Many "names" have been given to the Creator of Heaven and Earth ... however, He has but one name and that is Yahweh; all others are not names but titles or descriptions ... and one, Jehovah, actually curses His character (see below).
Above, is the common way of saying Yahweh ... however, I have another way of pronouncing it because of my grandfather, on my mother's side, who came to America from Syria:
According to Merriam-Webster, Lord is a reference to Yahweh, as it is to Christ Jesus ... obviously, this isn't the Father's name. In fact, Baal translates into English as Lord ... and in Jeremiah 23:26-27, Yahweh speaks of those who have forgotten His Name for Baal. Further, Merriam-Webster clearly shows that God, though often used to refer to the Father, may have many other connotations as well. And Yahweh's First Commandment makes it clear enough that He doesn't want us having any misconceptions about such things; this is a commandment -- not just a suggestion.
There are many elohim, there are all sorts of lords and gods, adonai means sovereign, el means mighty and elohim is a plural reference meaning mighty ones. Greek interpretors also replaced the Father's Name with the terms Theos and Kurios ... but theos means deity and kurios means sovereign. None of these honor His Name.
Considering how He commands us to honor His name, publish His name, glorify His name -- the list goes on and on -- I can't imagine why the scholars who interpreted the original Hebrew or Greek Scriptures into English would remove His name ... but there you have it; they did.
The Encyclopedia Britannica states:
"Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, revealed his name to Moses as four Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called The Tetragrammaton. After the exile (6th Century B.C.), and especially from the 3rd Century B.C. on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun elohim, meaning "god," tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered; it was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai ("My Lord"), which was translated as Kyrios ("Lord") in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament."
The New International Version of the Bible, in its preface, reads "In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that name as "Lord"... " -- noting the fact that most all English translations of the Bible have indeed replaced Yahweh (or YHWH - ) with the Lord.
And finally, there's the all-popular Jehovah that we've all heard used. How and when did this name come into existence?
The Encyclopedia Brittanica states:
"The Masoretes, who from about the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of the Hebrew word Adonai or Elohim. Thus the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) came into being."
Even Merriam-Webster clearly points the name Jehovah to its origin of Yahweh. However, since there are no J's in the Hebrew alphabet, Jehovah is obviously a man-made attempt to Americanize Yah-Hovah ... and my problem with this is that Jehovah means Yahweh is ruin, disaster, misfortune and mischief! Even Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible blindly follows this error; if you look up "Jehovah" it will mistakenly tell you that this is the name of the Father while further revealing, through a more diligent study, that Yah refers to Yahweh ... while Hovah, as can be seen via reference number 01943, means ruin, disaster, misfortune and mischief. Therefore, Jehovah means Yahweh is ruin, disaster, misfortune and mischief! Need I say more?
Now, please don't misunderstand my intentions! The Bible tells us that the Father listens to our hearts and I believe that when we pray to "God" or cry out to "the Lord" or even to "Jehovah," he knows by our hearts that we are praying to Him. I'm certainly not trying to heap condemnation on anyone with these notes ... I'm only attempting to remind us of the Truth found through His Word: The Father has a name ... he commands us to honor His name ... His name is not God ... it's not Lord ... and it's not Jehovah ... it's Yahweh. So ... all I'm saying is, why not obey Him -- why not honor Him -- and use His true name?
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Yahweh (English)
