My holy name will I make known in the midst of my people Israel; neither will I allow my holy name to be profaned any more: and the nations shall know that I am Yehowah, the Holy One in Israel. — God [Ezekiel 39:7]

Throughout what is commonly referred to as the old testament, the untranslated text refers to God by a proper name; however, traditionally, translations render it “The LORD” with LORD in all caps where the name should be. This was originally done by Hebrew scribes to protect the name from being mistreated — thinking, if it isn’t know then it can’t be mistreated.  (Note that they intentionally altered the original text of the scripture.)

This practice was not instructed nor ordained by God according to scripture, and it is not noted within the scripture that it occurred; however, it is well documented, understood, and undisputed.

All ancient Hebrew is written without vowels, so God’s name is originally written “YHWH.” The vowels needed to properly translate the name are the stuff of much speculation and many debates; however, the King James Bible translates the name “Jehovah” in various places, and the World English Bible translates the name “Yahweh” in almost every place where the name should be translated as a proper name.

More recent Jewish scholarship [yhwh_1, yhwh_2] discovered early writing with vowels indicated and, although the majority of the time they left out the vowel points for the name of God, on two occasions the vowels indicated that the name should be rendered YeHoWaH. Modern pronunciation of the Hebrew letter W is V so it would be pronounced Yehovah.  It is interesting how close Yehovah is to Jehovah.  The letter J could not be correct because it had not been invented at the time the name was written in scripture. It is possible that the letter Y was pronounced J so that although it was spelled Yehowah it could have been pronounced Jehovah.