Yahweh, the name God gave Moses at the burning bush
What God's personal name means, how it came to be written and spoken, why your Bible prints it as the LORD, and why the name is given to be trusted.
Exodus 3:13–15Exodus 34:5–7Psalm 9:10Isaiah 42:8Deuteronomy 6:4–5Exodus 6:2–3Psalm 83:18Malachi 3:6Exodus 20:7Proverbs 18:10Psalm 20:7
When Moses stood before the burning bush and asked God for His name, God gave him one. It is the most frequent name for God in the Old Testament, written in Hebrew with four consonants, and it is the name that most English Bibles print as “the LORD” in capital letters. Behind those capitals stands a real name, Yahweh, and behind the name stands a promise: the God who is, who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is with His people and has bound Himself to them forever.
Here, as plainly and carefully as possible, is what that name is, how it came to be written and spoken the way it is, and why it matters that God has a name at all. The facts are well established and shared across Christian traditions. Where the details are uncertain, that is said. What is not uncertain is the heart of it: God told Moses who He is, so that His people could call on Him and trust Him.
Moses asked, and God answered
Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.
— Exodus 3:13–15
Two things are given here. First, a statement: I AM WHO I AM. God is the One who simply is, who depends on nothing and no one, who was before Egypt and will be after it. Second, a name. Where your Bible prints “the LORD” in verse 15, the Hebrew has the four-letter name, and God ties it directly to the statement in verse 14. The name and the I AM belong together. To know His name is to know that He is, and that He is present.
He calls it His name forever. It is not a title for one generation. It is how He is to be remembered in every generation, including yours.
Four letters, and why your Bible prints the LORD
The name is written in Hebrew with four consonants, which in English letters are YHWH. Scholars call these four letters the Tetragrammaton, a Greek word that simply means “four letters.” Ancient Hebrew was written without vowels; readers supplied them from knowledge and tradition. So the written form of the name records its consonants but not, by itself, how it was pronounced.
Over time, out of reverence for the name and concern about misusing it, Jewish readers stopped saying it aloud. When they came to the four letters while reading Scripture, they said “Adonai” instead, a Hebrew word meaning “Lord.” This practice was well established before the time of Jesus and continues in Jewish worship today.
Centuries later, when Jewish scribes added vowel marks to the Hebrew text, they placed the vowels of “Adonai,” slightly adapted, under the four consonants of the name, as a reminder to the reader to say “Adonai.” That is where the form “Jehovah” comes from. It combines the consonants of the name with those substitute vowels. It became widely used in English and appears in some older translations and in many hymns.
“Yahweh” is the reconstruction of the original pronunciation most widely accepted by scholars today, based on the structure of Hebrew and on early evidence outside the Hebrew text. Because certainty about the ancient pronunciation is not possible, some prefer to write only YHWH.
None of these forms should be called wrong, and no one should be faulted for using one of them. “Jehovah,” “Yahweh,” “YHWH,” and “the LORD” all point to the same God who spoke to Moses.
Most English Bibles, including the Berean Standard Bible quoted here, follow the ancient reverence in their own way. Where the Hebrew has the four-letter name, they print “the LORD” in capital letters. Where the Hebrew has the ordinary word “Adonai,” they print “Lord” with only the first letter capitalized. So when you see LORD in capitals, you are looking at the name. Read it with that in view, and the great confession of Israel sounds different: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yahweh our God, Yahweh is One.
The name was known before, and made known to Moses
A careful reader may notice Exodus 6 and pause.
God also told Moses, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD I did not make Myself known to them.
— Exodus 6:2–3
Yet the name appears in Genesis, on the lips of Abraham and others. Christians have read this in a few ways, and the most common is that the patriarchs knew the name but had not yet seen its full meaning. They knew God as God Almighty, the One who promises. Moses’ generation would come to know Him as the LORD, the One who keeps the promise, brings His people out, and stays with them. The name is filled out by what God does. That is true for you too. You learn who He is by watching Him keep His word.
What the name holds
When God proclaims His own name to Moses on the mountain, He does not give a definition. He gives a character.
And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD. Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
— Exodus 34:5–7
This is what the name holds: compassion, grace, patience, steadfast love, faithfulness, forgiveness, and a justice that does not pretend evil is nothing. The rest of the Old Testament returns to this passage again and again. When you know the name, this is what you know.
And He does not change. “Because I, the LORD, do not change, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed” (Malachi 3:6). The name is stable because the One who bears it is.
He does not share it. “I am the LORD; that is My name” (Isaiah 42:8), and then, “I will not yield My glory to another or My praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). There is one God, and this is His name.
And He asks that the name be honored: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain” (Exodus 20:7). The Jewish care about pronouncing the name grew out of this command, and even if you say the name, the command still stands. Do not use it lightly, or as a decoration, or to lend weight to your own opinions.
The name is given so that you can trust it
Why did God tell Moses His name at all? The psalms answer.
Those who know Your name trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.
— Psalm 9:10
A name makes a relationship possible. You do not call on a force; you call on a Person. “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10). And in a world that trusts what it can count, the name is what God’s people trust instead: “Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).
The psalmist’s prayer for the whole earth is that everyone would come to know this name: “May they know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, are Most High over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18).
Something to do today
Open a psalm and read it with the name in view. Every time you see LORD in capitals, pause and remember that a personal name is being spoken, the name of the God who is, who brought His people out of Egypt, and who proclaimed Himself compassionate and gracious. Then take the command that follows Israel’s confession, “you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and turn it into your own prayer, asking Him for exactly that.
Where Christians differ
Christians differ on small things here: whether to say “Yahweh” aloud, whether “Jehovah” should still be used, whether English Bibles should print the name or keep “the LORD.” These are matters of reverence and custom, not of doctrine, and faithful believers land in different places. What Christians hold in common is far larger: that God has revealed His name, that the name belongs to the one true God, and that Jesus, who took the words “I am” on His own lips, bears that name in full. That deserves its own article.
A closing word
You have been given a name to call on. Not a formula, not a title, but the name God chose to be remembered by in every generation. Learn it. Honor it. Run to it. And when you gather with your church to sing and pray, remember that the God you are addressing told Moses at a burning bush exactly who He is, so that you could know Him too.