God's personal name appears over 5,700 times in the Old Testament. This name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3.1-15). In Hebrew it is written as the four letters “YHWH” and probably is meant to be pronounced Yahweh (YAH-way). The exact pronunciation is unknown because the Jews came to consider this name so holy that they would not say it out loud, except at special times, such as the Great Day of Forgiveness. Even then, only a particular chosen priest was allowed to speak God's name.

When Jews read YHWH in their Bible they carefully substituted another word for God that emphasizes God's power. This word is Adonai and means “my Lord.” The Jewish Scriptures (which Christians call the Old Testament) were written in Hebrew with consonants but no vowels. Hundreds of years after the Scriptures were first written down, scholars who copied the Bible wrote the vowels for Adonai under the consonants for Yahweh to remind the reader not to pronounce God's holy name. If it was pronounced with this mix of vowels and consonants it sounded like Yehovah, or Jehovah, but this is not natural to Hebrew pronunciation.

When the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the second or third centuries B.C., the translators did not translate this holy name. Instead, they used the Greek word for Adonai, which is kyrios, and means “Lord.” Many modern Bible translations, including the CEV, show the Hebrew word YHWH (Yahweh) as LORD, written with small capital letters. See also the mini-article called “I Am.”