Is Jehovah the true name of God?
The question of God's name reaches back to a bush burning in the desert, where Moses asked God what he should call Him and was told, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14, ESV). Commentators in this collection treat "Jehovah" as a real, God-given name — but they also raise two matters that complicate any claim that it is the name: no one is sure how it was pronounced, and God has revealed Himself under several names, ending with one closer than Jehovah.
A note on wording: the ESV prints "the LORD" in small capitals where the older translations these writers used print "Jehovah." Both stand for the same Hebrew name.
What the name means
The name is built on the Hebrew word for existence, and it describes God as the One who simply is — always, without beginning or end.
Morrish Bible DictionaryJehovah. This is a name of relationship with men, especially with Israel, taken by God in time. It is derived from havah, "to exist," and may be expanded into "who is, who was, and is to come." God thus reveals Himself in time as the ever-existing One: that is, in Himself eternally, He is always the same. […] "God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM," Ex. 3:14, where the word is Ehyeh, which is from the same root as Jehovah, the Eternal existing One; He that was, and is, and the coming One.
Not a label but a covenant
The name carries weight because of what God attached to it. He bound Himself by it to a people He was about to rescue.
Numerical Bible NotesJehovah, then, is the living, unchangeable God, acting from Himself, finding in Himself the argument for what He does. How suitable a name for the God of redemption — the covenant-name!
One name among several
Exodus 6:3 says God appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but was not known to them by the name Jehovah — even though the book of Genesis already records Abraham using it. Commentators resolve this by distinguishing hearing a name from being brought into relationship on the ground of it.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThese are often expressive of character or of relationship. God was revealed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as GOD ALMIGHTY, which indicates the character in which God was pleased to be known by them: He was not known to them as JEHOVAH. Ex. 6:3. This does not mean that they had not heard of the name, but that it did not express the character of His relationship with them. To Moses He said, "I am JEHOVAH," and by this name He was known to Israel: it formed the basis of their relationship with God. […] In Christianity God is made known under the name of FATHER. John 20:17.
The lost pronunciation
Anyone insisting that "Jehovah" is the one correct sound faces a plain historical problem. Jewish readers stopped saying the name aloud, and the original pronunciation went with them.
A. J. PollockIt appears the Jews had a special reverence for the name, Jehovah, so much so that they would not allow the name to pass their lips. They substituted for it Elohim or Adonai, according to the vowel points by which it was accompanied. Smith's Concise Dictionary of the Bible affirms that the true pronunciation of the name, Jehovah, by which God was made known to the Hebrews, has been entirely lost through the Jews scrupulously avoiding its use. Would that we, Christians, showed more reverence when we take the sacred name of God upon our lips!
Jehovah is Jesus
The New Testament writers take passages spoken of Jehovah and apply them to Christ. That move settles far more than a question of spelling.
G. V. WigramThe word "Lord" has two distinct uses. One — Jehovah — involving the essential being of the Godhead. If Jehovah be thus found to be applied to Jesus, then He is fully and properly God. […] I proceed to refer to two passages where the title "Jehovah" is applied to Jesus. John 12:39-41, where Isaiah is quoted as speaking of the Jewish hardness of heart, "when he saw His glory" — the glory of Jesus. Turn to Isaiah 6:5. The glory he saw was the glory of the God of Sabaoth — Jehovah of Sabaoth.
The name that outshines it
The name Jehovah nearly vanishes from the New Testament. Writers here explain that absence not as loss but as replacement by something greater.
The Eternal SonThe reason is that, as the stars disappear when the sun rises, in the same way the Name of Jehovah, so great in the region of earthly blessing, is outshone when a greater Name supersedes it as God's revelation of Himself, a Name unfolding the last secrets of the heart and nature of God, a Name declaring a relationship of love, the Father.
Kelly makes the same point without discarding anything God said earlier.
William KellyIt is not, of course, that God abandons what was implied in Shaddai, or in Jehovah, but that He is, above all, now developing to His church the riches of grace contained, I may say, in the name of "Father."
Summary
- Real — Jehovah is a genuine name God took for Himself, meaning the ever-existing One: who is, who was, and who is to come.
- Relational — It was given in time, as a covenant name for Israel's redemption, not as a bare label for God's essence.
- Partial — God also revealed Himself as God Almighty to the patriarchs; each name expresses a different relationship, so no single one exhausts Him.
- Uncertain — The original pronunciation was lost when Jewish readers stopped saying it aloud, so the exact sound cannot be recovered.
- Fulfilled — Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New, and the name Christians are now given is Father — not cancelling the earlier names, but outshining them.