GOD’s Name!
What
is GOD’s Name?
Exodus 3:13-15 “Then Moses said to
GOD, ‘Indeed, when I come to the Children of Israel and say to them, “The GOD
of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is His Name?”
what shall I say to them?’ GOD said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM!’ and He said, ‘Thus
you shall say to the Children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you!” Moreover
GOD said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Children of Israel: “JEHOVAH GOD
of your fathers, The GOD of Abraham, The GOD of Issac and The GOD of Jacob, has
sent me to you. This is My Name Eternally and this is My Memorial to all
generations.”’” (Exodus 6:1-8***; Psalm 30:4, 97:12, 102:12-15, 135:1, 13)
GOD tells Moses “This is My Name, יהוה (YHWH)*…My Memorial Name”
what does that mean, My Memorial Name? A memorial is something that establishes
memory of a person or event. For the
Hebrew people GOD was revealing His Memorial Name to remind them that He freed
them from slavery in Egypt and gave them the land that He had promised Abraham by
Covenant. For Christians He gave us The Name that is above all names, the only
Name by which humanity can be Saved – JESUS**, His only begotten Son! (Acts
4:12; Philippians 2:9-11; Hebrews 1:1-4)
Should we use GOD’s Name? Yes! He
tells us this is His Name that He is to be remembered by and not misused. (Exodus
9:13-16, 20:7)
Why? Because GOD gave us His Name,
if He did not want us to call upon Him by Name why would He give us His Name?
If He just wanted to be known as GOD, He would have told us to call Him GOD or
LORD or Sovereign. As
Born Again Christians we say JESUS’ Name more than calling Him LORD, so shouldn’t we call our
Heavenly Father by His Name JEHOVAH.
Why not? We could be like the Hebrew people
who were so afraid of misusing GOD’s name that they stopped writing and saying
it, now it is lost to Humanity and all we have is a best guess based on four
letters, YHWH.
For a period of time in the early
2010’s I understood that LORD
was not GOD’s Name and I started using JEHOVAH and YAHWEH in my prayers and
writings, but I could not make up my mind and reverted to LORD. Earlier this year as I
was studying I remembered GOD’s Memorial Name JEHOVAH and now I am working on
using it in my prayers, worship and writings. How you call upon The True and
Living GOD is between you and GOD, יהוה is His Name.
* Some believe that GOD’s Name has
been lost since 70AD, all we have are the 4 consonants with no vowels and no
proper pronunciation, it is transliterated as YƏhōwā or YƏhōvah of which the Latinization is
JEHOVAH.
Almost every time you see the word
Lord, Lord’s , or Lords in The Law (First
five books) it is actually JEHOVAH (only 69**** times is another word
translated Lord or Lord’s, there are only three other words translated Lord ,
Lord’s or Lords in The Law (’âdôwn or ’âdôn [used 49 times]; ’Ădônây [used 19
times]; gebîyr
[used 1 time] and ba‛al from bâ‛al [used 1 time]). In the Book of Leviticus
JEHOVAH is the only word translated LORD. What that means is that almost every time you read the word LORD in the Law, you are
actually reading GOD’s Name JEHOVAH.
** JESUS Iēsŏus is a
transliteration of the Hebrew Yehôwshûwa‛ or Yehôwshû‛a meaning “JEHOVAH is Salvation.” LORD in The Gospels is most
often kuriŏs meaning Supremacy or Supreme in Authority; kuriakŏs is translated
LORD’s, used most often
for JEHOVAH and JESUS; it is from kuriŏs. Three other words were used once each
in The Gospels and translated Lord, Lord’s or Lords, dĕsŏptēs; rhabbŏni or
rhabbŏuni; and mĕgistanĕs.
I am not sure, I think during the
translation to the King James Version, they stopped using GOD’s Name JEHOVAH
and replaced it with LORD.
LORD is a title (JEHOVAH
is The LORD of the
universe, JESUS is The LORD
of Lords), but LORD is
not their Name!
Some translate YHWH as YAHWEH and
since none of us know for sure it is up to us as we seek and serve GOD to
determine how we will call His Name.
*** An interesting note, from
creation to Moses GOD did not reveal His Name. As Moses was introduced to
JEHOVAH GOD and GOD required him to write the history of creation and those who
knew Him as GOD, he inserted GOD’s Name, but apparently none of the people he
was writing about actually knew GOD’s Name.
**** These numbers might be off by
one or two; I did not even try to count how many times JEHOVAH is used in The
Law or Supreme in Authority is used in The Gospels.
Bibliography:
Holy Bible New King James Version,
Thomas Nelson
The Scriptures, Institute For
Scripture Research
Stong’s Exhaustive Concordance Of
The Bible with Hebrew Chaldee and Greek Dictionaries, MacDonald Publishing
Company
Vines Concise Dictionary of The Bible,
Thomas Nelson
Oxford American Desk Dictionary,
Oxford University Press
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