Have you ever heard someone explain a Bible word with such confidence that, by the time he finished, you wondered whether you could trust what you had been reading? Perhaps you had understood the passage plainly enough. Then came the language terms and statements such as, “The translators got it wrong,” “A better translation would say…” or “It really should have been rendered this way.” I have heard expressions like these from Bible critics, scholars, and even pastors. When they are used to call the wording of Scripture into question, you can leave with a doubt you did not have when you opened your Bible.
That can happen when the name Jehovah comes up. Someone says that the name should be Yahweh, that Jehovah resulted from a misunderstanding of Hebrew vowels, and that its presence in the King James Bible proves an error. To a person who takes Scripture seriously, that is no small accusation. If every word of God matters, then we ought to care about the answer.
I believe that God has preserved His word and that we have His preserved word in English today in the Authorized King James Bible. That conviction rests upon the faithfulness of the God who gave it. When Jesus spoke of the things that would come to pass, He said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). We ought to believe Him. If God has kept His word, then preservation must mean something for the person who opens a Bible today. I believe His word remains available for us to read, believe, and obey.
Whatever Bible you presently use, you should take God’s faithfulness seriously. A Christian should not be taught to live in permanent uncertainty about whether he has God’s word. If you lack confidence in the Bible you are reading, that concern deserves an honest examination. What has troubled you? Is there something in the passage you have not understood, an apparent contradiction that needs to be examined in context, or a claim you have accepted because someone spoke with authority? Pray for understanding, compare Scripture with Scripture, and work through the actual question. Faith in God gives us reason to seek a sound answer.
We will consider preservation more fully as this series develops, including the question of where God’s complete word is available today. For now, that confidence should guide how we approach the Jehovah controversy. We can hear the argument carefully, examine its evidence, and distinguish what someone has demonstrated from what he asks us to conclude. We do not have to surrender our confidence in God’s faithfulness simply because a language question has been raised.
The first thing we need to understand is that a disagreement about the ancient pronunciation of a name does not, by itself, prove that an established English rendering has corrupted Scripture. Those are different questions. Unless we recognize the difference, we can spend a great deal of time answering one while assuming we have settled the other.
In discussions of the Hebrew Old Testament, you will often see God’s name represented by four letters: YHWH. These stand for the Hebrew consonants of the name. The familiar argument concerns which vowel sounds belong with those consonants and how the name was spoken in ancient times. It also involves the practice of reading a substitute title aloud when the divine name appeared in the written text.
The substitute title is Adonai, meaning Lord. Adonai also occurs as a word actually written in the Hebrew Scriptures, as in Genesis 15:2. The practice we are discussing is its use when a different word, the divine name, stands in the text. The reader sees the name and says the title instead. We need to distinguish the written word from the spoken substitute. 4
The usual scholarly explanation is that vowel marks associated with this substitute reading were placed with the consonants of the divine name to guide the reader toward Adonai. On this understanding, reading those marks together with the written consonants as though they supplied the name’s own pronunciation produces the form behind Jehovah. This explanation appears in Hebrew grammars and deserves to be represented accurately when we discuss it. 1
A reading tradition can help us understand how people handled a text. Its existence alone does not establish a command from God requiring every English translation to follow it. Nor does knowing the substitute word tell us exactly how the divine name was originally pronounced. Those conclusions require more than identifying the practice.
Scholars who favor Yahweh also appeal to forms of the name reported by early Christian writers, including Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanius, and Theodoret. These are statements in writings outside the Bible, rather than readings from Byzantine or Alexandrian New Testament manuscripts. Scholars consider these reports alongside Hebrew names containing shortened forms of the divine name as they attempt to reconstruct its ancient pronunciation. The sources and the conclusions drawn from them need to be examined separately. 2
These writers did not all approach Scripture in the same way. Their beliefs and methods deserve an honest examination, especially where those methods shape the claim being made. We should ask what each man actually wrote, where his information came from, and whether he was reporting a pronunciation or offering an interpretation. An early date or a respected name does not make a statement infallible. At the same time, a mistaken interpretation elsewhere does not automatically make every historical report false. We will look at these differences in the next article. A lexicon is a reference work that explains words and their uses. Its conclusions must be weighed by the evidence behind them; citing the book does not settle the question.
We can understand that argument without accepting every conclusion attached to it. Even if a proposed pronunciation were shown to represent ancient Hebrew speech more closely, another question would remain: what makes a faithful English form of that name? English names do not have to reproduce every sound of the language from which they came in order to identify the person intended. We recognize that distinction in ordinary language. It deserves consideration here as well.
Jehovah belongs to an established English Bible tradition. Tyndale’s Exodus, for example, contains the spelling Iehouah in Exodus 6:3. The KJB translators inherited an English rendering already in use. 3 We will examine that history more closely in the next article. For now, notice the point: the question involves an English rendering with a history, as well as a scholarly discussion about ancient speech.
That history deserves examination, but we must also open the Bible and read the passages being discussed. Otherwise, we can become so occupied with what people say about a word that we barely consider what God says through the passage containing it.
Consider Exodus 6. At the end of the previous chapter, Moses had returned to the LORD with a difficult question. Since he had spoken to Pharaoh, the people had suffered, and their deliverance had not yet come (Exodus 5:22-23). The LORD answered by declaring what He would do to Pharaoh. Then God said to Moses:
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. (Exodus 6:3)
Keep reading. God spoke of the covenant He had established, the land He had promised, and the groaning He had heard. Verse 5 says:
And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. (Exodus 6:5)
Here is the God who hears. Here is the God who remembers His covenant. Israel’s bondage had not erased His promise, and Pharaoh’s resistance had not placed the outcome beyond His power. God was declaring His identity in a passage filled with His own commitments to His people.
In verse 6, He promised to bring them out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, rid them of their bondage, and redeem them with a stretched out arm and great judgments. In verse 7, He promised to take them for His people and be their God. In verse 8, He promised to bring them into the land He had sworn to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 6:6-8).
These were particular promises to Israel. We should read them in that setting and let the passage teach us about the faithfulness and power of the God who made them. He identified Himself, remembered His covenant, and declared what He would accomplish. The name stands within that revelation.
Now consider what the pronunciation argument has changed in those statements. Has it shown that the KJB identifies a different God? Has it shown that God did not hear Israel’s groaning? Has it removed His covenant, changed the people He addressed, or overturned His promises of deliverance? A preference for Yahweh does not establish any of those things. It concerns how the divine name is represented and pronounced. The larger accusation that we have lost the truth of this passage requires far more than that preference.
This does not make the name unimportant. We honor the name by attending to what God reveals about Himself. If we spend all our attention debating its sounds and leave the passage without considering His faithfulness, we have allowed the discussion to crowd out something the Scripture plainly places before us.
Psalm 83 brings the matter before us in another setting. The psalm describes enemies taking counsel against God’s people and seeking to cut Israel off from being a nation. It appeals to God to act against them and bring them to acknowledge Him (Psalm 83:1-17). Its closing verse says:
That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth. (Psalm 83:18)
The declaration is plain. Jehovah is the most high over all the earth. The nations are accountable to Him. Their united counsel does not place them above Him. The psalm calls for an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the God against whom they have gathered.
A reader can understand that declaration in English. He can recognize its authority and respond with reverence. He does not need to settle every scholarly question about ancient vowels before he can know what the verse says about God. Nor does the use of Jehovah leave him wondering which God the psalm identifies. The passage itself supplies the setting and the declaration.
Different wording can express the same truth, but genuinely contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense and setting. If a passage appears to contradict another, we ought to examine its context and compare what Scripture actually says before deciding where the problem lies. We should neither dismiss a real conflict nor mistake a difference in expression for one. The question deserves careful attention because God’s truth matters.
In this particular dispute, the preference for Yahweh over Jehovah does not overturn the truth that the God named in Psalm 83:18 is the most high over all the earth. Someone who objects to the pronunciation has not thereby demonstrated that this declaration is false. We must not let a claim about pronunciation grow into an accusation that its evidence has not established.
There is also a responsibility on our side of the discussion. We should answer accurately and speak fairly. A person who uses Yahweh may sincerely desire to honor God and understand the Bible. His choice of that form does not tell us everything about his faith, his motives, or his treatment of Scripture. We can examine his reasoning without pretending to know his heart.
At the same time, sincerity and learning do not give anyone the right to demand a conclusion he has not demonstrated. Anyone who undertakes to translate or explain Scripture has a responsibility before God that reaches beyond his knowledge of languages. His reverence for God’s word and willingness to submit to it matter. That responsibility belongs to pastors and readers as well as scholars, and we will consider it more fully in this series.
When someone says that Jehovah proves your Bible is wrong, it is reasonable to ask what he means by wrong. Is he discussing a proposed ancient pronunciation? Is he objecting to an English naming convention? Or is he claiming that the passage teaches something false? Clear questions help us understand where the actual disagreement lies.
The ordinary believer does not need to become a language specialist before he can begin receiving what God has said. He can study carefully, listen thoughtfully, and still keep the Scriptures before him as his authority. I do not believe God has left His people with a Bible they must continually distrust until someone else grants them permission to believe it. We have His word, and we ought to give ourselves to understanding and obeying it.
Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). That reaches beyond our willingness to defend the Bible. It calls us to live by it. We may speak strongly about its authority and still fail to receive the instruction it gives us today.
So take time to read Exodus 6:2-8 and Psalm 83 for yourself. Ask what God declares about Himself, what He promises in the passage, and what response His truth calls for. Pray with the psalmist, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalm 119:18). Give the text your attention. Let its truth reach beyond the argument and into your own thinking and conduct.
A disagreement among scholars about ancient pronunciation is not proof that God has failed to preserve His word. We can examine the question honestly while continuing to trust the Bible He has given us. And as we examine it, we should remember that the God whose name we are discussing is the God before whom we live.
In the next article, we will look more closely at how Jehovah came into our English Bible heritage and why the men who used it deserve to be heard accurately. Until then, we already have something to do with the Scriptures before us: believe what God says, reverence the One who says it, and respond in obedience.
Historical and language notes
- Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, sections 17 and 102, documents the scholarly explanation of the written name, substitute reading, and associated vowel pointing being examined here. The linked text is the later edition edited by E. Kautzsch and translated by A. E. Cowley; not every statement in that edition can be assigned personally to Gesenius. Its use here identifies the argument under review, rather than making the grammar an authority over Scripture. Section 17; section 102.
- The collection Yahweh Notes contains excerpts from several reference works. Its first page reproduces page 522 of the Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, edited by Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann; the entry is signed E. Jenni. Its ninth PDF page reproduces a discussion from the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible that identifies Clement, Stromata 5.6.34.5; Epiphanius, Panarion 40.5; and Theodoret, Questions on Exodus 15 and Compendium of Heretical Fables 5.3. These are references to writings outside Scripture. Clement’s passage can also be read directly in the available English translation; his discussion places the name within an allegorical treatment of the tabernacle. The references for Epiphanius and Theodoret identify sources for further examination, not independently verified quotations in this article. The writers’ differing beliefs and methods, and the limits of their testimony, belong to the historical examination in article two. Reference-work excerpts; Clement, Stromata, Book V, chapter 6.
- William Tyndale, Exodus 6:3, in the available transcription of his translation, uses Iehouah. This citation establishes the presence of the form in that passage; it does not assert that every earlier English Bible used it in the same way. Tyndale’s Exodus, chapter 6.
- Genesis 15:2 contains Adonai followed by YHWH in Hebrew; the KJB renders the expression Lord GOD. This illustrates Adonai as a written biblical title. Its use as a substitute reading is a separate matter, documented in the Jewish discussion in Pesachim 50a. That discussion is cited as historical evidence, not as scriptural authority. Hebrew text, Genesis 15:2; Pesachim 50a.