MANNAFEST

Names of God

God reveals himself by name. Each name given in a specific historical moment, in response to a specific situation. Fourteen names along a revelation timeline — from Elohim at creation to YHWH-Shammah at the restored city — closing with Jesus' "I AM."

I AM THAT I AM.

יְהוָה

I AM THAT I AM

Exodus 3:14

28 names · 9 compound revelations · 7 New-Testament titles

He spoke His name from a bush that would not burn — אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ehyeh asher ehyeh, “I AM.”

Exodus 3:14 (ASV floor text). Every name below is where Scripture first speaks it, and — where the lexicon can count it — how many times.

One catalog, three families: the El names, the YHWH names, and Adonai with the New-Testament titles — twenty-eight cards in all. Seven of them carry a✦mark: the names Jewish law forbids erasing (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, public domain — explained below). The popular grouping of “compound names of Jehovah” is Nathan Stone’s devotional schema (Moody, 1944), not a fixed Hebrew set — most of the YHWH compounds are, in the text, altar-names and epithets. Shown as tradition, over the genuine phrases.

Shelf I · El

El and its compounds

the Semitic root shared with the whole ancient Near East, claimed for the God of Israel
  • Genesis 14:18✦
    אֵל
    El
    “God, mighty one” (BDB/TBESH)

    the oldest Semitic divine word, claimed for YHWH

    241 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H410 →
  • Genesis 1:1✦
    אֱלֹהִים
    Elohim
    “God, Creator, Judge (plural form, singular referent)” (BDB/TBESH)

    the Creator of Genesis 1

    2,601 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H430 →
  • Deuteronomy 32:15
    אֱלוֹהַּ
    Eloah
    “God (singular of Elohim)” (BDB)

    the God Jeshurun forsook; the God of Job

    57 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H433 →
  • Genesis 14:18
    אֵל עֶלְיוֹן
    El Elyon
    “God Most High” (BDB)

    Melchizedek, priest of El Elyon, blesses Abram

    53 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H5945 →
  • Genesis 17:1✦
    אֵל שַׁדַּי
    El Shaddai
    “God Almighty (etymology contested)” (BDB/TBESH)◈ contested

    God appears to 99-year-old Abram to seal the covenant of circumcision

    48 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H7706 →
  • Genesis 21:33
    אֵל עוֹלָם
    El Olam
    “the Everlasting God” (BDB)

    Abraham plants a tamarisk at Beersheba and calls on El Olam

    438 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H5769 →
  • Genesis 16:13
    אֵל רֳאִי
    El Roi
    “the God who sees me” (BDB)

    Hagar, alone in the wilderness — the only divine name given by a woman, and a foreigner

    5 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H7210 →
  • Isaiah 9:6
    אֵל גִּבּוֹר
    El Gibbor
    “Mighty God” (BDB)

    title of the promised child; reused of YHWH himself at Isa 10:21

    reported: phrase (h410 + h1368)
    H410 →H1368 →

The shelves are joined by a hinge verse: “I appeared unto Abraham… as El Shaddai; but by my name YHWH I was not known to them” (Exodus 6:3). The El names are the patriarchs’ vocabulary; at the bush the covenant name is given — and the altar-names on this shelf are built on it.

Shelf II · YHWH

YHWH and its compounds

the covenant name given at the bush, and the altar-names built on it
  • Genesis 2:4✦
    יְהוָה
    YHWH
    “the LORD, the covenant name” (BDB/TBESH)◈ contested

    'I AM' at the burning bush (Exod 3:14–15); the name not known to the patriarchs (Exod 6:3)

    6,520 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H3068 →
  • Exodus 15:2
    יָהּ
    Yah
    “short form of YHWH” (BDB)

    the Song of the Sea; the '-iah' in names and Hallelu-Yah

    50 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H3050 →
  • Exodus 3:14✦
    אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה
    Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh
    “I AM WHO I AM / I WILL BE (contested)” (BDB)◈ contested

    the name God gives Moses at the bush; one of the seven un-erasable names

    3,559 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H1961 →
  • Genesis 22:14
    יְהוָה יִרְאֶה
    YHWH-Yireh
    “the LORD will provide / see (altar-name)” (BDB (epithet))

    Abraham names Moriah after the ram substitutes for Isaac

    reported: altar-name (1)
    H3068 →H7200 →
  • Exodus 15:26
    יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ
    YHWH-Rapha
    “the LORD who heals (epithet)” (BDB (epithet))

    at Marah's bitter water made sweet

    reported: epithet (1)
    H3068 →H7495 →
  • Exodus 17:15
    יְהוָה נִסִּי
    YHWH-Nissi
    “the LORD is my banner (altar-name)” (BDB (epithet))

    Moses' altar after the defeat of Amalek

    reported: altar-name (1)
    H3068 →H5251 →
  • Judges 6:24
    יְהוָה שָׁלוֹם
    YHWH-Shalom
    “the LORD is peace (altar-name)” (BDB (epithet))

    Gideon's altar at Ophrah

    reported: altar-name (1)
    H3068 →H7965 →
  • Psalms 23:1
    יְהוָה רֹעִי
    YHWH-Ra'ah
    “the LORD is my shepherd (epithet)” (BDB (epithet))

    David's psalm; fulfilled 'I am the good shepherd' (John 10:11)

    reported: epithet
    H3068 →H7462 →
  • Jeremiah 23:6
    יְהוָה צִדְקֵנוּ
    YHWH-Tsidkenu
    “the LORD our righteousness (epithet)” (BDB (epithet))

    the name of the righteous Branch

    reported: epithet
    H3068 →H6664 →
  • Ezekiel 48:35
    יְהוָה שָׁמָּה
    YHWH-Shammah
    “the LORD is there (city-name)” (BDB (epithet))

    the closing name of the restored city

    reported: city-name (1)
    H3068 →H8033 →
  • Exodus 31:13
    יְהוָה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם
    YHWH-Mekaddishkem
    “the LORD who sanctifies you (epithet)” (BDB (epithet))

    the sabbath sign of sanctification

    reported: epithet
    H3068 →H6942 →
  • 1 Samuel 1:3✦
    יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
    YHWH Tseva'ot / Sabaoth
    “the LORD of hosts / armies” (BDB)

    first at Shiloh; transliterated into Greek at Rom 9:29, Jas 5:4

    485 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H6635 →

Read aloud, the covenant name was guarded: Jewish readers substituted Adonai, “Lord” — the substitution whose vowels later produced “Jehovah” (the qere perpetuum) and whose Greek form, Κύριος, the New Testament confesses of Jesus. This shelf carries that bridge and the titles that cross it (the full translation chain is below).

Shelf III · Adonai → Kyrios

Adonai and the New-Testament titles

the address 'Lord,' the LXX bridge, and the titles carried to Jesus
  • Genesis 15:2✦
    אֲדֹנָי
    Adonai
    “Lord, Master” (BDB/TBESH)

    Abram's address 'Adonai YHWH'; its vowels produced 'Jehovah' (qere perpetuum)

    440 tagged occurrences in the floor
    H136 →
  • John 1:1
    Θεός
    Theos
    “God” (Abbott-Smith (PD))

    'the Word was God'

    1,312 tagged occurrences in the floor
    G2316 →
  • Matthew 1:20
    Κύριος
    Kyrios
    “Lord (LXX rendering of YHWH)” (Abbott-Smith (PD))◈ contested

    the confession 'Jesus is Lord' (Phil 2:11) — the name-bridge

    711 tagged occurrences in the floor
    G2962 →
  • John 1:1
    Λόγος
    Logos
    “Word” (Abbott-Smith (PD))

    'In the beginning was the Word'; Rev 19:13

    329 tagged occurrences in the floor
    G3056 →
  • Matthew 1:1
    Χριστός
    Christos
    “Anointed, Messiah” (Abbott-Smith (PD))

    carries every OT mashiach

    523 tagged occurrences in the floor
    G5547 →
  • Matthew 1:23
    Ἐμμανουήλ
    Emmanouel
    “God with us” (Abbott-Smith (PD))◈ contested

    Matthew's fulfillment citation of Isa 7:14

    1 tagged occurrence in the floor
    G1694 →
  • John 8:58
    ἐγώ εἰμι
    ego eimi
    “I am (absolute)” (text)◈ contested

    'Before Abraham was, I AM' — echoing Exod 3:14 LXX

    reported: NT
  • Revelation 1:8
    Ἄλφα / Ὦ
    Alpha and Omega
    “the first and the last” (text)

    the Isa 44:6 title transferred to the risen Christ (Rev 1:8; 22:13)

    reported: NT

The threads between the shelves

The catalog is a walkable graph, not a static table — each name is wired to the next along the line Scripture itself draws.

Spokes off אֵל — names that carry El
NathanaelDanielImmanuelIsraelElijahIshmaelElimelech

Each embeds El, “God.” Source: STEPBible TIPNR; biblicalhebrew.org (cite-only).

Spokes off יָהּ — names that carry Yah
ElijahIsaiahJeremiahZechariahHezekiahJoshua / Jesus

Each embeds a short form of YHWH — names as compact creeds. Source: STEPBible TIPNR; biblicalhebrew.org (cite-only).

Framework

The Tetragrammaton (YHWH) as covenant name

Ex 3:13–15 — Moses asks the name; God answers ehyeh asher ehyeh ("I AM THAT I AM") and names himself YHWH. Ex 6:2–3 — "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name YHWH was I not known to them." The Tetragrammaton is the name around which the compound names cluster — every YHWH-compound (Jireh, Rapha, Nissi, Shalom, Ro'i, Tsidkenu, Shammah) is "YHWH + attribute." The compounds are contextual revelations of the covenant name under specific circumstances. Pronunciation: the Masoretic Hebrew preserves consonants only; Jewish tradition substitutes Adonai at reading; the reconstructed "Yahweh" is scholarly inference, not textual certainty.

Compound YHWH names as contextual revelations

Each compound reveals God in the situation where the name is given. YHWH-Jireh (Gen 22:14, Moriah after the ram) — "the LORD will provide." YHWH-Rapha (Ex 15:26, Marah after the bitter waters) — "the LORD that healeth thee." YHWH-Nissi (Ex 17:15, Rephidim after Amalek) — "the LORD my banner." YHWH-Shalom (Jdg 6:24, Ophrah) — "the LORD is peace." YHWH-Ro'i (Ps 23:1, David's confession) — "the LORD is my shepherd." YHWH-Tsidkenu (Jer 23:6, the Branch from David) — "the LORD our righteousness." YHWH-Shammah (Ezek 48:35, the restored city) — "the LORD is there."

El-compounds as attribute names

Elohim (Gen 1:1) — plural-of-majesty Creator name; the first name of Scripture. El Shaddai (Gen 17:1) — "God Almighty," given to Abram at covenant-renewal. El Elyon (Gen 14:18–22) — "God Most High," Melchizedek's priestly name. El Olam (Gen 21:33) — "the Everlasting God," Abraham's planting at Beersheba.

YHWH Sabaoth and Adonai

YHWH Sabaoth / Tzeva'ot (1 Sam 1:3; pervasive in the prophets) — "the LORD of hosts," with military / angelic-host connotation; the name most frequent in Isaiah. Adonai (Gen 15:2) — "my Lord / Master," the vocalization Jewish reading practice substitutes for the Tetragrammaton; also used independently as a reverent address.

Translation history — Hebrew → Greek → Latin → English

Hebrew YHWH → Greek Kyrios (LXX, 3rd–2nd c. BC) → Latin Dominus (Vulgate, Jerome 4th c. AD) → English LORD (Tyndale → KJV 1611; small-caps convention preserves the YHWH reading). The translation chain flattens the Tetragrammaton into a title rather than a name. When a student reads "the LORD" in capitals, they are reading the Tetragrammaton. The NT's Kyrios Iēsous (Rom 10:9 — "Jesus is Lord") is no accident; it carries the Septuagintal weight.

Jesus' "I AM" as NT capstone

Seven predicated "I AM"s in John (6:35 bread; 8:12 light; 10:7/9 door; 10:11/14 good shepherd; 11:25 resurrection and life; 14:6 way, truth, life; 15:1/5 true vine). Absolute "I AM"s: 8:24, 8:28, 8:58, 13:19, 18:5–8 (the arresting party falls backward). The continuity of Hebrew ehyeh / Greek egō eimi is the linguistic bridge. Jesus' Jewish audience at John 8:58 picked up stones — they heard the claim. Full treatment lives at /title/i-am (Jesus Titles cluster, Batch 7-B).

Where the names were spoken

A name is a moment before it is an entry. Each of these is where Scripture first speaks the name — most of them over someone in trouble.

El Roi — the God who sees me

אֵל רֳאִי
Genesis 16:13

Hagar — a used, cast-out foreign slave-woman, alone at a spring in the wilderness — meets the Angel of the LORD, and she names Him: 'Thou God seest me.' It is the only divine name in Scripture given by a woman, and by a foreigner. The child reads it and understands at once; the elephant follows the malak of Genesis 16:7 into the whole Angel-of-the-LORD thread.

Gustave Doré's engraving of Hagar and Ishmael cast out in the wilderness, the angel appearing above them
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness — Gustave Doré, La Sainte Bible, 1866: the cast-out slave-woman the God-who-sees saw — Genesis 16:13.
Public domainGustave DoréWikimedia Commons →

YHWH — the name at the bush

יְהוָה
Exodus 3:14

At the burning bush God answers Moses' 'What is His name?' with ehyeh asher ehyeh — 'I AM WHO I AM' — and then 'YHWH… this is my name for ever.' Exod 6:3 says the patriarchs knew Him as El Shaddai, but 'by my name YHWH I was not known to them.' The covenant name is revealed in a moment, to a man in trouble.

YHWH-Yireh — the LORD will provide

יְהוָה יִרְאֶה
Genesis 22:14

On Moriah, after the ram is caught by its horns and dies in Isaac's place, Abraham names the mountain 'the LORD will provide.' The provision-name is spoken over a substitutionary death — the thread the page draws forward to 'Behold the Lamb of God' (John 1:29), proposed as type, not asserted.

El Shaddai — God Almighty

אֵל שַׁדַּי
Genesis 17:1

God appears to ninety-nine-year-old Abram to seal the covenant of circumcision: 'I am El Shaddai; walk before me, and be thou perfect.' The name under which the patriarchs knew Him (Exod 6:3) — its very meaning is contested (see the etymology drawer below).

El Elyon — God Most High

אֵל עֶלְיוֹן
Genesis 14:18

Melchizedek, king of Salem and 'priest of God Most High,' brings out bread and wine and blesses Abram. Hebrews 7 lifts the scene — and the name — into its argument for a priesthood 'after the order of Melchizedek.'

El Olam — the Everlasting God

אֵל עוֹלָם
Genesis 21:33

Abraham plants a tamarisk at Beersheba and calls on 'the Everlasting God.' The noun olam first appears at Gen 3:22 — there as a danger ('lest he… live for ever' fallen) — and returns as Isaiah's 'everlasting God… who does not faint' (Isa 40:28).

Source: ASV floor text; first-occurrence facts DB-verified from the tagged corpus (lens 08).

The scenes, as the masters painted them

Three of the naming-moments above, as the old masters saw them — each image license-verified, attribution beneath.

Domenico Fetti's Moses before the Burning Bush — Moses barefoot and shielding his eyes before the bush that burns and is not consumed
Moses before the Burning Bush — Domenico Fetti, c. 1613: the moment the Name is asked and given, “I AM THAT I AM” — Exodus 3:14.
Public domainDomenico FettiWikimedia Commons →
Rembrandt's Abraham's Sacrifice — the angel seizing Abraham's hand as the knife falls away from Isaac on the altar
Abraham’s Sacrifice — Rembrandt, 1635 (Hermitage): the angel stays the knife on Moriah, and the mountain is named “the LORD will provide” — Genesis 22:14.
Public domainRembrandtWikimedia Commons →
Rubens' Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek — the priest-king of Salem bringing out bread and wine to bless Abram
The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek — Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1626 (National Gallery of Art): bread, wine, and the blessing of God Most High — Genesis 14:18.
CC0Sir Peter Paul RubensWikimedia Commons →
The seven names that may not be erased

The catalog’s structural rationale is not a devotional count but a legal one. The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906, public domain) records the seven names so holy that Jewish law forbids erasing them once written. These — marked ✦on their cards above — carry the “canonical” weight the popular fourteen-name lists borrow.

  • ✦אֵלEl
  • ✦אֱלֹהִיםElohim
  • ✦אֲדֹנָיAdonai
  • ✦יְהוָהYHWH
  • ✦אֶהְיֶהEhyeh-Asher-Ehyeh
  • ✦שַׁדַּיShaddai
  • ✦צְבָאוֹתTzevaot

Source: Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), “Names of God” — public domain, quotable in full. Tradition: Jewish.

The translation chain: how YHWH became LORD

When your English Bible prints Lord in small capitals, it is flagging the Tetragrammaton underneath — a convention with a long history behind it.

  1. Hebrewיְהוָה

    YHWH, the covenant name (h3068). Spoken with reverence; in reading, Jews substituted Adonai — 'Lord' — so the vowels of Adonai came to be written under the consonants of YHWH (the qere perpetuum), the hybrid that later produced 'Jehovah.'

  2. Greek (LXX, 3rd–2nd c. BC)Κύριος

    The Septuagint renders YHWH as Κύριος (kyrios), 'Lord.' Whether the very oldest LXX manuscripts already read kyrios is contested (see the drawer below) — but by the NT era kyrios stands for the Name, and the NT writers use exactly that word of Jesus.

  3. Latin (Vulgate, 4th c. AD)Dominus

    Jerome's Vulgate follows the Greek convention with Dominus, 'Lord' — carrying the substitution west into a thousand years of Latin Bibles.

  4. EnglishLᴏʀᴅ

    Tyndale and the KJV tradition kept the reverential substitution but marked it typographically: the LORD in small capitals wherever YHWH stands, ordinary 'Lord' for Adonai. The ASV (1901) restored the vocalized 'Jehovah' in the text — a minority choice — before most later versions returned to Lᴏʀᴅ.

The bridge to Jesus runs through that one Greek word. Paul writes that God gave Jesus “the name which is above every name… that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Κύριος” (Philippians 2:9–11), and applies Joel’s “whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD” directly to him (Romans 10:13). This is the site’s confession — presented below with its critique, per the steelman doctrine.

Sources: LXX (Brenton / Swete, PD); Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Yahweh” (cite-only); Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham on the Kyrios christology (cite-only, ≤50 words). Traditions labeled.

The word doors

Every name opens into the workbench. Occurrence counts are live from the tagged floor — this is the page’s differentiator: a real number, not a chart’s unverifiable figure. The brighter a chip’s border, the more often the name is spoken.

Reported figures vary by source (YHWH: ~6,828 Masoretic / 6,519 Blue Letter Bible; Elohim: “2,000+” to ~2,600). The number shown is the site’s own, computed from the live corpus. Standing caution: related words share a root, not necessarily a meaning. Lexica: BDB (PD), STEPBible TBESH/TBESG (CC BY 4.0), Abbott-Smith (PD).

The contested ground

Where the sources genuinely disagree, both columns stand — claim and critique, each attributed, neither adjudicated by us.

◈'Jehovah' and the 'compound names of Jehovah'contested · devotional schema vs the Hebrew text

The claim. Nathan Stone’s Names of God(Moody, 1944) and the charts after it present nine “compound names of Jehovah” — Jireh, Rapha, Nissi, Shalom, Ra-ah, Tsidkenu, Shammah, Mekaddishkem, Sabaoth — as a fixed set of divine names.

The critique. “Jehovah” is a hybrid: the consonants of YHWH with the vowels of Adonai (the qere perpetuum). Britannica: “the form Yahweh is now accepted almost universally.” And in the Hebrew text most of the “compound names” are altar-names and epithets — “YHWH-is-my-banner” is the name Moses gave an altar— not a catalog of names. Present as a reader’s memory-aid tradition over the genuine “YHWH + noun” phrases.

Sources: Nathan Stone (1944), cite-only; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Yahweh.”

◈What does El Shaddai mean?contested · etymology — no consensus

The claim. The devotional charts gloss El Shaddai “God Almighty / the self-sufficient One.”

The critique. “Self-sufficient” is a folk etymology with no linguistic basis (Barr’s target class). The real scholarly options, all attributed, none asserted: Akkadian šadû“mountain” → “God of the mountain” (Albright, most widely held); šadayim“breasts” → the fertility-giver (Albright, alt.); šadad“to be strong / destroy” → the KJV-era “Almighty” via LXX pantokratōr and Vulgate omnipotens, which Mettinger judges “probably a pun, not a linguistic historical derivation.”

Sources: W. F. Albright, JBL 54 (1935); Tryggve Mettinger, In Search of God (1988); James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961) — all cite-only, ≤50 words each.

◈Exodus 3:14 — 'I AM' or 'I WILL BE'?contested · the meaning of the Name

The claim. “I AM WHO I AM” reveals pure self-existent Being — the classical reading, carried by the LXX’s ὁ ὤν, “the One who is.”

The critique. The Hebrew imperfect ehyehcan equally mean “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” — dynamic covenant presence, not static ontology — and Frank Moore Cross reads YHWH as a causative, “he who causes to be.” Britannica notes the exact meaning “has been the subject of much scholarly speculation.” Both stand.

Sources: F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973), cite-only; Britannica; LXX (Brenton, PD).

◈Is 'El' the Canaanite high god?contested · ANE background

The claim (confessional). El, Elyon, and Shaddai are titles of the one true God — Scripture claims them for YHWH.

The critique (critical scholarship). אֵלis also the proper name of the head of the Ugaritic pantheon, and Elyon and Shaddai have Northwest-Semitic backgrounds (Cross). The honest move, per this site’s doctrine: note the ancient-Near-Eastern background as real data, and present the confessional reading that Scripture claims these titles for the God of Israel — data-forward, traditions not flattened.

Sources: F. M. Cross (1973), cite-only; Jewish Encyclopedia (PD).

◈Kyrios = YHWH, therefore Jesus is YHWH?contested · divine-identity christology

The claim (the site’s confession). The NT applies YHWH texts to Jesus through the LXX’s Kyrios: Phil 2:9–11 over Isa 45:23, Rom 10:13 over Joel 2:32 — an implicit divine-identity christology (Hurtado, Bauckham).

The critique (biblical-unitarian). Kyriosalso means “master / sir,” and the second “lord” of Ps 110:1 is adoni(a human superior), so the transfer is not automatic. Presented as the site’s confession with the unitarian critique beside it, at full strength, per the steelman doctrine.

Sources: Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ (2003); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (2008) — cite-only; biblicalunitarian.com.

◈Immanuel and Isaiah 7:14contested · the historical referent

The claim. Matthew’s fulfillment names Jesus “Immanuel — God with us,” quoting Isa 7:14 (Matthew 1:23).

The critique. The historical referent of Isa 7:14 (a child in Ahaz’s own day) and the almah / παρθένος(“young woman” / “virgin”) rendering are contested. Both presented, no adjudication.

Sources: Catholic Resources (Felix Just); Wikipedia “Isaiah 7:14” (cite-only).

◈The occurrence countscontested · why our number differs

The claim. Charts state YHWH’s count as 6,519 (Blue Letter Bible) or 6,828 (Masoretic); Elohim “2,000+” to ~2,600.

Our fix. We compute the count from the live tagged corpus at build time and show the site’s own number, footnoting the published variants — the counts on the word doors above are ours, not a chart’s.

Sources: Blue Letter Bible, “Names of God”; MannaFest live verse_words corpus (STEPBible, CC BY 4.0).

Names that carry God’s name

The divine names do not stay on the shelf — they are folded into the names of people. A theophoric name is a compact creed about the covenant God, and the New Testament reads them out loud.

Jesus = Yehoshua, “YHWH saves”

The angel performs onomastics on the spot: “thou shalt call his name JESUS: for it is he that shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The mission is derived from the name — and the name is Yehoshua (H3091), “YHWH saves.”

Jacob → Israel, “he strives with God” (embeds El)

The renaming that names the nation (Genesis 32:28; cf. Gen 35:10) folds El into Israel itself. Nathanael, Daniel, Immanuel, Elijah — the El-family; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah, Zechariah — the Yah-family. Source: STEPBible TIPNR; biblicalhebrew.org (cite-only).

Melchizedek — the NT’s onomastic exegesis

Hebrews builds a christological argument out of a name’s meaning: “King of righteousness (melek-tzedeq)… King of Salem, which is King of peace” (Hebrews 7:2), tying the El Elyon card back to Melchizedek himself.

The capstone: ἐγώ εἰμι

The man who said egō eimi, “I am,” in John’s Gospel was heard to be saying the name from the bush. “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58) echoes the LXX of Exod 3:14 — how directly is itself contested (above).

  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe bread of lifeJohn 6:35
  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe light of the worldJohn 8:12
  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe good shepherdJohn 10:11
  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe resurrection and the lifeJohn 11:25
  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe way, the truth, and the lifeJohn 14:6
  • ἐγώ εἰμιthe true vineJohn 15:1
  • ἐγώ εἰμι'I am' — and they fell to the groundJohn 18:5

And the title from Isaiah closes the loop: “I am the first, and I am the last” — YHWH of hosts (Isaiah 44:6) — is applied to the risen Christ as “the Alpha and the Omega… the first and the last” (Revelation 1:8; Revelation 22:13). See the full treatment at the “I AM” page.

Witnesses and manuscripts
Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), “Names of God”public domain · Jewish

The classic scholarly catalog and the source of the seven un-erasable names — the structural spine of this page.

Brenton / Swete Septuagintpublic domain · Greek OT

The primary witness behind the I-AM and Kyrios cards: ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν at Exod 3:14, and κύριος for YHWH at Joel 2:32.

Hitchcock’s Bible Names Dictionary (1869)public domain · traditional

Traditional meaning-chips only, under the folk-etymology guardrail — “traditional meaning,” never presented as lexical fact.

The Name in ancient letters
Sources
  • Biblical text (floor): ASV / STEPBible TAHOT+TAGNT tagged words (CC BY 4.0; text PD); live verse_words corpus; lexicon_entries occurrence counts.
  • Lexica: openscriptures HebrewLexicon (BDB — PD text, CC BY 4.0 markup); STEPBible TBESH / TBESG / TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon (1922, PD).
  • Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), “Names of God” — PD; the seven un-erasable names.
  • Brenton / Swete Septuagint (1851 / 1887–94) — PD.
  • Hitchcock’s Bible Names Dictionary (1869) — PD (traditional meanings, guardrailed).
  • Cited-only (positions, ≤50 words, never ingested): W. F. Albright, JBL 54 (1935); F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973); T. Mettinger, In Search of God (1988); James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961); Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ (2003); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (2008); Nathan Stone, Names of God (Moody, 1944).
  • Reference (cited only): Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Yahweh”; Blue Letter Bible, “Names of God”; Catholic Resources (Felix Just), “Christological Titles”; biblicalunitarian.com; biblicalhebrew.org. Traditions labeled; nothing AI-authored.