When the Lord called out to Moses from the burning bush, commanding him to lead the Israelites out of the bondage in Egypt, “..Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your Fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, what is His name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus 3:13,14). This revelation of God’s name is the first time in the Biblical narrative where God Himself identifies His name as I AM. Going further, In Exodus 6:3 God reveals another one of His names that was previously unknown even to the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this name of God which the Lord revealed unto Moses was: JEHOVAH.
Now the name Jehovah, which God revealed unto Moses, is translated from the Hebrew as Yahweh: the Hebrew verb meaning “to be.” Yahweh can be abbreviated with four Hebrew consonants or letters, which read from right to left, are yodh, he, waw, and he. These Hebrew letters which abbreviate the name Yahweh are translated into English with the letters YHWH. This shortened form of the name Yahweh is called the Tetragrammaton. However, in order not to break the third commandment against taking the Lord’s name in vain, the Hebrews would later avoid saying Yahweh altogether and instead referred to God as Adonai, which means “My Lord.”
In its simplest form, the Hebrew name for God is El. The name El was also used by neighboring cultures surrounding ancient Israel to name their own gods. For example, the ancient Ugarit civilization which is located in modern day Syria, had a pantheon of gods and the god El was the chief of that pantheon. The titles given to the Ugaritic El were, “the King” and “the Father of Gods.” Now the Arabic name for God is Allah, with its designated epithets “the Merciful” and “the Beneficent,” which are close to the epithets of the Ugaritic El who is known as “the Kind, the Compassionate.” In the Hebrew Bible, El is often accompanied by a second word, such as El Shaddai, which means “God Almighty” and El Elyon meaning “God Most High.” However, the most common name for God is the plural term Elohim, which suggests that in His majesty God represents all aspects of divinity.
Though Elohim is a common name for God, the name of God most often used in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton. Now Rabbinic Judaism describes seven holy names for God which are YHWH, El, Eloah, Elohim, Shaddai, Ehyeh, and Tzevaot. These seven names are so holy that once they are written down, they should not be erased. For in Jewish culture it is forbidden to pronounce the name of the Tetragrammaton. In prayers it is pronounced as Adonai, and in conversation it is spoken as HaShem, which means “The Name.” For the true name of God was unknown and forbidden to all except for the High Priest who would speak “The Name” consisting of seventy-two letters, within the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem once each year on Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement.
JAH is another name for God which is popular among Rastafarians and is found in Psalms 68:4 in the King James Version of the Holy Bible where it is written, “Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.” In the New Testament, the Lord God incarnates and is given the name Jesus, a name that Christian worshipers call upon for help and for their salvation. However, when Christ returns on His robe He will have a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Revelation 19:16). Jesus is also called the Word of God in the book of Revelation, and St. John even reveals to us that at His second coming Christ will have a name written, that no man knows, but He Himself (Revelation 19:12). So here we see that the only one who knows the true name of God is God Himself.
References:
ABC’s Of The Bible. (Pleasantville, NY: The Readers Digest Association, Inc., 1991).
Coogan, M. & Smith, M. Stories from Ancient Canaan. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).
Green, J.P. The Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible Vol. I. (Lafayette, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2000).
The Holy Scriptures, According to the Masoretic Text. (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917).
Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).