The History Of God’s (Elohim’s) Name

Published August 13, 2024 at 7:16 PM

Significant edits made June 12, 2025 concerning the origins of “Yahweh” and “Jehovah”

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In conjunction with the article that covers a list of God’s (Elohim’s) names, this article will go over the history of God’s (Elohim’s) name YHWH. His name was once proclaimed by all of Israel (Yashar’El), now we replace it with “The LORD”. Others have tried to bring His name back, but have mis-transliterated it (i.e. Jehovah). We will go back to Paleo-Hebrew, then work towards Modern-Hebrew, showing how Hebrew changed, and how God’s (Elohim’s) name was seemingly forgotten.

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PALEO HEBREW (~1000 BC)

There is a consensus agreement that God’s (Elohim’s) name is spelled YHWH (the Tetragrammaton). Below is how the Tetragrammaton was written in Paleo-Hebrew:

NOTE: Hebrew is read from right to left (instead of how we read English from left to right)

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The Paleo-Hebrew pronunciation of YHWH is Yahuah

The letters of YHWH are pronounced “yod”, “hey”, “waw”, and “hey”. Based on our understanding of ancient Semitic languages (which have similar alphabets and roots), this is how YHWH is vocalized:

Y – yod – makes the “y” sound

H – hey – makes the “ah” sound

W – waw – makes the “oo” or “uu” sound

H – hey – makes the “ah” sound

Putting this together, you get Y-ah-oo-ah or YAHUAH.

You may ask where “Yahweh” comes from, and we’ll get to that later in the article. The short answer is that the pronunciation of God’s (Elohim’s) name was no longer mainstream, due to the Ineffable Name Doctrine. “Yahweh” was an attempt by scholars to vocalize YHWH, and we disagree with it because it removes the “ah” from the end of God’s (Elohim’s) name (which is synonymous with breath).

Moreover, those who claim that God’s (Elohim’s) name is “Yahawah”, “Yahauah” or “YaHuWaH” are offering different pronunciations and spellings that are similar to “Yahuah”. I believe that “Yahuah” is the most straightforward transliteration of YHWH, but I would not be surprised if one of those variants is more accurate.

Moreover, “Jehovah” is inaccurate because it anglicizes YHWH (sometimes written YHVH). Jehovah stems from “Yahowah” (or something similar to this), and incorporates the letter J into the Tetragrammaton. We know that this is not a correct vocalization of YHWH beause the letter J is about 500 years old, and is not present in Paleo-Hebrew. The letters I and J are often used in English to represent the Hebrew Y, and we see this in the name Jesus. Yahusha is his Hebrew name, but it was transliterated as Iesous in Greek and Iesus in Latin, leading to Jesus in modern English. The Messiah’s name is nevertheless still Yahusha, just as God’s (Elohim’s) name is still YAHUAH; His name shouldn’t change to be adapted to a language.

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YHWH points us to Jesus’ (Yahusha’s) Crucifixion

Something special that I want to point out about the name YHWH is that it points us to Jesus’ (Yahusha’s) crucifixion. Above the four letters of the Tetragrammaton are pictographs that also have meanings. Here are their meanings:

Yod – arm and hand/work

Hey – behold

Waw – nail/peg

Hey – behold

YHWH’s pictograph roughly comes out to “hand, behold, nail, behold”. You can also read it as “Behold the hand, behold the nail”. This points us toward the crucifixion, as we know Jesus ‘(Yahusha’s) hands and feet were nailed to the cross. We are told twice to behold (pay attention), showing the importance of the finished work of the cross.

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THE SWITCH TO ARAMAIC HEBREW (~600 BC)

You likely noticed that the Hebrew above looks nothing like the Hebrew in use today. This is because the Hebrew language likely changed around the time of the Exile. Influenced by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, the Jews (Yahudim) began to implement an Aramaic writing script. This script looked something like this:

NOTE: The Samaritans did not change their script, so their language is a descendant of Paleo-Hebrew.

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This script is a lot closer to what Hebrew looks like today. The Aramaic Script (which later became the Square Script) replaced Paleo-Hebrew as the writing script that was used by the Jews (Yahudim). Most surviving Old Testament manuscripts are written in the Aramaic Script, though we do have the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls that have Bible content written in Paleo-Hebrew.

Furthermore, the Jews (Yahudim) still wrote YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew. If you pay attention to the images above, you’ll see that YHWH was written in Paleo-Hebrew, while everything else is in the Aramaic Script. His name wouldn’t be converted to the modern script until much later, and it is debated when this was done. (NOTE: when writing in Greek, they used “Kyrios” or “Theos” to refer to YHWH, instead of the Tetragrammaton).

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DOWNFALL OF SPOKEN HEBREW (~600 BC – 200 AD)

Around the same time that the Jews (Yahudim) switched to the Aramaic script and were Hellenized by the Greeks, they also began implementing practices that led to the decline of the Hebrew language.

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A Number Of Jews (Yahudim) Stopped Saying And Writing YHWH (~600 BC onward)

YHWH went from being proclaimed openly, to being a sacred name that had restrictions on it. People began to refer to Him as “Adonai”, using it as a substitution for saying His name. One belief is that this was done to stop the Assyrians and Babylonians from profaning His name, as they were in Exile/under oppression and wanted to protect God’s (Elohim’s) holy name. Another theory is that the priests and scribes simply treated His name with so much reverence that they believed that God’s (Elohim’s) name was too holy to be spoken casually. Regardless of the reason, the point I want to make is that if enough generations go by without hearing His name, it is not far-fetched to believe that it will be “forgotten” (not widely known and proclaimed).

In other words, Jews (Yahudim) began practicing the Ineffable Name Doctrine (in some format, even if it was meant to be temporary). Christians practice the Ineffable Name Doctrine Doctrine today when we replace YHWH with “The LORD” in our Bibles.

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As an aside, scholars assert that the Masoretes did not pronounce the name YHWH, which makes me wonder if they descended from Edomites, or from the 12 tribes of Israel (Yashar’El). This may not seem important, but the issue of Edom deserves its own article, which I will work on if The Holy Spirit (Ruach Ha’Qodesh) leads me.

HELLENIZATION (~300 BC onward)

Jews (Yahudim) during this time primarily spoke Greek and Aramaic, as many of the Hellenized Jews (Yahudim) did not teach their children how to speak Hebrew. Aramaic was already the language of the Near East, and Hellenization caused many Jews (Yahudim) to assimilate into Greek culture. God’s (Elohim’s) name was not transliterated into Greek, as the Jews (Yahudim) referred to Him as “Kyrios”, which is the Greek word for “Lord”. Most notably, Kyrios is used in place of YHWH in the New Testament (though it can be argued that YHWH was used by the Apocrypha and NT authors, but that it was intentionally replaced with Kyrios by the scribes who produced the manuscripts we have). Regardless of how it exactly happened, the Ineffable Name Doctrine lived on, further causing the downfall of the use of God’s (Elohim’s) name YHWH.

The events surrounding the Jewish-Roman Wars only served to make things worse; Jews (Yahudim) were massacred in large numbers and scattered. The number of Hebrew speakers continued to decline, and those who knew the language no longer dwelled in Judah (Yahudah).

Moreover, the prominent families of Jews (who were aligned with Rome and were likely Edomites, Hellenized or both) began to treat Hebrew as a liturgical language. They used it for religious purposes, but Greek was more prominent as a spoken language. So with Hebrew declining as a spoken language, it should be clear that YHWH’s name wasn’t being proclaimed.

Many who spoke Hebrew “vanished” from the pages of mainstream history and were scattered across the nations, as God (Elohim) promised; read Deuteronomy 28.

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THE MASORETES ADD VOWEL POINTS (6th – 10th Century AD)

While the Jewish (Yahudim) diaspora was scattered, the Masoretes helped preserve a form of the Hebrew language. Most people know that the Masoretes are the ones behind the Masoretic Text, which is the Old Testament in our Bibles today. However, what they don’t know is that the Masoretes added vowel points to the Hebrew language.

Hebrew doesn’t have vowels in the traditional sense, so these vowel points were used to help people pronounce Hebrew words. Below is an example of Hebrew with vowel points

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MODERN HEBREW & YAHWEH (18th Century AD – Present)

With everything laid out, we can finally talk about Modern Hebrew and how we got “Yahweh”. The Masoretes preserved a version of the Hebrew language, but Hebrew wasn’t revived as a commonly spoken language until the late 19th Century (and it goes without saying that this Hebrew differs from what was spoken by the ancient Hebrews).

Around this time, scholars also embarked on the task of transliterating YHWH, using Hebrew words, names, and Biblical adjacent texts as clues.

The transliteration they came up with was Yahweh, and this is now the consensus transliteration of YHWH in Modern Hebrew. However, there is reason to doubt this transliteration. I believe that Yahweh gets the “Yah” part correct, but mistranslates the end of God’s (Elohim’s) name, as briefly discussed earlier.

“Waw” is translated as making a “w” sound in “Yahweh”, but in Semitic languages (such as Phonecian, Aramaic, and Arabic), “waw” is frequently pronounced with an “oo”/”uu” sound. Paleo-Hebrew is related to those languages, so the Paleo-Hebrew “waw” also likely made that sound (and even in Modern-Hebrew, “waw” can function as a vowel that makes the o or u sound).

Focusing on Arabic, they are known for calling their God “Allah”, but not many people know about the phrase “Ya Huwa”. It means “O! He” or “O! HE is”, with “He” being God (Elohim). Ya Huwa is undoubtedly similar to Yahuah, and the existance of this phrase points to both the influence the Jews (Yahudim) had in Arabia (post-exile) and the fact that there was a time that they knew about YHWH, before Muhammad introduced Islam to them (which led them away from YHWH).

Additionally, we can look to Hebrew names to support the “oo”/”uu” sound theory for YHWH/YAHUAH:

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Hebrew Names Point To Yahuah Being God’s (Elohim’s) Name

A simple argument in favor of Yahuah is that most Hebrew names include the root “Yahu”, which is a way of incorporating YHWH into Hebrew names. Elijah in Hebrew is “Eliyahu”, while Josiah is “Yoshiyahu”. Similarly, Jeremiah is “Yirmeyahu”, while Isaiah is “Yeshayahu”. The root “Yahu” is present in a large number of Hebrew names, which points to Yahuah being more accurate than Yahweh.

Smoking Gun: Judah’s Hebrew name

The smoking gun case for Yahuah is found when analyzing Judah’s name in Hebrew. Transliterating the Hebrew letters of Judah gives us “YHWDH”. If this looks familiar, it is because Judah/YHWDH is God (Elohim)’s name “YHWH”, but with an extra letter that makes a “d” sound. And for those who are wondering, “YHWDH” is pronounced Yahudah (sometimes spelled Yehudah). Removing the extra letter from YHWDH/Yahudah gives us YHWH/Yahuah.

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CONCLUSION

This was a lot of history condensed into one article, so I pray I didn’t lose you with what I was saying. The point I was trying to hammer in is that Hebrew changed a lot over time, and that the Jews stopped proclaiming God’s (Elohim’s) name. Modern scholars have attempted to reconstruct it, and while Yahweh gets the first part correct, I believe that Yahuah is more accurate. This is based on what we know about other Hebrew names, while also using other Semitic languages with similar alphabets to Hebrew. If this is a topic that you are serious about, and truly want to use God’s (Elohim’s) original name, pray that He gives you wisdom in this area and reveals His name to you.

Thank you for reading, and always remember to stay vigilant!