
New Christians—and a bunch of us older ones too—tend to be fascinated by the fact God has a lot of different names.
No, I’m not talking about the different words for “God” in other languages: Theos, Deus, Dios, Diyos, Dieu, Dia, Dio, Zeu, Gott, Gud, Hudaý, Bog, Buh, Elohim,

James Nesbit is selling this poster of God’s names. Without the watermark, I expect. jnesbit.com
There’s “God,” of course. There’s “the Lord” or “the L
And I haven’t even got to the titles yet. Like Mighty God, Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, Lord of Hosts, and so on. Go to your average Christian bookstore (assuming your local one hasn’t shut down, or moved to the internet) and they even have a poster covered in God’s titles. Suitable for framing, if you’re not a teenager but still like posters.
Bust out some Hebrew to go along with it, and some Christians will get sloppy with excitement. I can write articles about God’s attributes till my fingers go numb, but many a Christian doesn’t give a rip about theology: They just want easy ideas which
There’s just something about them. Because, as many Christians teach, there’s power in God’s name.
But I should first point out these many names of God… are not necessarily what God names himself.
Fr’instance “God.” In nearly every culture, a
So you suck up to gods as you do a warlord or king. ’Cause it’s more powerful than you, and could either do things for you, or smite you. It might have expectations on you, or capriciously decide it doesn’t like you.
But to the ancients, gods weren’t all-powerful. Gods could only control, or reign over, one particular thing—like weather or sex. Even the mightiest of gods wasn’t the creator of all things; ancient myths always had the first gods making the universe out of pre-existing materials, which nobody made… and often the pre-existing materials made the gods, like when Ouranos and Gaia made Chronos. Likewise these gods weren’t even moral beings. (Well, Baldr was good. But of all the gods in pagan mythology, it’s pretty much only him. And they killed him.)
In contrast, the anceint Hebrews, we Christians, and Muslims are
The generic Hebrew words for gods—el, eloáh, or elohím (which is one of those words which can be singular or plural, like “pants” or “deer”) grew to signify the One God, the only God, their God. Capitalized ’cause it’s his title. (Some Christians go bonkers when it’s written in lowercase, ’cause they think it’s disrespectful. Yeah, like the President feels slighted when people refer to him as “the president.” Of all the dumb things to fret about.)
But “God” isn’t properly his name; it’s his species. It’s like when God refers to any of us as “human,” or “son of man”—like he did Ezekiel,
What God calls himself.
GOD ALMIGHTY (Hebrew,
The translators of
In recent times, linguists speculate šaddaý means something else. Ordinarily šaddaýim, its plural, means “breasts.” So linguists wonder whether this was meant to represent God’s provision to his people, kinda like a mother provides milk for her newborn. Remember, God may be our Father,
But it also looks like šaddaý is related to
Me, I figure just because a word looks like another word, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re related. A baseball pitcher isn’t called that because he can drink a lot of beer. (Think about that a moment. Laugh when you get it.) The Saxon for “throw” just happened to resemble the Old French for “pot.” Same with šaddaý—there’s no reason to assume it’s descended from any similar-looking Hebrew words. The ancients believed it meant “almighty.” Let’s assume they’re right, and move on.
I AM (WHO I AM) (literally
God gave this name in response to Moses’s request, “When I say ‘God of your ancestors,’ and they respond, ‘And which god is that?’ what response will I give?”
JEHOVAH and YAHWEH
(
Its pronunciation is actually an educated guess. Y’see, the Hebrews, out of respect for the H
So where’d our English name Jehovah come from? Well, the vowel-marks in a Hebrew bible, which’re ordinarily meant to help out people who are unfamiliar with how to pronounce Hebrew, don’t actually indicate how to pronounce Y
Yep, not only are we pronouncing it wrong, we’re pronouncing the German wrong. Oh well; we pronounce all the other words wrong.
Lots of folks refer to Jehovah as God’s “covenant name,” because he didn’t reveal it till he rescued the Hebrews, made covenant with them, and reiterated throughout his covenant “I’m the L
But as he said, Jehovah is his name for all generations. It isn’t only connected with his covenant, nor only with Israel. Jehovah is the God and Father of Christ Jesus, the God of the Christians, and the God of people who don’t worship him or know him properly—the God of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, everyone. Jehovah is God of the whole earth.
And yes, sometimes in the bible we find it written as
JEALOUS
(
“[My] name is Jealous,” God reiterated to Moses.
JESUS (Hebrew
What we’ve called him.
I already dealt with “God.” But non-monotheists often assume by “God” we mean one of many gods, and they wanna know which god. And sometimes we Christians fall for this bushwa, and instead of correctly answering, “There’s only the One,” we indicate he’s a particular god: The god of Christianity; the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the god of Israel; the Father of Christ Jesus; the god of the monotheistic faiths; nature’s god; what have you.
Ancients did it too. Hence the other names for God we find in the bible.
LORD
(
The all-capitals version of it, L
Um… for the same reason we usually refer to our fathers as “Dad” instead of his given name. It’s a respect thing. That’s why most of us still follow the custom of calling him Lord, and most bibles still use the all-caps “L
In fact some of us, out of extra respect, won’t even spell out “Lord.” They borrow an orthodox Jewish custom and refer to God as
Frequently people in the scriptures refer to God as Y
EVERLASTING GOD
(
- When Abraham worshiped God at Beersheba with the Philistines.
Ge 21.33 This was back when the Philistines still actually followed God,Ge 20 and El Olám is possibly what they called him. - When Isaiah called God this to point out his infinite power and strength.
Is 40.28
GOD MOST HIGH
(
The first time this title pops up in the scriptures is where Avram met the Canaanite king of Salem (later Jerusalem). He was called Melchizedek
LIVING GOD
(
So the point of referring to God as the living God is to point to the obvious fact: You don’t need to use divination or magic to determine God’s will, ’cause he still talks to people. You don’t have to perform incantations to make things happen, ’cause God still acts. He’s alive, active, and mighty.
LORD OF HOSTS
(
Many Christians get really uncomfortable with all the war imagery. Some of ’em claim cheva’ót is untranslatable. Others figure it refers to God’s heavenly armies, and spiritual warfare—and by spiritual they often mean imaginary. It’s not real warfare; it’s on another cosmic plane, where there’s no bloodshed and nobody dies.
Meh. God commands the armies of heaven, but sometimes he’s gotta have ’em kick some physical keisters.
“The LORD our [neat thing] .”
Lots of Christians like to proclaim, “He’s Jehovah-Jireh, our provider.” Or “Jehovah-Shalom, our peace.” Or “Jehovah-Rapha, our healer.” And so forth. Basically add a Hebrew adjective (typically mispronounced) to Jehovah. Which is a little weird, ’cause “Jehovah” is English, not Hebrew. But anyway.
These actually aren’t God’s names. They’re descriptions. It’d be like calling me “Leslie the Coffee-Drinker.” Leslie’s my name, but Coffee-Drinker, while something I do quite frequently, is not. No more than “Leslie the Teeth-Brusher,” or “Leslie the Dishwasher-Emptier,” or “Leslie the Netflix-Watcher.” God’s adjectives are way more impressive though.
Some of these adjectives were taken from scriptures where God made a statement about himself. Other times, he did something significant, so people remembered him for that action. And about half of them are place names:
There’s nothing wrong with studying God’s character through them. We definitely should. But they’re not God’s names. Don’t mix ’em up with names; that’s sloppy bible study.
But for your edification, here’s a list of some of the more popular adjectives.
- JEHOVAH JIREH (Y
HWH yiréh/“Jehovah provides”). A place name, given after God spared Isaac from sacrifice.Ge 22.14 - JEHOVAH MEKODDISHKEM (Y
HWH m’qaddoškhém/“Jehovah makes you holy”). Comes from the LORD ’s statement that he makes Israel holy.Ex 31.13 - JEHOVAH NISSI (Y
HWH nissí/“Jehovah my banner”). An altar, named in honor of Amalek’s defeat by the Hebrews.Ex 17.15 - JEHOVAH RAAH (Y
HWH ra’í/“Jehovah my shepherd”). Comes fromPsalm 23 . - JEHOVAH RAPHA (Y
HWH rofé/“Jehovah cures”). Comes from the LORD ’s statement that he cures the Hebrews of illnesses.Ex 15.26 - JEHOVAH SHALOM (Y
HWH shalóm/“Jehovah [is] peace”). An altar, named after God called Gideon to defeat Midian.Jg 6.24 - JEHOVAH SHAMMA (Y
HWH shammá/“Jehovah [is] there”). New Jerusalem’s name, as revealed to Ezekiel.Ek 48.35 - JEHOVAH TSIDKENU (Y
HWH chidqenú/“Jehovah our rightness”). Comes from one of Isaiah’s prophecies about Messiah, who’ll be named “The LORD our righteousness.”Jr 23.6
Likely you’ve heard others.
Metaphors.
The prophets and poets of the bible have used a ton of metaphors and similes to describe God. Not that they’re too numerous to count, but I’m not writing a concordance here.
The more popular metaphors tend to show up on “Names of God” posters, videos, and bible studies. You likely remember the more famous ones Jesus used to describe himself—
- Living water
Jn 4.10 - Bread of life
Jn 6.35 - Light of the world
Jn 8.12 - Good shepherd
Jn 10.11 - Resurrection and life
Jn 11.25 - Way, truth, and life
Jn 14.6 - True vine
Jn 15.5
—and that’s just from John. The Apostles called him many more things than this.
And there are descriptors we find throughout the bible: Jesus calls the L
And again: These aren’t God’s names. They’re more adjectives. We can learn many profound things about God from them, just like the compound “names.” We oughta study them. But don’t confuse them with names. Sloppy bible study.
The names of God—the ones we oughta focus on most—naturally should be the ones he’s revealed himself with: God Almighty, I Am, Jehovah, Jealous, and Jesus. In them we see he’s powerful, he retains his own personality, he doesn’t want competition, and he’s saved us. That alone is plenty to meditate upon. But do check out the rest too.
