By Giuseppe Monno
The name Jehovah is not the original name of God. It comes from a misunderstanding of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH (יהוה), first linked to the 13th-century Spanish theologian Ramon Martí. The name was formed by combining the consonants of YHWH with the vowels of another Hebrew word, ʼĂdonāy (“my Lord”), which Jewish tradition used as a respectful substitute for God’s name.
Historical and Hebrew Background
To honor the commandment not to misuse God’s name (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11), Jews gradually stopped pronouncing YHWH. Instead, they used:
– HaShem (“the Name”) in daily speech
– ʼĂdonāy (“my Lord”) during readings in synagogue
Between the 6th and 10th centuries A.D., Jewish scribes called Masoretes added vowel signs to help people read Hebrew. For YHWH, they did not include its real vowels. Instead, they added the vowels of ʼĂdonāy as a reminder to say “Lord” instead of God’s sacred name. This led to the form Yehowah, which was not the real pronunciation but an artificial combination:
Y (yod)
H (he)
W (waw)
H (he)
+
Ă (short “a”)
O
Ā
= YEHOWAH
It is Yehowah, not Yahowah. The first vowel was shortened to make it easier to pronounce.
Ramon Martí’s Mistake
In 1270, Ramon Martí read the Masoretic form יְהֹוָה as a proper name and wrote it as Yehowah. He did not know that Jewish tradition required readers to say ʼĂdonāy instead. Later translations repeated this mistake, and some Christian groups adopted it, though it was never part of official Catholic teaching or worship.
How “Jehovah” Spread
In 1530, the Protestant translator William Tyndale used the form Jehovah in his English translation of the first five books of the Bible. From then on, it became common in English Bibles.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, in their New World Translation, use Jehovah nearly 7,000 times in the Old Testament and more than 200 times in the New Testament—even though the original Greek New Testament never contains the Tetragrammaton. For example, Exodus 4:10 in Hebrew has both YHWH and ʼĂdonāy, but the translation renders both as Jehovah, which changes the original meaning.
The Likely Original Pronunciation
Most scholars believe the Tetragrammaton was pronounced Yahweh. This is supported by ancient writings, Samaritan tradition, and archaeological finds like the Lachish Letters. While we cannot be 100% certain, Jehovah is considered a later, artificial form.
Scholarly Sources
Major encyclopedias and academic sources confirm this view. The Jewish Encyclopedia (1904) calls Jehovah a “grammatically impossible” form. The New Jewish Encyclopedia (1962) describes it as “artificial.” Encyclopaedia Judaica and Encyclopaedia Britannica confirm that the Masoretes’ vowel substitution led to the name Jehovah. Even Jehovah’s Witness publications acknowledge that the real vowels of YHWH are unknown and that Jehovah is based on tradition.
God’s Name in the New Testament
The New Testament never uses the Tetragrammaton. Instead, the Greek word Kyrios (“Lord”) refers to both God the Father and Jesus. This follows the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where YHWH is always rendered as Kyrios.
Jesus, aware of God’s name, taught his followers to pray to “Father” (Matthew 6:9), echoing Jeremiah 3:19:
“You shall call me ‘My Father,’ and shall not turn from following me.”
The New Testament emphasizes the importance of Jesus’ name:
“God has given him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9).
“At the name of Jesus every knee should bow…” (Philippians 2:10).
Conclusion
Yehowah, from which Jehovah comes, arose from a medieval misunderstanding and is not God’s original name. Yahweh is the most widely accepted scholarly reconstruction.
The New Testament presents Jesus as Kyrios, the Lord. For Christians, the name that brings salvation is Jesus, which means: “The Lord is salvation.”