Jehovah
Jehovah is the English pronunciation of the divine name. In in the Hebrew scriptures the divine name was written YHWH or JHWH (Tetragrammaton) because there are no vowels in Hebrew. No one knows how to pronounce this name because the Jews became superstitious about saying the name out loud before the time of Christ and the actual pronunciation was lost. Scholars believe it to have sounded
like Yehowah or Yahweh. Saying Jehovah in English is
like saying Miguel for Michael in Spanish, or
like Yeshua in Hebrew is pronounced
Jesus in English.
Jehovah means "to become," and it was a
popular Hebrew name before God chose it. So when God chose this name for himself he was indicating that he would "become"
whatever was needed to fulfill his purposes. The translation "I AM" as seen in Exodus 3 is commonly mistranslated and should more likely read "I will become," as is explained in the passages following.
The original scrolls of the Christian Greek scriptures didn't last long and when Catholicism came about in the 4th century YHWH began being replaced with LORD and GOD due to the man made doctrine of the holy
trinity. (If
Jesus were actually God, then it didn't make sense to keep calling Him Jehovah, even though that name appeared almost 7,000 times in the Hebrew scriptures.) But there really is no question that
Jesus and his disciples used the divine name, especially when quoting and reading from the Hebrew scriptures where the name appeared. (See
Luke 4:16-21 and compare Isaiah 61:
1-2 in American Standard Version.)
Jesus said that he made God's name known to his disciples John 17:6, 26. And the book of Ezekiel repeatedly says in the end times "they will know that I am Jehovah." (Given that the
bible you're reading honors the divine name and has not substituted it with LORD.)
