It may be asked what has happened to the Name of the LORD [YHWH] in the New Testament. Various theories have been put forward to explain why there is no transliteration of Yahweh or Jehovah in the Greek, when a Hebrew expression like Tsabaoth does appear twice in a Greek form. In both Romans 9:29, in a quotation from Isaiah, and James 5:4 the Hebrew Yahweh or Jehovah Tsabaoth is represented by kyrios sabaoth, or in the English version as “the Lord of sabaoth”.
It is evident that either the Name, which was of course known to both Paul and James, was rendered by them as “the Lord” because they refrained from using it regularly, while keeping the Hebrew word for “hosts”; or as some prefer to think, there has been a tampering with the Greek text to make it conform with the Old Testament Greek version, the Septuagint, which regularly renders the Hebrew YHWH by kyrios, just as the English versions print it as “the LORD”.
Most commentators agree that the Jews refrained from uttering the Divine Name as a mark of reverence, although the practice became almost a superstition in itself. There is evidence of this in the New Testament, for example, where the High Priest asked Jesus, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” (Mark 14:61). On this matter there is more to be said in a later article. There is, however, another reason why the Name of the LORD does not appear in reference to God in the New Testament, to which we alluded last month. It is Jesus who inherits “the name that is above every name”: God Himself is known to His people and addressed by them as Father. It was the Lord Jesus who taught them by example and by precept to use that title of reverence and love.
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Author: Alfred Nicholls
Keywords: Yahweh, YHWH, The name of the LORD
Bible reference(s): Matthew 4:7, Matthew 5:33, Matthew 21:9, Matthew 22:37, Matthew 22:44, Matthew 23:39, Mark 1:3, Mark 11:10, Mark 12:29-30, Mark 12:36, Luke 1:9, Luke 1:16, Luke 1:32, Luke 1:68, Luke 4:18-19, Luke 13:35, John 12:13, Revelation 18:8, Revelation 19:6, Revelation 21:22, Revelation 22:5-6, Mark 14:61, Luke 10:21, Romans 9:29
Source: “The God and Father of Our Lord,” The Christadelphian, volume 118 no. 1399, January 1981, pp. 1-2.
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