Lexicon

H3068 - YHWH

Strong's: H3068 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: yeh-ho-vaw' (Masoretic vowel pointing), original pronunciation lost; scholarly reconstruction: Yahweh. Part of speech: proper noun referring to deity (the Tetragrammaton, "four letters") Root: related to / derived from H1961 - hayah ("to be"); see Exodus 3.14 for the etymological self-disclosure.

Frequency & rendering

The most common divine name in the Hebrew Bible, 6,519 occurrences (per Strong's). Almost universally rendered:

the LORD (small caps) in English Christian translations (KJV, NASB95, ESV, NIV), convention preserved from the LXX (κύριος, kyrios) and the Vulgate (Dominus).
GOD (small caps) when juxtaposed with Adonai (אֲדֹנָי) to avoid the redundancy "Lord LORD."
Jehovah, historic English transliteration, now generally regarded as a hybrid of YHWH consonants with Adonai vowels (the Masoretic qere perpetuum).
Yahweh, modern scholarly reconstruction.
HASHEM ("the Name"), traditional Jewish substitute.
ADONAI, Jewish reading-tradition substitute (avoids vocalizing the Tetragrammaton).

Semantic / theological range

The proper personal name of the God of Israel, distinct from generic elohim (H0430 - elohim) and from the title Adonai (lord/master).
Covenant name, the name par excellence under which YHWH binds Himself to Israel (Exodus 6:2-8; Deuteronomy 7:9).
Self-existence / eternality, by etymological connection to hayah: "He IS / He will be / He is the One who is."
Holy and unutterable, Jewish post-exilic tradition treats the name as too holy to pronounce; the qere/ketiv convention reads Adonai aloud.

Theological force

Three claims converge in the name:

Aseity / self-existence. The connection to hayah (see Exodus 3.14) means YHWH names the only being whose existence is intrinsic, not derived. All else is contingent; YHWH alone is in the absolute sense.
Covenantal presence. YHWH is not a generic deity but the One who entered covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12), revealed His name to Moses (Exodus 3, 6), and bound Himself to Israel. The name carries covenant-faithfulness (hesed).
Personal name vs generic title. In a polytheistic ancient near-eastern context, every god had a proper name. Elohim is a generic category ("god" or "gods"); YHWH is which God specifically.

The NT writers identify Jesus with YHWH through programmatic citation: OT YHWH passages are applied to Christ, and Jesus's egō eimi sayings (John 8:24, 58; 13:19; 18:5-6) self-identify with the LXX rendering of ehyeh / YHWH (cf. H1961 - hayah). Romans 10.13 applies Joel 2:32 ("everyone who calls on the name of YHWH will be saved") directly to Jesus.

Notable verses

Revelation of the name

Exodus 3.14-15, ehyeh asher ehyeh, then YHWH given as the third-person form
Exodus 6:2-3, "I am YHWH; I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My name YHWH I was not known to them"
Deuteronomy 6:4, Shema: "YHWH our God, YHWH is one"

Covenant context

Genesis 15:7, "I am YHWH who brought you out of Ur"
Exodus 20:2, "I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of Egypt"
Deuteronomy 7:9, "YHWH your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant"

Holiness / uniqueness

Isaiah 42:8, "I am YHWH, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another"
Isaiah 45:5, "I am YHWH, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God"
Joel 2:32, "everyone who calls on the name of YHWH will be saved" (cited of Christ in Romans 10.13)

Identifications applied to Christ in NT

Zechariah 12:10, "they will look on Me whom they have pierced" (YHWH speaking; applied to Christ in John 19:37)
Isaiah 6:1-10, Isaiah's vision of YHWH (applied to Christ in John 12:41)
Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of YHWH" (applied to John the Baptist preparing for Christ in Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3)
Psalm 102:25, applied to the Son in Hebrews 1:10-12

Patristic / scholarly note

The pre-Christian LXX rendering of YHWH as kyrios (G2962 - kyrios) is the linguistic foundation for the NT confession "Jesus is kyrios" (Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:11), confessing Jesus as YHWH. Tertullian (Against Praxeas 13-17, c. AD 213) and Athanasius both rely on this LXX equivalence to ground the deity of Christ from the OT. Modern scholarship (Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 2003; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 2008) develops the same point: NT Christology is grounded in the kyrios-YHWH identification.

The original pronunciation has been lost. The Masoretic Tetragrammaton is pointed with the vowels of Adonai (shewa + cholam + qamatz) as a reading instruction, not as the actual pronunciation. The hybrid "Jehovah" (J for Y, V for W) is a Latin-mediated artifact. Yahweh is the standard scholarly reconstruction based on Greek transliterations in early Christian sources (e.g., Clement of Alexandria's Ἰαουέ).

Verses in this codex

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