The Name of YHWH — Truth Hidden in Plain Sight

Introduction

Throughout Scripture, the Creator reveals His personal Name. Many people read over it without realizing it because most English Bibles replace it with titles like “LORD” in all capital letters. Yet the Name appears nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures.

This study explores:

What the Name is
Why it was hidden in translations
Why the Name matters
How believers honored the Name in Scripture

1. The Creator Revealed His Name

Exodus 3:13–15

When Moses asked what Name he should give to Israel, Elohim answered:

“Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, YHWH Elohim of your fathers... this is my name forever.”

The Hebrew letters are: יהוה

Often represented in English as: YHWH

This is called the Tetragrammaton (“four letters”).

2. The Name Was Not Originally “LORD”

In many English Bibles:

“LORD” (all caps) replaces YHWH
“God” sometimes replaces Elohim

But in the original Hebrew text, the Name was written plainly thousands of times.

Example:

Psalm 83:18 “That men may know that thou, whose name alone is YHWH, art the most high over all the earth.”

Many translations replace the Name with “LORD,” hiding what the verse actually says.

3. The Third Commandment Is About the Name

Exodus 20:7 “Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy Elohim in vain…”

The commandment does not say:

“Do not know My Name”
“Do not say My Name”

Instead, it warns against misusing or emptying the Name of meaning.

4. YHWH Wants His Name Remembered

Exodus 3:15 “This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”

The word “memorial” means something remembered and proclaimed.

Psalm 68:4 “Sing unto Elohim… extol him by his name YAH…”

“Yah” is the shortened poetic form found throughout Scripture.

5. The Prophets Declared the Name

Isaiah 42:8 “I am YHWH: that is my name…”

Jeremiah 16:21 “They shall know that my name is YHWH.”

The prophets repeatedly emphasized the Name instead of hiding it.

6. The Messiah Came in His Father’s Name

John 5:43 “I am come in my Father’s name…”

John 17:6 “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me…”

The Messiah did not hide the Father’s Name; He revealed it.

7. Why Was the Name Hidden?

Historically, some Jewish traditions avoided pronouncing the Name out of fear of misuse. Later translators followed this tradition and substituted:

LORD
GOD

This tradition became so common that many readers never realized a personal Name was there.

8. Evidence Hidden in Plain Sight

Even modern words preserve parts of the Name:

HalleluYah

Means: “Praise Yah”

Names in Scripture also contain the Name:

Isaiah (YashaYahu)
Jeremiah (YirmeYahu)
Elijah (EliYah)

The Name was woven throughout biblical language and culture.

9. Calling Upon the Name

Joel 2:32 “Whosoever shall call on the name of YHWH shall be delivered.”

Romans 10:13 Paul quotes Joel, showing the importance of the Name continued into the New Testament.

10. Conclusion

The Name of YHWH was never removed from Scripture originally. It was hidden in many translations through substitution traditions.

The Bible teaches:

His Name is eternal
His Name is to be remembered
His people proclaimed His Name
The Messiah revealed His Father’s Name

Truth about the Name has been in plain sight all along.

Key Scriptures for Further Study

Exodus 3:13–15
Exodus 20:7
Deuteronomy 6:4
Psalm 68:4
Psalm 83:18
Isaiah 42:8
Jeremiah 16:21
Joel 2:32
John 5:43
John 17:6
Romans 10:13

Quotes of Truth.
Science depends on a universe that is orderly, consistent, and governed by laws that can be discovered.

God is not the enemy of science. He is the reason science works in the first place.

LEP'S FAITH QUOTES: God, Limited 8/7 Friday Faith

THIS WILL BE MY LAST POST UNTIL WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19.
Have you been to Canada? Do you know when I went to Canada for the first time there was one thing that struck me peculiarly? The signs would read, "John Brown, Ltd." ...
I was holding meetings in the old St. Andrews Church in Sidney. I asked them one night why they did not put their national symbol on their churches. They wondered what I meant. I said, "Every other business house is 'Ltd.' Why don't you put it over the church?"
And old Scotchman said, "We don't have to . Everybody knows it."
Limited? Sure it is limited. Limit God, limit ourselves, limit His grace, limit the Word. Sure, our God is a little bit of a God. Most of us could carry Him in our vest pocket and it wouldn't budge the pocket -- our God with the "Ltd." on Him.
Brother, sister, that challenge comes to us today to LET GOD LOOSE.
-- John G. Lake

LEP'S FAITH QUOTES: He Alone 8/6 Thursday Thoughts
It is only He, it is He who rolls away the cloud. He alone is the One who lifts the fallen, cheers the faint, brings fresh oil, and changes the countenance. It is the Lord thy God. He has seen thy misery, He has known thy heart brokenness, and He has known how near you seem to be to despair...
Oh, beloved, God is in the midst of us to help us into these wonderful divine places of appointment!
-- Smith Wigglesworth
I will not be posting from Tuesday, August 11, until Wednesday, August 19.

LEP'S FAITH QUOTES: No Thought of Going Back 8/5 Wednesday Wisdom
We commenced meeting in Oakland, California, October 28, 1889. The wet weather had set in. We pitched our tents during a rain, such as was never known in Oakland before. People looked on in wonder and amazement. From a human standpoint, everything looked dark and discouraging. Surely God's ways are not our ways. It takes a great deal of confidence, faith, and courage in God to move forward at His command not knowing one step of the way. Here we were in a strange land, with our money about gone and no means to go back East. We confessed we were pilgrims in a strange country but knew we were seeking a city out of sight. We had no thought of going back until a great work had been done for the Master. We had no fear of suffering for lack of means; we knew our God would supply all our needs (Rom. 8:28).
-- Maria Woodworth-Etter

What Tithe Is, and What It Was Never Meant to Be

I want us to look at tithing again, because I believe most of us have never asked the real question. We ask how much. We hardly ever ask why. And until we answer why, the how much means nothing to God.

Let me start with the word itself, because it tells us something we often skip. In Hebrew, the word is ma'aser, and it simply means a tenth part. In Greek, the word is dekate, the same root that gives us the word decade, meaning ten. The word carries no promise in it. No formula. No key. It is just a portion. A tenth. That is all the word says on its own.

The meaning was never in the word. It was in what the tenth stood for, that everything already belongs to God. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 24:1). "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). Before God ever commanded anyone to tithe, he was already the owner. Tithing did not make him owner. It was you agreeing that he already was.

What tithe is

Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek before the law even existed (Genesis 14:20), and he gave it out of worship, not because anyone told him to. Under the law, the tithe belonged to God as holy (Leviticus 27:30), and it was there to support those who ministered before him (Numbers 18:21-24). David understood this well when he said, "all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee" (1 Chronicles 29:14). We did not give God something that was ours. We only gave back what was already his.

That is what tithe is. Obedience. Acknowledging him. Worship that says, I trust you as the owner more than I trust what is in my own hand.

What tithe is not

Tithe is not a payment to unlock a blessing. It is not a trade where you give ten and expect God to owe you more. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for exactly this kind of religion, they were tithing down to the smallest herb and still missing "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matthew 23:23). They had perfected the giving and lost the heart behind it. And that is possible even today. You can tithe correctly and still miss God completely, because he was never after your ten percent. He was after you.

Jesus made this even clearer with the widow who gave two mites. He said she gave more than everyone else, not because of the amount, but because she gave out of her lack, not out of what she could easily spare (Luke 21:1-4). God has never measured giving by the number. He measures what it cost you, and what it shows about who you actually trust.

What Malachi was really saying

This is the verse everyone quotes and hardly anyone reads properly. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10).

But read what comes just before it. God was not opening a transaction with a faithful people. He was speaking to a people who had robbed him, who doubted him, who held back because in their hearts they believed that if they gave, they would remain with nothing (Malachi 3:8-9). That is why he said test me. It was not an offer. It was a challenge to their unbelief. He was saying, you think giving will leave you empty, you do not trust that I am able to provide, so test that doubt against who I really am.

The blessing was never a reward waiting at the end of your obedience. The blessing was already there, in his nature, in who he already is. What God wanted was not the tithe itself. He wanted their trust to be strong enough to act like he was real.

The real question, what is your intent

When God gave, he gave with intent. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). The giving was never separate from the love. He did not give to get something back. He gave to save us, to restore us, because that is who he is.

So I ask myself, and I ask you too, when you give, what is really in your heart. What is the motive behind the hand that gives. Tithing was never meant to be a key to unlock God or to provoke him to move on your behalf. It was meant to build in us a heart of obedience, discipline, and a life in submission to his word. If your giving is transactional, seed for a harvest, obedience for a payout, then you have missed what tithing was for, even if the amount was correct.

This is why many give and never see anything change, not because they lacked faith in the way we usually think of it, but because the posture was wrong from the beginning. It was never relational. It was a trade they were hoping God would honour.

God is not looking for your ten percent. He is looking for a heart that says, all of this was already yours, and I am only giving back what you trusted me to hold.

LEP'S FAITH QUOTES: This World Is Not My Home 8/4 Tuesday Truth

People wonder at me traveling from one place to another, suffering all kinds of hardships, deprived of many comforts of life, exposed to wet and cold, heat and storms. I make this sacrifice for the Lord. Christ is all in all to me. This world is not my home. It has no attraction for me. I am laying up treasures in heaven. I have a mansion there that is built of pure gold, and it can never be destroyed or taken from me. Praise God for the privilege of leaving all to follow Jesus.
-- Maria Woodworth-Etter

Quotes of Truth.
Devil wouldn't be attacking you so hard if there wasn't something valuable in you.
The thieves don't break into empty houses.

LEP'S FAITH QUOTES: The More Praying There Is ... 8/3 Monday Meditation
“The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil everywhere…God shapes the world by prayer…The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon earth…Earth is changed, revolutionized; angels move on with more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient…When God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and all-potent in its plans and movements; then His earthly armies are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory and His enemies defeated on every hand…God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.” -- E. M. Bounds

(This was submitted by our longest-time follower, who has followed this blog since 2005).

Quotes of Truth.
"When you open your eyes in the morning, thank God that He has kept you through the night. Thank Him for His peace in your heart. Morning, noon, and night let gratitude as a sweet perfume ascend to heaven."

My Life Today, p. 171