The sacred, personal name of God, for which the KJV generally substitutes Lord. Four times this version has “Jehovah” ( Ex. 6:3 ; Ps. 83:18 ; Isa. 12:2 ; 26:4 ). “Jehovah” is a transliteration of the form of the name produced when the Jewish scholars called Masoretes, a few centuries after Christ, added the vowel sounds of the Hebrew word ’adônay, “lord” or “sir,” to the original form of the word, which consisted of the Hebrew consonants YHWH, thought to have been pronounced Yahweh.
The Jews considered the name YHWH so sacred that they would not pronounce it even when reading the Scriptures, lest they inadvertently profane the name of the Lord. Instead of Yahweh , they read ’ Adônay . Thus the true pronunciation of YHWH had been lost centuries before the time of the Masoretes.
The derivation of YHWH is not known, but it is thought by some to be a form of the Hebrew verb hayah, “to be,” and thus could mean “the [eternally] existing one.” Or if, as some think, it is from the verb chayah, “to live,” the meaning would be “the [self-existent] living one.” On the other hand, Dr. W. F. Albright favors the idea that YHWH is a causal form and means “He causes to be” (W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity , pp. 259, 260).
The name by which God authorized Moses to identify Him to the Hebrew people, “I AM [’eheyeh] WHO I AM,” or simply “I AM” ( Ex. 3:14 , RSV ), is commonly thought to be related to the Tetragrammaton YHWH considered as a form of the verb “to be.” In John 8:58 Jesus appropriates to Himself the title “I am.”