Jehovah

An anglicized pronunciation of the Hebrew tetragrammaton, YHWH, which are the four consonant letters used to spell God’s name in the Old Testament (Exodus 3:14). The Hebrews considered the name of God too holy to pronounce and substituted the word “Lord” (adonai) when the text was read. The vowels of the word “adonai” was combined with YHWH to get the word “Jehovah” which was first used in the 12th century. A more accurate pronunciation of YHWH would be “Yahweh.” However, the exact and proper pronunciation has been lost.