The NAME

Have you ever wondered why the Bible capitalizes all the letters in GOD or LORD? For instance, Psalm 29.1 "Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength."

The original Hebrew for the word here is not the actual word for Lord (adonai) or God (elohim) but rather the actual name of the Israelite God - Yahweh.

Some may be familiar with the traditional name "Jehovah" which is a combination of the consonants of YHWH and the vowels of adonai - thus Yahowah - the "J" and the "V" arose during the 1500s in a German translation of the Bible.

If the original Hebrew text includes God's actual name why do we not have it in our Bibles?

During the late part of the first millennia B.C. the Jews stopped using the actual name of God. They did this either out of a fear of taking "Yahweh's name in vain" - a rather typical human practice of allowing the pendulum to swing to extremes - or to highlight that Yahweh was not simply the local Jewish God but that he was the God of the entire world.

Respecting the Jewish perspective on this issue, translations of the Hebrew Bible substituted the LORD (adonai) for Yahweh and when the original text read "the Lord (adonai) Yahweh" they recorded it as "the Lord GOD."

I borrow from John Goldingay here, who notes that there are distinct disadvantages to the practice of avoiding the use of Yahweh.

First, there is tremendous power in a name; names open the door to relationship and names allow access. We are distanced from God in many ways by not using his name. Think of the amazing difference in level of connectedness you have with people whose names you know vs. those you do not.

Second, like the name Jesus (which means "savior"), the name Yahweh connotes immense power. It means I am who I am / I will be who I will be / I will be with you (Ex 3.14ff). There is incredible significance in connecting God's saving activity in the world with his name.

Back to Psalm 29 - this may have been originally a Canaanite hymn of praise to Ba'al, as we have a text that is almost verbatim to this, with Ba'al replaced for Yahweh. The potency of this passage is limited if we miss what Israel was doing in this hymn.

By replacing Ba'al with Yahweh, they were challenging the cultural presuppositions of the day - that Ba'al was the god in control of the rain that brought life to all people. They were saying, "Nice music, but you have the wrong words." It is our God, Yahweh, who is really in charge, who is really in control.

So what's in a name? A whole lot more than it may first appear.