Dear Editors and friends,

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Pastor Ed Rice, Good Samaritan Baptist Church, Dresden NY 14441

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A Question On the name of GOD

I got this very interesting question from a reader, and thought it appropriate to share it with all.

On 1/22/2013, Devon wrote: Good Morning Pastor Rice! ^_^

Pastor, I've never had an issue believing God's Word (1 Cor 13:7) since I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour , perhaps living it but definitely not believing it. If that's what the Word of God says then I take it as truth (Jn 17:17). Here's my question. Jehovah??? It appears 7x in the Bible either as just Jehovah (Ex 6:3) or as Jehovah-something (Gen 22:14, Ex 17:15, etc.) and I've also been told that "LORD" is English for the Hebrew word Jehovah transliterated. I honestly don't know how to ask this question, but I'll do my best, Why is it like this at all? I certainly don't want to remove 'Jehovah' from the Bible as the NKJV and New Age bibles but I have no explanation for those "Christians" that use these new age bibles when dealing with this issue and building their faith in the Word of God rather than to create quakes of doubt. Pastor, I've been following you for some time now and find you to be a faithful, loving man of God and so trust your teaching when dealing with the Bible (AV 1611). Please help me.

Devon,

Dear Devon,

Thanks for asking. I love this name and every disciple needs to be its student. As you stated the name Jehovah is normally shown in English Scripture as “LORD” with all capitals. Sometimes in compound names it may be shown as “GOD” with all capitals. In the seven times that you mention, (Ex 6:3, Ps 83:18, Isa 12:2, and Isa 26:4, compound in Ge 22:14, Ex 17:15, Jud 6:24) the English translation “JEHOVAH” is used for clarification purposes; i.e. Isa 26:4 states it as “Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.” instead of “Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD the LORD is everlasting strength. ” The latter is indeed how modernist bibles render these more complex references where the actual name of JEHOVAH is more clear and better used. A good ground rule for ALL mondernist English translations is that their driving concern was not truth, accuracy or clarity, but to establish and record 60,000 deviations from all previous translations. That is the only way they could get their work to have a lucrative copyright. In these 7 instances they could not use the simple clarity found in the King James Translation and still secure their copy right.

The name JEHOVAH, shown in English as LORD, comes from the Hebrew word YHWH and is in the Old Testament Scriptures 6,519 times. (6,510 times in English as LORD, 4 times as GOD, 4 times as JEHOVAH, and once as a variant.) The English pronunciation for this unpronounced Hebrew word was derived by inserting the vowel sounds from the other names for God. Most modernist scholars think they have done better by pronouncing it Yahweh. I do not trust modernist ecumenical profit motivated scholars and I use the old English derivation JEHOVAH. C.I. Scofield places a table entitled “God is revealed through His names” after the close of Malachi on page 983. It has been very helpful to me and is repeated here (without his permission, although Scofield and I go way back, ... 1960)

I trust this helps. It was a blessing for me just to review it here. Keep up the faith and contend for the faith, and God bless.

Pastor Ed Rice