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Does God have a name?
The Bible mentions the names of many gods.
The nations surrounding ancient Israel
worshipped deities named Ashtoreth,
Baal, and Molech.
The first-century Christians lived
among people who worshipped
such deities as Artemis,
Hermes, and Zeus,
and the names of those gods
are recorded in the Bible.
The Bible acknowledges
that there are “many ‘gods.’”
But the name of one God appears
in ancient manuscripts of the Bible
far more times than the names
of all the other gods combined.
If you read modern Bibles,
you will still find the names
of the other gods.
However, many Bibles have removed the name
of the most frequently mentioned God.
The name of that God appears some 7,000 times
in the oldest versions of the Bible.
Who is the God whose name
has been removed from the Bible?
The first part of the Bible,
often called the Old Testament,
was written in Hebrew
and a related language, Aramaic.
In Hebrew, God’s name
is represented by four letters.
Hebrew is read from right to left.
In English, those four letters
are rendered by the consonants YHWH.
The original vowel sounds
used in God’s name are unknown,
but the four letters representing God’s name
appeared throughout
ancient Bible manuscripts
and have been inscribed
in many other locations.
In English,
a popular rendering of God’s name
is Jehovah;
another rendering is “Yahweh.”
Some Bibles use one
of these forms of God’s name
at Psalm 83:18
and in several other places.
A number of other translations,
such as the New World Translation
of the Holy Scriptures,
restore God’s name to the locations
in which it originally appeared.
Since God had his personal name
included in the Bible some 7,000 times,
he no doubt wants us
to know and to use that name.
In the Law God gave to Israel,
he told Moses to write:
“Listen, O Israel:
Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.”
Jesus quoted that passage from the Law,
so he obviously knew
and used God’s personal name.
In one of his final prayers before his death,
Jesus said to Jehovah God:
“I have made your name known.”
A man can have many titles:
husband,
father,
architect,
and a personal name, such as John.
In the same way,
God has many appropriate titles:
Almighty,
Creator,
and Lord.
He also has a unique name,
one not shared by any other god.
That name is Jehovah.
You may wonder:
‘What is God like?
‘Does God care about you?
How can you know God personally?’
To learn more about what the Bible says
on this and many other topics,
go to jw.org.

Does God Have a Name?