Why God Has So Many Names
When the prophet Jonah, on a ship in the Mediterranean, was asked by his fellow travelers who he was, he answered: “I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9). From this passage, it is clear that the Hebrews referred to their God as both “God” (Hebrew, Elohim) and “the Lord” (Yahweh). Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, God is called Adonai (also translated as “Lord”);a El and Eloah (also rendered as “God”); Shaddai, traditionally translated as “the Almighty”; El Elyon, the “Upper God” or “Most High”; and Yahweh Elohim, the “Lord God”—to name just a few of God’s names (see the sidebar to this article, “From Adonai to Yahweh: A Glossary of God’s Names”).
Why does God have so many names? There are as many reasons as there are names.
Today, scholars attribute some of the different names to different biblical authors; indeed, two of the four major authorial strands that scholars believe are woven together in the Bible are identified by the name of God that they use: E, or the Elohist strand, uses the name Elohim; J, the Yahwist strand, employs Yahweh (in German, Jahweh). (The other two major strands are called P, the Priestly Code, and D, the Deuteronomist.) But enthusiasm for splitting apart these strands has led us to forget that there are many other literary, theological and historical reasons for using a variety of names for God in the Bible.
Consider this passage from the Book of Psalms:
It is for you, O Yahweh, that I wait,
it is you, O Adonai, my God [Elohim], who will answer.
(Psalm 38:15; Hebrews 38:16)
In two lines, we find three words for the Hebrew God. The names are not used simply for variety’s sake; instead the poet is trying to produce a cumulative effect. The repetition is meant to impress the listener, as in this passage from Isaiah:
For your Maker is your husband.
Lord of Hosts [Yahweh tseva’ot] is his name;
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the Whole Earth he is called.
(Isaiah 54:5)
This kind of repetitive parallelism is common in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible. When applied to the name of God, it creates a numinous atmosphere of majesty and awe. God is so mighty that it takes more than one name to capture his essence.
The various names also help to characterize God. The divine name Yahweh, the personal name of the Israelite God, is often used in reference to the history of the people of Israel. Yahweh is found in the stories of the Exodus from Egypt, the life of Moses and the revelation of the Law at Mt. Sinai. Yahweh is a stern, austere figure, prone to getting angry and meting out punishment. Elohim is the God of Genesis 1. He is the universal God, the Creator and the ruler of all Creation. Compared with Yahweh, he generally appears to be an intrinsically kindly god.
The myth of Adam and Eve and Paradise lost in Genesis 2 takes a mediating position: It uses both names, referring to God as Yahweh Elohim. By using the name Elohim, the narrator of Genesis 2 highlights this God’s role as creator of all humankind; the addition of the name Yahweh gives the story a more specifically Israelite cast, one that encourages readers to read the account as an allegory for Israel’s later history. The expulsion from the Garden, for example, comes to be interpreted as a precursor to the deportation of the Judahites from Israel in the sixth century B.C.E.
The story of God’s multiple names is further complicated by the fact that within the biblical era the name Yahweh came to be considered a particularly sacred name, one that should be used with caution or not at all. When and by whom a sacred taboo was placed on the name Yahweh to restrict its pronunciation remains unknown. In modern Judaism, the name Yahweh is not spoken. Presumably when scriptural passages were read aloud in ancient synagogues, the reader simply replaced Yahweh with Adonai (literally, “My Lord”) or some other word. In the second century B.C.E., when the Pentateuch was translated from Hebrew into Greek for the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Alexandria, the divine name Yahweh was replaced by kyrios, the Greek word for “the Lord.”
In the Hebrew Bible we can detect some awareness of this taboo. The name Yahweh was apparently deleted from many passages in Psalms 42 through 83 at a very early stage and replaced with Elohim.b This not only protected the writer and reader from any taboos surrounding the name Yahweh, it also gave these psalms a more universal message: They speak not just of the God of the Israelites, Yahweh, but of the universal creator God, Elohim. Elsewhere in the Bible, we find just the opposite happening. In the Book of Proverbs, for example, the name Elohim was almost completely eliminated, or so it seems. A stray Elohim overlooked by the editor can be found in the Book of Proverbs 25:2: “It is the glory of God [Elohim] to conceal things, but the glory of Kings to search things out.” Perhaps the scribes who introduced the name Yahweh wanted to give the text more of an Israelite flavor.
The Bible itself offers an explanation for God’s multiple names. In Exodus, God tells Moses, “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them” (Exodus 6:2–3). The biblical narrator clearly wanted to make sense of the two names, and so decided El Shaddai, traditionally translated as “God Almighty,” was an early name used in the Patriarchal period, and that Yahweh was used only from Moses’ time on. Modern historians generally reject the idea of two periods using two different divine names. Incidentally, the introduction of the divine name Yahweh through Moses, as explained in this passage from Exodus, is contradicted by a statement in Genesis, which explains that the name of Yahweh was introduced much earlier, during one of the earliest generations of human existence. In the days of Adam’s son Seth, Genesis 4:26 tells us, “the people began to invoke the name of Yahweh.”
Although this simplistic notion of an early name and a late one has been dismissed by modern scholars, the multiple names of the Bible do offer a glimpse of early Israel’s polytheistic beliefs. This is apparent in the song Moses sings beside the Reed Sea:
When the Most High [Elyon]
apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
Yahweh’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
(Deuteronomy 38:8–9)
Here the Most High and Yahweh are two different deities occupying two different levels of the pantheon. The Most High is the superior deity who is responsible for divvying up the nations; Yahweh and several unnamed lesser gods receive their individual portions from him. With the introduction of monotheism, the Most High and Yahweh were merged; they became just two of the many names for the same God. Thus, the Psalm 7:17 reads:
I will praise the Lord [Yahweh]
for his righteousness,
and sing a hymn to the name
of the Lord Most High [Yahweh Elyon].
Perhaps this hymn should have been dedicated to the names instead, for it includes two in this short passage.
Why does God have so many names? It’s no mistake. It’s not a case of sloppy editing. It’s because the multiple names best characterize the awesomely complex figure of God.
The glossary that follows is provided as a handy reference to God’s many names.
From Adonai to Yahweh
A Glossary of God’s Names
This alphabetical list includes the most—and least—frequently occurring names found in the Hebrew Bible or in major English translations such as the King James Version (KJV) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
The four most popular one-word names are Yahweh (6,800 times); Elohim (2,600 times); Adonai (439 times); and El (238 times). I recommend reading these entries first, as most other names of God are derived from them.
Adonai
Adon, in Hebrew, means “lord.” The form Adonai, used 439 times in the Bible, can be rendered either as “my Lord” or simply as “Lord.” (Linguists offer various explanations for the element -ai. Is it a possessive pronoun denoting “my” or does it indicate a plural of majesty?) Thus, we find Exodus 15:17 translated most frequently as “the sanctuary, O Lord [Adonai],a which thy hands have established” (KJV) but, sometimes, as “the sanctuary, my Lord, which your hands have established.”1 Since Adonai and Yahweh are both typically translated as “Lord,” many modern Bibles—following a suggestion first made by William Tyndale in 1530—render Yahweh as “LORD” in small capital letters, and Adonai as “Lord.” So, “The LORD [Yahweh] appeared to him” (Genesis 18:1), but “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord [Adonai], I who am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27). The NRSV only confuses things, however, by rendering Adonai as both “Lord” and “LORD.”
Adonai Yahweh
When used individually, both terms are translated as “Lord,” but to avoid the awkward appellation “Lord Lord,” the KJV and NRSV render the expression as “Lord GOD.” (Here too, small capital letters are used to indicate that the base word is Yahweh.) “Lord Yahweh” is also used. The combination Adonai Yahweh appears 310 times in the Bible, mostly in the prophetic literature, where the prophets often begin their speeches by saying, “Thus says Adonai Yahweh.”
The Almighty
The Greek Old Testament and the New Testament (Revelations 1:8) occasionally use Pantokratôr, “the Almighty,” as a divine name or epithet. Modern English translations also use “the Almighty” for the Hebrew Shaddai (see El Shaddai below); in doing so they follow the Greek Bible.
The Ancient of Days; The Ancient One
This is how the KJV and NRSV render the Aramaic divine name ‘attiyq yowm, which is only found once in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel: “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days [‘attiyq yowm] did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire” (Daniel 7:9, KJV). The deity thus designated is presumably El Elyon (see below).
Ehyeh
This obscure name occurs only twice in the Bible, in Exodus 3:14 and Hosea 1:9. The Book of Exodus includes the following dialogue between Moses and the God of Israel: “But Moses said to God [Elohim], ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God [Elohim] of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’ God [Elohim] said to Moses, ‘I am [Ehyeh] who I am.’ He said further: ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites: I AM [Ehyeh] has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13–14, NRSV). Here Elohim serves as a description of the divinity—he is the God; Ehyeh is the God’s name. Commentators are still coming up with explanations for the meaning of this obscure name, which appears to be derived from the Hebrew verb hayah, “to be.” The NRSV offers “I am what I am” and “I will be what I will be.”
El
Although not as common as Elohim (see below), this is another standard Hebrew term for “god” used for any god (with a small g) as well as for Israel’s monotheistic “God,” with a capital G—as in, “I am God [El] and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22). The Canaanite high god was also called El, and the Hebrews may have given this deity’s name to their own god.
El Elohê Yisra’el
The name means “El the God of Israel,” but the KJV and NRSV leave it untranslated. In the Bible it is used only as the name given to a sanctuary: “And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel” (Genesis 33:20, KJV). (See also Elohê Yisra’el and El.)
El Elyon; Elyon
The Hebrew term elyon means “upper”; El Elyon, “The most high God” (KJV) or “God Most High” (NRSV), is found only in Genesis 14—“and he [Melchizedek of Salem] was the priest of the most high God [El Elyon]” (Genesis 14:18–22, KJV). The short form Elyon, translated “Most High,” appears more frequently. Both names were originally associated with the Canaanite high god El. But the names clearly came to be used for Yahweh, as is apparent in Psalm 7:17: “[I] will sing praise to the name of the Lord [Yahweh], the Most High [Elyon]” (Psalm 7:17, NRSV).
El Shaddai; Shaddai
The rare name El Shaddai, literally “God of the [uncultivated] fields,” but often translated as “God Almighty,” is found in Genesis 17:1, in which Yahweh appears to the 99-year-old Abram and says, “I am El Shaddai.” (God then changes Abram’s and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah and promises the elderly couple a son of their own.) Far more common is the abbreviated form Shaddai, which is traditionally rendered “the Almighty,” although many contemporary Bible interpreters (but not the NRSV) leave the name Shaddai untranslated. Shaddai is frequently used in the Book of Job—for instance: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty [Shaddai]?” (Job 40:2, NRSV).
Eloah
Rare outside of the Book of Job, this word means God—as in, “Let that day be darkness; let not God [Eloah] regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it” (Job 3:4 KJV). Linguistically, it represents the singular of Elohim (see below).
Elohê Yisra’el
This expression, meaning “the God of Israel,” is occasionally used to define Yahweh (see below)—as in Isaiah: “And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord [Yahweh], which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel (Elohê Yisra’el)” (Isaiah 45:3, KJV).
Elohim
Used about 2,600 times, this is a stock term in the Bible’s religious vocabulary, with three distinct meanings. First, as a plural term (-im is the standard Hebrew plural ending) it means “gods, deities,” as in, “You shall have no other gods [elohim] before me” (Deuteronomy 5:7). Second, when used about a particular god, it can mean “the deity, a god, the god,” in the singular, as in, “You cannot worship Yahweh, for he is a holy god [elohim]” (Joshua 24:19). Third, with a capital E, it serves as a personal name for God: “In the beginning, God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Elohim of Heaven
See God of Heaven.
Elyon
See El Elyon.
The Eternal
This rendering of Yahweh has been used in both Christian and Jewish translations. It was introduced by the reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) and was subsequently used in the French Bible of Geneva (1588), by the author Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), and in the English Bible of James Moffatt (1870–1944). The first Jewish author to use it was the German philosopher and Bible translator Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786). Later it found its way into Jewish vernacular Bibles in French (1899) and German (the translation made under the direction of the Jewish scholar Leopold Zunz [1794–1886]).
God
Conventionally, “God” is always spelled with a capital letter when Israel’s deity is meant, whereas “god,” without a capital letter, refers to a non-Israelite, polytheistic deity. The most common underlying Hebrew word is Elohim, but one can also find Eloah, El and, rarely, Yahweh (in which case it is generally printed in small capital letters as GOD).
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob
This solemn expression listing a series of ancestors has the same meaning as “God of the Father(s)” (see below) and occurs only when God speaks to Moses in Exodus—for example: “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exodus 3:6, KJV; see also Exodus 3:15–16 and 4:5; the word for God throughout this passage is Elohim).
God Almighty
See El Shaddai.
The God of the Ancestors
Used by the NRSV (Exodus 3:15) for “God of the Fathers” (see below).
The God of the Father(s)
Genesis and Exodus repeatedly use expressions such as “the God [Elohim] of my father” (Genesis 31:5, with the father being Isaac, and Exodus 15:2, without reference to a specific father) and “the God [Elohim] of their fathers” (Exodus 4:5—the fathers here being Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). The term refers to the “personal god” who creates and protects the individual and whose veneration is transmitted within the family.2
God of Heaven
The expressions “Yahweh, the God [Elohim] of Heaven” (Ezra 1:2) or simply “God of Heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4) tend to occur in texts written after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Exile of the Jews in 586 B.C.E. They highlight God’s universal sovereignty and rulership, as can be seen in the expanded expressions, “Yahweh, the God of Heaven and Earth” (Genesis 24:3) and “Yahweh, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9).
God of the Hebrews
This epithet for Yahweh is used only in Exodus: “The God [Elohim] of the Hebrews has revealed himself to us” (Exodus 5:3).
The God of Israel
See Elohê Yisra’el.
God Most High
See El Elyon.
The Holy One of Israel
This appears most frequently in Isaiah, as in, “They have despised the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 1:4). The term “holy ones” refers to angels or subordinate deities in the polytheistic pantheon; thus the expression “Holy One of Israel” reflects polytheism: The deity thus designated is one of the many “holy ones.”
Jehovah
Since the Middle Ages, Hebrew Bible manuscripts have inserted the vowels from Adonai within the most sacred, unpronounced name YHWH as a reminder that readers should say Adonai instead (see YHWH, below). The name Jehovah, which appeared first among Christian scholars of the late Middle Ages, also mixes the four consonants of YHWH (JHWH in German) with the vowels of Adonai. It is occasionally used for Yahweh in the KJV, as in, “Let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18). Because of this, the name Jehovah is well established in English poetry. In Paradise Lost, John Milton wrote: “Great are Thy works, Jehovah, infinite Thy power” (7.602–603). Modern biblical scholars, however, generally dismiss Jehovah as a misreading (or mispronunciation).
Kyrios
Greek for “lord.” This is how the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Bible renders the divine names Yahweh and Adonai. In the New Testament, kyrios is also used as a title for Jesus: “Jesus Christ, our kyrios” (Romans 1:4).
Lord
See Yahweh and Adonai and Kyrios.
Lord God
See Adonai Yahweh and Yahweh Elohim.
Lord of Hosts
See Yahweh elohê tseva’ot.
Lord of Sabaoth
See Yahweh elohê tseva’ot.
Most High
See Elyon and El Elyon.
Pantokratôr
See the Almighty.
Shaddai
Abbreviated form of El Shaddai.
Yah
This short form of Yahu or Yahweh is occasionally used as an independent name (“I will sing to Yah” [Exodus 15:2]) but appears most often in the formulaic “hallelujah” (or hallelu-Yah), which means “praise Yah” (Psalm 146:1; KJV, NRSV: “praise the Lord”). The word was incorporated in the Christian liturgy because it is mentioned in the Book of Revelation: “After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power to our God’” (Revelation 19:1).
Yahu
An alternative spelling and pronunciation of Yahweh, found (spelled YHW) on a circa 800 B.C.E. ostracon from Kuntillet Ajrud and (spelled YHW and YHH) in the documents written by Aramaic-speaking fifth-century B.C.E. Jews living in Elephantine in Egypt. The form Yahu is also used in biblical theophoric names (names that include the name of a god) like Yeho-natan (Jonathan; Judges 18:30) and Yesha-yahu (Isaiah). Although most scholars take Yahu to be a short form of Yahweh, it might also be an earlier form of the divine name.3
Yahweh
See YHWH.
Yahweh elohê tseva’ot; Yahweh tseva’ot
Yahweh tseva’ot is generally rendered as “Lord of hosts,” as in “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3 KJV, NRSV). The tseva’ot are members of a heavenly council and possibly also the numerous angelic servants who surround Yahweh as he sits on his heavenly throne governing his people (as described in Psalm 89:5–8 [in Hebrews, 89:6–9] and Isaiah 14:24–27). The title appears 206 times in the Old Testament and is a short form of Yahweh elohê tseva’ot (that is, “Yahweh, god of hosts”), which appears 36 times (for example, in Psalm 89:8 [in Hebrews 89:9]).
Kyrios Sabaoth, the Greek translation of the expression Yahweh tseva’ot, appears twice in the New Testament (Romans 9:29; James 5:4); it is rendered Lord of Sabaoth in the KJV.
Yahweh Elohim
This rare name highlights God’s roles as both the Creator (Elohim) and the God of Israel (Yahweh), as in: “In the day the Lord God [Yahweh Elohim] made the earth …” (Genesis 2:4, NRSV).
YHWH
The most common name for the Hebrew God (used more than 6,800 times in the Bible) is typically concealed from the modern reader; virtually all standard translations render YHWH as “the Lord” (often printed LORD) or “the Eternal.”
In ancient times, the Hebrew scribes wrote only consonants and no vowels, and this name of God has come down to us in this written form. Because the name consists of four consonants, it is frequently referred to as the tetragrammaton or tetragram, meaning “the four-letter word.” We don’t know how YHWH was originally pronounced; the standard pronunciation (and English spelling) today—Yahweh—is a modern conjecture, first suggested in the 16th century by Gilbert Génébrard, professor of Hebrew at the prestigious Collège Royal in Paris.
Throughout history, Jews have treated this name of God with great reverence, declaring that it is too sacred to be used or spoken frequently.4 In writing, the name appears almost exclusively in biblical texts. The speaking of the name was traditionally restricted to priests worshiping at the Jerusalem Temple; after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E., Jews ceased to utter this name altogether (which is why the original pronunciation of the name was lost). When scripture is read aloud in the synagogue today, the more generic term Adonai is used in place of YHWH. Some scholars follow Jewish tradition and refrain from pronouncing the divine name out of religious respect and so prefer to write YHWH rather than Yahweh.
There is one place in modern English translations where Yahweh or YHWH (or, in the KJV, Jehovah [see entry, above]) is not translated: In Exodus 6:3, in which God reveals his name to Moses: “I am the LORD [YHWH—here it is translated]: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob by the name of God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name Yahweh [YHWH—here it is not] did not make myself known to them” (Exodus 6:2–3).
This passage suggests Yahweh is a later name than El Shaddai (see entry above), but we do not know when the divine name Yahweh was introduced into Hebrew religion. The name appears in the Moabite inscription of King Mesha (850–830 B.C.E.), the Khirbet el-Qôm burial inscription (eighth century B.C.E.), and the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions (around 800 B.C.E.).
Arguing that biblical names generally have a discernible meaning, scholars have tried to establish what YHWH means. Based on the etymology, scholars have suggested “He Is” (which can be said of any deity), “He Causes to Be” (said of the Creator) or “He Blows” (a reference to Yahweh as storm god)—but none of these have won general acceptance. Others have tried (with more promising results) to determine the meaning based on the context in which the name occurs. Consider the following passage: “I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is Yahweh” (Jeremiah 16:21). Here Yahweh clearly carries the connotation “the Mighty One”—referring to the one with the power, the supreme ruler or the Lord (see also Exodus 7:5; 1 Kings 20:13 and others). This is why the ancient translators who rendered the Hebrew Bible into Greek in the third century B.C.E. replaced YHWH with “ho kyrios,” or “the Lord.”
MLA Citation
Footnotes
To distinguish between Adonai and Yahweh, some modern English translations use small capital letters: Adonai = the Lord, Yahweh = the LORD.