Different Names of God

   The following is an explanation in more detail of how the
name of God changes from the original word (YHWH) to “God”
or “Lord”. You will also notice that the original copy of the Old
Testament refers to God as “One,” the Creator of all matters. It is
mentioned in different ways with different names 10,077 times,
including YHWH, Yahweh, Elohim, Adon, Adonai, El, El
Shaddai, and El Eloah, which is the name closest to the Arabic
pronunciation of God today — “Allah”. The original New
Testament up to the 16th century never mentioned the Trinity
once, nor did Jesus or his apostles ever talk about it in any way.


   Psalms 105:1 states: “Give thanks to Yahweh. Call on his
name...” In the Bible, there are many different names given to the
One True God. The most frequently used names are YHWH,
usually rendered as Yahweh (ca. 6,800 times); Elohim (ca. 2,600
times); Adonai (ca. 439 times); and El (ca. 238 times). Most of the
other names are combinations of these names, like El Shaddai, El
Eloah, and Yahweh Elohim. The most commonly used names for
God in the Hebrew and Protestant bibles are Ha-Shem (meaning
“the name,” which is used in the modern Jewish Masoretic text
translations of the Tanach) and Jehovah (used in both Protestant
and Jewish translations). Both are names for God that only date
back to the Middle Ages and are not found in the ancient texts of
sacred scripture. 

   ADONAI: The word “adon” in Hebrew is translated to “lord”.
God’s name is Adonai, a form of the word “adon,” with an “ai”
ending. Adonai is used about 439 times in the Bible and can be
translated either as “lord” or “my lord”. Biblical scholars and
linguists, however, cannot agree on the meaning of the “ai” suffix
that has been added to “adon”. Some scholars have suggested it
indicates a plural of majesty. In most English translations, this
word is rendered as “Lord,” with the first letter capitalized and the
other letters lowercase. Those translations that have the word in
all capital letters, “LORD,” are instead indicating God’s covenant
name, “YHWH” (usually rendered “Yahweh”). The use of all
capital letters denotes the difference between the use of Adonai
and Yahweh. (Only the New Revised Standard Version translation
confuses the issue by rendering Adonai as both “Lord” and
“LORD”.)


   EL and ELOHIM: The word “El” is used for God about 238
times, while “Elohim” is used about 2,600 times. In the Bible,
Elohim has two distinct meanings. First, it is a plural form (“-im”
and “-ot” are the standard Hebrew plural endings) of the word
“god” in the Hebrew and Canaanite languages, which is rendered
“el” in the singular. (When the word “el” is used for the One True
God, it is always capitalized as “El”.) An example of the first
meaning used in the plural form can be found in Deuteronomy 5:7:
“You shall have no other false gods [Elohim] before me.” But the
most common use of Elohim is its second distinct meaning, when
it is used as a personal name for God or when referring to God as
the true God among false gods. Thus, it is used in Genesis 1:1: “In
the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth...” It also
appears in Joshua 24:19: “You cannot worship Yahweh for He is
a Holy God [Elohim]...” There is no explanation for why the plural 
form is used for the One True God (as it is in Genesis 1:1).
However, scholars from the times of the fathers of the Church
have suggested that the plural form suggests the mystery of the
Trinity, which was hidden in the Old Testament to be revealed in
the New Testament.


   YHWH: The four Hebrew consonants that comprise
“YHWH” are given in scripture as God’s holy covenant name, and
it is this form of His name that is the most frequently used in the
Bible (about 6,800 times). These four Hebrew characters (YHWH
= yod, hay, vav [v in Hebrew can also be rendered ‘w’ in English],
and hay) have been called the “tetragrammaton” or “tetragram,”
meaning “the four-letter word”. Biblical scholars do not know
how YHWH was originally pronounced, because its original
pronunciation, which was part of the sacred oral tradition of the
Jews, was lost when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70
A.D. Throughout history, God’s old covenant people treated
God’s name with great reverence, declaring it too holy to be
spoken aloud. Speaking God’s divine covenant name was
restricted to the priests worshipping in God’s temple in Jerusalem,
and so with the destruction of the temple, His holy covenant name
was no longer spoken, and the correct pronunciation of the name
was lost. The rendering of YHWH as “Yahweh” is a modern
conjecture (first suggested in the 16th century by biblical scholar
Gilbert Genebrard, professor of Hebrew at the College Royal in
Paris). It has been accepted by biblical scholars today as the most
likely rendering. You will find this rendering in the Catholic New
Jerusalem Bible translation. In other translations, following what
became the Jewish custom, YHWH is rendered as “LORD” (for
example, in the Catholic Revised Standard and New American
Bible translations, as well as in most Protestant Bible ​translations).
This became a custom from the time of the 3rd
century B.C., when the ancient Jewish scholars translated the
Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) into the Greek translation known
as the Septuagint. They replaced the sacred name YHWH with
“ho Kyrios” or “the Lord”. In the modern Jewish Tanach, YHWH
is rendered as “Hashem” (or “ha-Shem,” meaning in Hebrew, “the
name”) or as “Adoshem,” which is a contraction of Adonai and
ha-Shem.


   However there are many languages on the face of the earth
today and different people call the same God by different
adjectives. In some languages God is called Dios, Theo, Alohiem,
YHWH, Allah, Lord, etc. What ever name you chose, God is God,
and there is only one God. He is the Creator of the universe, and
the Master of the day of judgment, Who deserves to be adored and
worshiped.