Grow With Me
Grow With Me

יְהֹוָה

YHWH · YHWH

Hebrew word · Strong’s number H3068 · appears 6521 times in the Bible

What is the Strong number?Strong’s number identifies this word: use it to find the same word in other study tools.

What it means

YHWH (יְהֹוָה) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “YHWH”.

The personal name of the God of Israel, written in Hebrew with four letters, Y-H-W-H, without vowels. Out of reverence Jews stopped pronouncing it and read "Adonai" (Lord), so many Bibles put "the LORD" or "Jehovah". This translation keeps the four letters. The name is related to the verb "to be" (Exodus 3:14-15). He is not a god other than Elohim: "YHWH Elohim" is the same Creator God, called by his name.

Its senses in the Bible

  1. The personal name of the God of Israel; it is tied to "to be".

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

The personal name of the God of Israel, written in Hebrew with four consonants: Y-H-W-H. It is not a title like “God” or “Lord” but his name. The text itself links it to the verb “to be” (הָיָה): when Moses asks his name, Elohim answers “I will be who I will be” and then says “YHWH… This is my name forever” (Exodus 3:14-15).

Historical and cultural background

In Exodus 34:6 YHWH proclaims his own name and describes it: “YHWH, YHWH, an El merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness”. Short forms of the name are part of many personal names (Jonathan, Jehoshaphat, Joab) and appear as “Yah” in the call to praise Yah.

How we translate it

This edition writes “YHWH” in all 6521 occurrences, untranslated. It is a basic rule: the names of God are kept as they stand in the original, transliterated, instead of being replaced by a traditional title; each name is always written the same way, and different names look different (YHWH, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai). In the New Testament this edition translates what the Greek says, κύριος, “Lord”, also when it quotes a passage that says YHWH in Hebrew.

Related words

Comes from

Words that come from it

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

  • Genesis 2:4

    These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that YHWH Elohim made earth and heavens.

  • Genesis 2:5

    Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for YHWH Elohim had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no human being to work the ground;

  • Genesis 2:7

    And YHWH Elohim formed the man from dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

  • Genesis 2:8

    And YHWH Elohim planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

  • Genesis 2:9

    And YHWH Elohim made every tree sprout from the ground that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

  • Genesis 2:15

    And YHWH Elohim took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

  • Genesis 2:16

    And YHWH Elohim commanded the man, saying, “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat;

  • Genesis 2:18

    And YHWH Elohim said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.”

  • Genesis 2:19

    And YHWH Elohim formed from the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called it, as a living being, that was its name.

  • Genesis 2:21

    And YHWH Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his sides and closed up the flesh in its place.

  • Genesis 2:22

    And YHWH Elohim built the side that he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

  • Genesis 3:1

    Now the serpent was more shrewd than any animal of the field that YHWH Elohim had made. And it said to the woman, “Did Elohim really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

  • Genesis 3:8

    And they heard the sound of YHWH Elohim walking about in the garden in the wind of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the presence of YHWH Elohim among the trees of the garden.

  • Genesis 3:9

    And YHWH Elohim called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

  • Genesis 3:13

    And YHWH Elohim said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

  • Genesis 3:14

    And YHWH Elohim said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you from among all the livestock and from among every animal of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life.

  • Genesis 3:21

    And YHWH Elohim made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them.

  • Genesis 3:22

    And YHWH Elohim said, “Look, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, so that he does not reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever—”

  • Genesis 3:23

    And YHWH Elohim sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

  • Genesis 4:1

    Now the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have acquired a man with YHWH.”

  • Genesis 4:3

    And it happened at the end of some days that Cain brought from the fruit of the ground an offering to YHWH.

  • Genesis 4:4

    And Abel also brought, he too, from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat. And YHWH regarded Abel and his offering,

  • Genesis 4:6

    And YHWH said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?

  • Genesis 4:9

    And YHWH said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

  • Genesis 4:13

    And Cain said to YHWH, “My iniquity is too great to bear.

  • Genesis 4:15

    And YHWH said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And YHWH put a sign on Cain, so that no one who found him would strike him.

  • Genesis 4:16

    And Cain went out from the presence of YHWH and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

  • Genesis 4:26

    And to Seth, to him also, a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then people began to call on the name of YHWH.

  • Genesis 5:29

    And he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us from our work and from the toil of our hands, from the ground that YHWH has cursed.”

  • Genesis 6:3

    And YHWH said, “My spirit will not remain in the human being forever, for he also is flesh; and his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

  • Genesis 6:5

    And YHWH saw that the wickedness of the human being was great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the day.

  • Genesis 6:6

    And YHWH was sorry that he had made the human being on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.

  • Genesis 6:7

    And YHWH said, “I will wipe out the human being whom I have created from the face of the ground, from human being to livestock, to creeping things and to the birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I made them.”

  • Genesis 6:8

    But Noah found favor in the eyes of YHWH.

  • Genesis 7:1

    And YHWH said to Noah, “Come, you and all your household, into the ark, for you I have seen to be righteous before me in this generation.

  • Genesis 7:5

    And Noah did according to all that YHWH had commanded him.

  • Genesis 7:16

    And those that came, male and female of all flesh, came as Elohim had commanded him; and YHWH shut the door behind him.

  • Genesis 8:20

    And Noah built an altar to YHWH, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

  • Genesis 8:21

    And YHWH smelled the pleasing aroma, and YHWH said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human being, for the inclination of the heart of the human being is evil from his youth; and I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.

  • Genesis 9:26

    And he said, “Blessed be YHWH, the Elohim of Shem; and let Canaan be their slave.

And 6481 more times.