Where the name comes from

In the Hebrew Bible, God's personal name is written with four letters, יהוה, transliterated YHWH. It appears nearly 7,000 times.

Over time, Jewish readers stopped pronouncing the name aloud out of reverence, saying Adonai (“my Lord”) in its place. When medieval scribes added vowel marks to the Hebrew text, they paired the vowels of Adonai with the consonants YHWH as a reminder to read it that way.

Christian scholars in the late Middle Ages read those letters and vowels together, producing forms like Iehouah. William Tyndale used it in his 1530 Pentateuch, and the King James Version kept it in a handful of verses. The American Standard Version of 1901 went further, using “Jehovah” throughout the Old Testament. That is the translation quoted on this page.

Most scholars today think the original pronunciation was closer to Yahweh. Many modern translations instead write “the Lord” in small capitals wherever the name appears.