Adon, in Hebrew, means “lord.” The form Adonai, used 439 times in the Bible, can be rendered either as “my Lord” or simply as “Lord.” (Linguists offer various explanations for the element -ai. Is it a possessive pronoun denoting “my” or does it indicate a plural of majesty?) Thus, we find Exodus 15:17 translated most frequently as “the sanctuary, O Lord [Adonai],* which thy hands have established” (KJV) but, sometimes, as “the sanctuary, my Lord, which your hands have established.”1 Since Adonai and Yahweh are both typically translated as “Lord,” many modern Bibles—following a suggestion first made by William Tyndale in 1530—render Yahweh as “LORD” in small capital letters, and Adonai as “Lord.” So, “The Lord [Yahweh] appeared to him” (Genesis 18:1), but “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord [Adonai], I who am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27). The NRSV only confuses things, however, by rendering Adonai as both “Lord” and “LORD.”
When used individually, both terms are translated as “Lord,” but to avoid the awkward appellation “Lord Lord,” the KJV and NRSV render the expression as “Lord God.” (Here too, small capital letters are used to indicate that the base word is Yahweh.) “Lord Yahweh” is also used. The combination Adonai Yahweh appears 310 times in the Bible, mostly in the prophetic literature, where the prophets often begin their speeches by saying, “Thus says Adonai Yahweh.”
The Greek Old Testament and the New Testament (Revelations 1:8) occasionally use Pantokratôr, “the Almighty,” as a divine name or epithet. Modern English translations also use “the Almighty” for the Hebrew Shaddai (see El Shaddai below); in doing so they follow the Greek Bible.
The Ancient One
This is how the KJV and NRSV render the Aramaic divine name ‘attiyq yowm, which is only found once in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel: “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days [‘attiyq yowm] did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire” (Daniel 7:9, KJV). The deity thus designated is presumably El Elyon (see below).
This obscure name occurs only twice in the Bible, in Exodus 3:14 and Hosea 1:9. The Book of Exodus includes the following dialogue between Moses and the God of Israel: “But Moses said to God [Elohim], ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God [Elohim] of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’ God [Elohim] said to Moses, ‘I AM [Ehyeh] WHO I AM.’ He said further: ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites: I AM [Ehyeh] has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14, NRSV). Here Elohim serves as a description of the divinity—he is the God; Ehyeh is the God’s name. Commentators are still coming up with explanations for the meaning of this obscure name, which appears to be derived from the Hebrew verb hayah, “to be.” The NRSV offers “I am what I am” and “I will be what I will be.”
Although not as common as Elohim (see below), this is another standard Hebrew term for “god” used for any god (with a small g) as well as for Israel’s monotheistic “God,” with a capital G—as in, “I am God [El] and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22). The Canaanite high god was also called El, and the Hebrews may have given this deity’s name to their own god.
The name means “El the God of Israel,” but the KJV and NRSV leave it untranslated. In the Bible it is used only as the name given to a sanctuary: “And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel” (Genesis 33:20, KJV). (See also Elohê Yisra’el and El.)
The Hebrew term elyon means “upper”; El Elyon, “The most high God” (KJV) or “God Most High” (NRSV), is found only in Genesis 14—“and he [Melchizedek of Salem] was the priest of the most high God [El Elyon]” (Genesis 14:18-22, KJV). The short form Elyon, translated “Most High,” appears more frequently. Both names were originally associated with the Canaanite high god El. But the names clearly came to be used for Yahweh, as is apparent in Psalm 7:17: “[I] will sing praise to the name of the LORD [Yahweh], the Most High [Elyon]” (Psalm 7:17, NRSV).
Shaddai
The rare name El Shaddai, literally “God of the [uncultivated] fields,” but often translated as “God Almighty,” is found in Genesis 17:1, in which Yahweh appears to the 99-year-old Abram and says, “I am El Shaddai.” (God then changes Abram’s and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah and promises the elderly couple a son of their own.) Far more common is the abbreviated form Shaddai, which is traditionally rendered “the Almighty,” although many contemporary Bible interpreters (but not the NRSV) leave the name Shaddai untranslated. Shaddai is frequently used in the Book of Job—for instance: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty [Shaddai]?” (Job 40:2, NRSV).
Rare outside of the Book of Job, this word means God—as in, “Let that day be darkness; let not God [Eloah] regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it” (Job 3:4 KJV). Linguistically, it represents the singular of Elohim (see below).
This expression, meaning “the God of Israel,” is occasionally used to define Yahweh (see below)—as in Isaiah: “And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord [Yahweh], which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel (Elohê Yisra’el)” (Isaiah 45:3, KJV).
Used about 2,600 times, this is a stock term in the Bible’s religious vocabulary, with three distinct meanings. First, as a plural term (-im is the standard Hebrew plural ending) it means “gods, deities,” as in, “You shall have no other gods [Elohim] before me” (Deuteronomy 5:7). Second, when used about a particular god, it can mean “the deity, a god, the god,” in the singular, as in, “You cannot worship Yahweh, for he is a holy god [Elohim]” (Joshua 24:19). Third, with a capital E, it serves as a personal name for God: “In the beginning, God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
See God of Heaven.
See El Elyon.
This rendering of Yahweh has been used in both Christian and Jewish translations. It was introduced by the reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) and was subsequently used in the French Bible of Geneva (1588), by the author Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), and in the English Bible of James Moffatt (1870-1944). The first Jewish author to use it was the German philosopher and Bible translator Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). Later it found its way into Jewish vernacular Bibles in French (1899) and German (the translation made under the direction of the Jewish scholar Leopold Zunz [1794-1886]).
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