus presents the name as something God revealed, and links it to the verb “to be.” In the World English Bible:

God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.” (Exodus 3:15)

The choices translators make here are not about meaning in the usual sense. Everyone agrees which God is meant. They are about reverence, tradition, history and what English readers will understand.

Why the name stopped being spoken

By the last centuries before Christ, Jews had largely stopped pronouncing the name aloud, out of reverence and in light of the commandment not to take it in vain. When reading Scripture, they said Adonai, “my Lord,” instead. The Mishnah, compiled around AD 200, records the view of Abba Saul that whoever pronounces the name as it is written has no share in the world to come (Sanhedrin 10:1). Some scribes among the Dead Sea Scrolls wrote the four letters in the older paleo-Hebrew script to set them apart (see What the Dead Sea Scrolls show).

The Masoretes, who added vowel signs to the consonantal text in the early Middle Ages, did not supply the name’s own vowels. Instead they wrote the consonants YHWH with vowels that remind the reader to say Adonai, or Elohim where Adonai already stands next to it (see The Masoretes). The written text and the spoken reading were deliberately different.

The Greek translators followed the spoken practice. Most manuscripts of the Septuagint render the name kyrios, “Lord,” though some early Jewish Greek copies kept the four Hebrew letters within the Greek text (see The Septuagint). Jerome’s Latin Vulgate used Dominus, “Lord.” Through these versions, “the Lord” became the way most Christians met the name.

“The LORD” in small capitals

Most English Bibles today, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, render YHWH as ”LORD” in capital and small capital letters. The typography carries a message: “Lord” means Adonai or the Greek kyrios, while “LORD” tells the reader that the Hebrew has the divine name. Where Adonai and YHWH stand together, these Bibles print “Lord GOD,” to avoid “Lord LORD.”

The convention goes back to the Reformation. Tyndale and the Geneva Bible used “LORD” in capitals, and the King James Version made it standard. Luther’s German Bible did the same with HERR. The King James Version reads:

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)

Supporters of this practice point to its long history in both Judaism and the church, and to the New Testament itself, whose writers, quoting the Old Testament in Greek, regularly use kyrios where the Hebrew has the name. Many Jewish readers also value it because it avoids writing out a name they would not pronounce. The Jewish Publication Society’s translations of 1917 and 1985 both use “LORD.”

The criticism is that the reader loses something the Hebrew plainly has. A personal name becomes a title, and sentences such as “I am Yahweh, that is my name” (Isaiah 42:8, World English Bible) become “I am the LORD; that is my name,” which can sound like a statement about rank rather than identity. Small capitals are also lost when Scripture is read aloud.

“Jehovah”

“Jehovah” is a hybrid. It takes the consonants of YHWH, in their Latin form JHVH, and combines them with the vowels the Masoretes wrote as a reminder to say Adonai. Medieval Christian scholars who read the pointed text as it stood produced forms like this, and “Jehovah” spread in Latin in the sixteenth century. Tyndale used it occasionally, and the King James Version kept it in four verses where the name itself is the point, as well as in place names such as Jehovah-jireh:

That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth. (Psalm 83:18, King James Version)

Nineteenth-century literal translations such as Young’s Literal Translation and Darby’s used it throughout. The fullest English example in a major committee translation is the American Standard Version of 1901. Its preface explains that the American revisers had become convinced “that a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament.” The ASV therefore reads “Jehovah” wherever the Hebrew has the name:

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3, American Standard Version)

Later scholars objected on two grounds. Philologically, “Jehovah” was never a pronunciation that any ancient Israelite used. Religiously, the ASV preface’s language about Jewish “superstition” was felt by many to be unfair to a practice rooted in reverence. When the Revised Standard Version revised the ASV in 1952, it returned to “LORD,” explaining in its preface that “Jehovah” did not accurately represent any form of the name ever used in Hebrew, and that a proper name for the one God was inappropriate for the universal faith of the church.

“Jehovah” nonetheless remains in hymns (“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah”) and, above all, in the translation that has made it central.

The New World Translation

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society for Jehovah’s Witnesses, appeared in English between 1950 (New Testament) and 1961 (complete Bible), and was revised in 1984 and 2013. Its translators, who chose to remain anonymous, made restoring the divine name a central aim. In the Old Testament, it renders YHWH as “Jehovah” throughout, a choice that stands in the same tradition as the ASV.

The New World Translation goes further in the New Testament. No Greek manuscript of the New Testament contains the four letters; the manuscripts have kyrios or theos. Even so, the 2013 revision uses “Jehovah” 237 times in the New Testament, by its own count. Its appendix explains the reasoning: the New Testament writers quoted Old Testament passages containing the name; some Greek copies of the Old Testament from that period preserved it; and the translators believe early copyists replaced it with kyrios. They also note that translations of the New Testament into Hebrew have used the name in such places.

Most New Testament scholars outside the Witnesses do not accept this. The usual objection is that the evidence is the opposite of what the theory needs: thousands of Greek manuscripts, including the earliest papyri, and the earliest translations into Latin, Syriac and Coptic all agree in having “Lord” or “God.” Critics also observe that where New Testament writers apply Old Testament texts about YHWH to Jesus, as Romans 10:13 does with Joel 2:32, the choice of “Jehovah” instead of “Lord” changes how the passage can be read. A few non-Witness scholars have explored whether the earliest copies might have kept the name, most notably George Howard in a 1977 article, but this remains a minority hypothesis. Jason BeDuhn, a religious studies scholar not affiliated with the Witnesses, compared several translations and found the New World Translation accurate in many of the passages he examined, while still judging its use of “Jehovah” in the New Testament unsupported by the manuscripts.

To be fair to the Witnesses, the underlying conviction is one many Christians share: that God has a name, that the Old Testament uses it constantly, and that translations hide this. The disagreement is over whether a translation may restore something the surviving New Testament text does not contain.

“Yahweh”

Most scholars today think the name was originally pronounced something like Yahweh. The reconstruction rests on shortened forms of the name in Hebrew personal names and in poetry, such as “Hallelu-jah,” and on Greek transcriptions in early Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria and Theodoret. It is an educated reconstruction, not a certainty.

Several English Bibles use it:

  • The Catholic Jerusalem Bible (1966) and New Jerusalem Bible (1985) printed “Yahweh” throughout the Old Testament. Their successor, the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (2019), changed back to “the Lord.”
  • The World English Bible uses “Yahweh” in its main edition, while its British Edition uses “LORD.” Its preface says frankly that “there are solid translational arguments for both traditions.”
  • The Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) used “Yahweh” in a selection of passages where the name was emphasised, and later editions extended it to more places. Its revision, the Christian Standard Bible (2017), went back to “LORD,” its translators explaining that they wanted to align with other English translations and that the name was unfamiliar to many readers.
  • The Legacy Standard Bible (2021), a revision of the NASB 1995 associated with The Master’s Seminary, uses “Yahweh” wherever the Hebrew has the name. Its makers argue that a translation should show readers the name as often as the text does.

Supporters argue that “Yahweh” is the most accurate rendering available and lets readers hear the Old Testament’s personal, covenant language. Critics reply that the pronunciation is uncertain, that the form is unfamiliar to many readers and singers, and that it disregards the sensitivities of Jewish readers.

That last concern led the Catholic Church to act. On 29 June 2008 the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, in a letter signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze, directed that the name should not be used or pronounced as “Yahweh” in the liturgy, including songs and prayers, and that it should be rendered by an equivalent of “Lord.” The letter concerned worship, not private study, but it influenced Catholic translations meant for liturgical use.

“The Eternal” and “HaShem”

Some translators have sought a meaning rather than a name. French Protestant Bibles long rendered YHWH as l’Éternel, “the Eternal,” reflecting the link with “I AM” in Exodus 3:14. In English, James Moffatt’s translation (Old Testament 1924) used “the Eternal,” and The Voice (2012) uses “the Eternal One.” The appeal is that it conveys something of what the name was understood to mean. The objection is that it turns a name into a description, and that the connection between YHWH and eternity, while traditional, is an interpretation.

In Orthodox Jewish speech, God is often called HaShem, “the Name.” The ArtScroll Stone Edition of the Tanakh carries this into print, rendering YHWH as “HASHEM.” It is a translation for readers who share that practice, making visible on the page what other Bibles signal only by small capitals.

“Lord of hosts” or “LORD of Armies”

A related phrase shows how the choice of name interacts with other words. The Hebrew YHWH tseva’ot occurs more than two hundred times, especially in the prophets. Tseva’ot means “armies” or “hosts,” whether earthly armies, the stars or the heavenly beings around God’s throne.

  • The King James Version and most traditional Bibles say “the LORD of hosts,” and the Berean Standard Bible “the LORD of Hosts.”
  • The ASV says “Jehovah of hosts.”
  • The World English Bible says “Yahweh of Armies”: “Yahweh of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge” (Psalm 46:7).
  • The Christian Standard Bible says “LORD of Armies,” and the NASB 2020 “LORD of armies,” on the grounds that “hosts” no longer means “armies” to most English speakers.
  • The NIV usually says “LORD Almighty,” following the Septuagint’s frequent use of a word meaning “all-powerful.”
  • The King James Version twice keeps the Greek transliteration in the New Testament, “the Lord of Sabaoth” (Romans 9:29; James 5:4).

Each choice gains something. “Hosts” keeps a traditional word that can include the heavenly court; “Armies” is plainer but more military; “Almighty” conveys the sense of power but loses the picture.

How Open Word Bible handles the name

Because readers hold strong and sincere views here, and because the choice changes the wording rather than the meaning, Open Word Bible treats the divine name as a reader setting (see Settings change wording, never meaning). In the Old Testament its drafts print “the LORD” by default, following long Jewish and Christian practice, and a reader can switch to “Yahweh” on the Old Testament pages. In the New Testament, where the Greek has kyrios, it writes “Lord,” and where a verse quotes an Old Testament passage containing the name, the sentence’s reasoning record notes the Hebrew behind it. Its Old Testament is translated from the Westminster Leningrad Codex, so the four letters are always visible in the source text shown beside each sentence. These drafts are AI-assisted and unreviewed until named human reviewers approve them.

Sources

  • American Standard Version. Preface. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1901.
  • Arinze, Francis, Cardinal. Letter to the Bishops’ Conferences on “The Name of God.” Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 29 June 2008.
  • BeDuhn, Jason David. Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament. Lanham: University Press of America, 2003.
  • Howard, George. “The Tetragram and the New Testament.” Journal of Biblical Literature 96 (1977): 63–83.
  • Metzger, Bruce M. The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.
  • New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (2013 revision). Appendix A4–A5 on the divine name. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
  • Revised Standard Version. Preface. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1952.
  • Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012.
  • World English Bible. Preface. eBible.org.
  • Bible quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain), except where the article quotes the King James Version or American Standard Version.