The Names of God

Means

Unknown with certainty, and connected in Exodus to the verb to be: I AM WHO I AM, or I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. The Hebrew allows both, and the ambiguity may be deliberate.

Where you meet it

Given to Moses at the burning bush, when he asks what to say if they ask the name.

This is a name, not a title. It belongs to this God and to no other, which is why the commandment about not taking it in vain exists at all. Out of reverence, readers came to say Adonai, my Lord, instead of pronouncing it, and English translators followed that practice by printing LORD in small capitals wherever the four letters stand. So the typography is a translation decision about reverence, made visible.

That also explains the strange-looking phrase the Lord GOD. The Hebrew there is Adonai YHWH; printing it as Lord LORD would read as a mistake, so the second word is set as GOD instead. Jehovah is a hybrid form, made by combining the consonants of the name with the vowels of Adonai, and few scholars now think it was ever pronounced that way.

Means

Lord, master. An ordinary Greek word for someone with authority over you.

Where you meet it

The Greek Old Testament, which used it wherever the Hebrew had YHWH.

This is the single most consequential translation choice in the Bible. Because the Greek Old Testament rendered the divine name as kyrios, and because that was the Bible most early Christians read, calling Jesus kyrios and then applying verses about the LORD to him was not a subtle move. Everyone could hear it.

Paul does it in the open: quoting Joel's everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved, and using it of Jesus without pausing to explain.

Means

God, or gods. Plural in form.

Where you meet it

The first sentence of the Bible: in the beginning, Elohim created.

The plural form with singular verbs has been read several ways. Hebrew has a well-attested use of the plural for majesty or fullness, which is the reading most scholars take. The same plural form is also used of single pagan gods and of human judges. Some Christian readers have heard the Trinity in it; others hold that the plural of majesty accounts for the syntax on its own.

What the word does do is sit at a different level from YHWH. Elohim is the category; YHWH is the name. Which is why the confession runs YHWH our Elohim, YHWH is one.

Means

Traditionally God Almighty, but the second word is genuinely uncertain. Proposals include mountain, breast, and destroyer.

Where you meet it

God introduces himself this way to Abram when establishing circumcision.

Exodus makes a point of it: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name YHWH I did not make myself known to them. Whatever exactly that means, and it is argued about, the text is flagging that the patriarchs knew God under a different name from the one Moses is given.

The association with fertility and blessing is strong in Genesis, where it turns up attached to promises of descendants.

Means

God Most High.

Where you meet it

Melchizedek, king of Salem, blesses Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth.

Notable because Melchizedek is not an Israelite and there is no suggestion he needs correcting. Abram takes up the same title in the next breath when swearing an oath to the king of Sodom.

The title turns up again at the edges of Israel's world: on the lips of Balaam, of Nebuchadnezzar after his humbling, and of the demons who recognise Jesus. It is the name outsiders reach for.

Means

The God who sees me.

Where you meet it

Hagar, alone and pregnant in the desert, after the angel of the LORD finds her.

The only name for God in the Bible given by a human being, and it is given by a foreign slave woman with no standing at all. She says, have I really seen him who sees me, and the well is named after the exchange.

Means

The Everlasting God, or the God of the far horizon.

Where you meet it

Abraham plants a tamarisk at Beersheba and calls on the name.

Worth pairing with the entry on olam: the word is about a horizon rather than about infinity, so the sense is the God who is there as far back and as far forward as anyone can see.

Means

My Lord, my master. An ordinary word of address to a superior, used of God.

Where you meet it

Abraham, negotiating over Sodom.

Printed as Lord in ordinary case, as against LORD in small capitals for the name. The two are different words doing different jobs, and the typographic distinction is the only way English shows it.

Means

The LORD of armies. Hosts is an older English word for armies, not for people who throw parties.

Where you meet it

First appears at Shiloh, in the story of Samuel's birth.

One of the most frequent titles in the Old Testament, nearly three hundred times, and heavily concentrated in the prophets. The armies in question are read as Israel's, or the heavenly host, or the stars, and the ambiguity is probably the point: everything that can be marshalled belongs to him.

The World English Bible translates it Yahweh of Armies, which is blunter than most versions and closer to the sense.

Means

The set-apart one, belonging to this people.

Where you meet it

Overwhelmingly Isaiah, who uses it about twenty-five times.

The title holds two things together that ought to pull apart: absolute otherness, and belonging to a particular small nation. Isaiah's vision in chapter six is the source, and the rest of the book keeps returning to it.

Means

The one advanced in days.

Where you meet it

Daniel's throne vision.

Used only in Daniel 7, and it matters because of what happens next in the vision: one like a son of man is brought before him and given dominion. Christian readers have leaned on that scene heavily, and Revelation describes the risen Christ with hair white like wool, which is how Daniel describes the Ancient of Days.

Means

The LORD will see, or the LORD will provide. The same verb does both.

Where you meet it

Abraham names the mountain after the ram is caught in the thicket.

Abraham has already used the verb: God will see to the lamb for himself, my son. Naming the place with it is him repeating his own words after they turn out to be true. It is a place name, and the narrator says so: as it is said to this day, on the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.

Means

The LORD is my banner, the standard an army rallies to.

Where you meet it

Moses builds an altar after the battle with Amalek, the one he watches with his hands held up.

An altar name, given by Moses.

Means

The LORD is peace.

Where you meet it

Gideon builds an altar after realising he has been talking to the angel of the LORD and has not died.

An altar name, and the narrator notes it was still standing when the book was written.

Means

The LORD our righteousness.

Where you meet it

Jeremiah, of the righteous Branch God will raise up for David.

This one is different, and worth separating from the altars: it is the name given to a coming king, not to a place. Jeremiah uses it twice, once of the king and once of the city.

Means

The LORD is there.

Where you meet it

The last four words of Ezekiel.

A city name, and the final line of a book that opened with the glory leaving the temple. The whole vision has been building to somewhere God has not left.

Means

The LORD who heals you.

Where you meet it

At Marah, where the bitter water is made sweet.

Strictly this is not even a name but a clause in a sentence: I am the LORD who heals you. Included because it is always on the lists, and because the sentence is worth reading in place, attached as it is to a condition about listening.

Means

I am. Two ordinary Greek words that are also exactly what the Greek Old Testament has God say at the bush.

Where you meet it

John's Gospel, repeatedly, and with an escalating charge.

Most of John's uses are ordinary: I am the bread, the light, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection, the way, the vine. Each pairs the phrase with an image, and each image is loaded on its own.

But twice the phrase stands with nothing after it. Before Abraham was, I am, and the response in the room is to pick up stones. And in the garden, when the soldiers say they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth and he answers I am, they draw back and fall to the ground. Readers differ on how much weight to put on that, but John clearly wants it noticed.

Means

Father, in Aramaic.

Where you meet it

Gethsemane, where Mark keeps the Aramaic and then translates it.

Not baby talk, despite a claim that circulated widely for decades; it was used by adult children of their fathers. What is remarkable is not informality but access. Paul uses it twice, both times as evidence of adoption rather than as a devotional flourish.

Means

The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The beginning and the end.

Where you meet it

Revelation, where it is said by God and, at the close, by Jesus.

It echoes Isaiah, where the LORD says I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no god. Revelation puts the same claim in two mouths and does not comment.