Theology — References

Who God Is

Word Studies, Reference Tables, Abbreviations, and Sources.

Reference Material

This page provides the linguistic, textual, and bibliographic tools that support the main Theology article and its exegesis companion. It includes word studies of the key Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek terms that carry the theological weight of this document; reference tables for names, titles, and key texts; major translation and textual notes; abbreviations; and source-text conventions. No new doctrine is introduced here; the material is organized for reference and further study.

Word Studies

Yahweh (יהוה)

Root: hayah (היה) — to be, to become, to be present. Four consonants: yod-he-waw-he (the Tetragrammaton).

First-person form ehyeh (“I will be” / “I am”) in Exodus 3:14; third-person form Yahweh (“He will be” / “He causes to be”) is the name as spoken about God. Imperfect aspect: active, ongoing, and promissory.

While standard English translations (“I am who I am”) correctly capture His absolute, uncreated existence, they do not always foreground the dynamic, promissory force of the Hebrew imperfect that the narrative context of Exodus 3 brings to the surface. The name holds both realities: He is the eternal, self-existent ‘I AM’, who actively brings His covenant promises to pass (“He causes to be”).

Occurs over 6,800 times in the OT. Short form Yah preserved in Halleluyah and in personal names: Eliyahu (Elijah — “my God is Yah”), Yeshayahu (Isaiah — “Yah saves”), Zekharyahu (Zechariah — “Yah remembers”).

Pronunciation: scholarly consensus is Yahweh (two syllables, stress on second), based on Greek transcriptions (Clement of Alexandria: Ιαουε), the short form Yah, and the verbal root. The form “Jehovah” is a medieval hybrid combining the consonants YHWH with the vowels of Adonai and does not represent a real Hebrew word.

Yahweh Sabaoth (יהוה צְבָאוֹת)

Translated “Yahweh of Hosts” or “Lord of Armies.” The “hosts” (tsaba) refer to the organized multitudes of the cosmos. This encompasses the physical host of heaven (the stars and planetary bodies) as well as the spiritual host of heaven (the divine council, angelic beings, and unseen powers). This title declares Yahweh’s sovereign command over all cosmic and spiritual realms; no earthly empire or spiritual authority operates outside His rule.

Elohim (אֱלֹהִים)

Grammatically plural (-im ending), yet takes singular verbs and adjectives when referring to Yahweh. Over 2,500 occurrences. When used of Yahweh, elohim names the one uncreated Creator God, the only God in the full and ultimate sense. Its plural form has often been understood as a plural of majesty, fullness, or intensity; within the full canonical witness it can also be received as fitting the later disclosure that the one God is Father, Son, and Spirit. The word itself, however, should not be made to carry the doctrine of the Trinity by itself.

Elohim is also used more broadly in Scripture for beings associated with the unseen or spiritual realm, including members of the divine council (Psalm 82:1, 6), territorial spiritual beings (Deuteronomy 32:17), and possibly the disembodied dead (1 Samuel 28:13). This broader usage does not place Yahweh within a class of equals. Context, grammar, and the whole canon distinguish Him absolutely from every created spiritual being.

Theological boundary: While Yahweh is an elohim because He is spirit, no other elohim is Yahweh. Yahweh is the uncreated Creator; all other elohim are created beings. He is incomparable in being, not merely in power. Singular form Eloah (אֱלוֹהַּ) is used primarily in Job. Aramaic equivalent Elah (אֱלָהּ) in Ezra and Daniel.

Adonai (אֲדֹנָי)

Often translated “Lord.” Historically, it became the reverent vocal substitute for the divine name (Yahweh) to avoid taking the Name in vain. Theologically, however, it is a profoundly relational term denoting sovereignty, ownership, and mastership. When a biblical figure addresses God as Adonai, they are explicitly taking the posture of a servant acknowledging their Master’s absolute authority and right to rule over their life. This master-servant covenant dynamic flows directly into New Testament discipleship.

El (אֵל)

Generic Semitic term for “god” or “mighty one.” Also known as the proper name of the chief deity in the Ugaritic-Canaanite pantheon. Scripture uses the term for Yahweh and fills it with covenantal content, identifying Him as the true God who stands above every rival.

El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי)

Traditionally translated “God Almighty,” especially through the influence of the LXX’s Pantokrator. The etymology remains debated: proposals include connection with Akkadian shadu (“mountain”), Hebrew shadad (“to overpower”), or Hebrew shad (“breast”), with associated connotations of strength, exaltation, or provision.

This document does not rest the theology of the title on a single etymology. Its contextual function in Genesis is clearer: El Shaddai is the God of patriarchal promise — the God who pledges offspring, land, fruitfulness, and covenant continuity when fulfillment remains impossible by human sight.

El Elyon (אֵל עֶלְיוֹן)

“God Most High.” Relevant texts include Genesis 14 (Melchizedek’s blessing), Deuteronomy 32:8–9, and Psalm 82. This title declares Yahweh’s sovereignty above every nation and power.

At Deuteronomy 32:8, the textual witnesses diverge: the Masoretic Text reads “sons of Israel” (bene yisrael); the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDeut-j) read “sons of God” (bene elohim); the LXX reads “angels of God.” The MT reading creates a contextual difficulty: the nations are divided according to the number of Israel’s sons before Israel exists as a distinct nation.

This document follows the DSS/LXX reading as contextually and canonically coherent, consistent with the wider pattern of Deuteronomy 4:19–20, Deuteronomy 32:17, and Psalm 82. The textual question remains debated among scholars; this document’s preferred reading is stated for transparency.

On the DSS/LXX reading, Yahweh assigns the nations to spiritual beings while retaining Israel as His own direct portion — establishing His supremacy over every spiritual authority He has set in place.

Hesed (חֶסֶד)

Hesed has been rendered “lovingkindness,” “steadfast love,” “unfailing love,” “mercy,” and “covenant faithfulness.” No single English term carries the full range. “Lovingkindness” preserves relational warmth; “steadfast love” captures reliability and commitment; “covenant faithfulness” foregrounds the relational and obligatory context most explicitly.

This document treats hesed as covenantal loyalty — the fierce, unbreakable commitment of a superior party who refuses to abandon the relationship even when the lesser party fails. It is the defining attribute of Yahweh in Exodus 34:6.

Emet (אֱמֶת)

Root: aman — to be firm, reliable. Describes truth as reliability and trustworthiness. Paired with hesed in Exodus 34:6. Rendered aletheia in John 1:14.

Rachum (רַחוּם)

Deep, visceral compassion. Related to rechem (רֶחֶם, womb). First word of the Exodus 34:6 proclamation.

Channun (חַנּוּן)

Root chanan — grace freely given. Paired with rachum.

Erek Appayim (אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם)

Literally “long of nostrils.” Idiom for slow to anger.

Qadosh (קָדוֹשׁ)

Set apart, holy, other. Greek: hagios.

Echad (אֶחָד)

The standard Hebrew word for “one,” famously used in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). In context, echad declares Yahweh’s unique identity and Israel’s undivided allegiance: Yahweh alone is Israel’s God, and His claim on His people is total.

The word itself does not prove the Trinity and should not be made to carry a technical argument about composite unity. Its theological importance is covenantal and canonical: the one Yahweh confessed in the Shema is the same God whose identity is later disclosed more fully as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Ani Hu (אֲנִי הוּא)

“I am he.” Isaiah identity formula.

Bara (בָּרָא)

To create. In the Hebrew Bible, bara is used with God as its subject, marking divine creative action. Its theological force comes from its canonical contexts, where Yahweh brings into being, orders, and renews what no creature can.

Tohu Wabohu (תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ)

Commonly rendered “formless and void.” This document uses “wild and waste” as an explanatory rendering to foreground the phrase’s concrete, paired force. In Genesis 1:2, it describes the earth as unordered, unfilled, and uninhabited before God’s ordering and filling work.

Ruach / Pneuma (רוּחַ / πνεῦμα)

Meaning “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” In the Old Testament (ruach), it often describes the invisible, animating, and irresistible presence of God active in creation (Genesis 1:2), life, and redemption. It is the breath that gives life and the wind that divides the sea. In the New Testament (pneuma), the personal identity of the Spirit comes into full clarity: the Holy Spirit goes out from the Father, applies the work of the Son, and indwells believers.

Berit (בְּרִית)

Covenant.

Kyrios (κύριος)

Greek for “Lord” or “Master.” In the Septuagint (LXX), Kyrios regularly renders both the relational title Adonai and the divine name represented by YHWH. This translation pattern created a crucial theological bridge for the early church: when the New Testament authors declare Jesus as Kyrios in divine-name contexts such as Philippians 2:9–11, they are not merely calling Him a respected human teacher; they are applying to the crucified and risen Son the Greek title used for Israel’s God.

Monogenēs (μονογενής)

From monos (only) and genos (kind, class). Describes one who is unique within a category, the one-of-a-kind son. In Johannine usage the term carries relational and theological weight: the Son stands in a unique filial relationship to the Father that no other shares. Used of the Son in John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9. Distinguishes the Son’s relationship to the Father from the adoptive sonship of believers.

Pantokrator (Παντοκράτωρ)

Almighty, ruler of all.

Atik Yomin (עַתִּיק יוֹמִין)

Ancient of Days. Daniel 7.

Key Texts

Major Translation and Textual Notes

1. Exodus 3:14 — ehyeh asher ehyeh

The standard English translations — KJV, NIV, ESV — render this “I am who I am” or “I AM WHO I AM,” following the Septuagint’s ego eimi ho on (“I am the one who is”). This rendering rightly preserves the truth of God’s uncreated, self-sufficient, absolute existence: Yahweh is not contingent on anything outside Himself. No single English rendering captures the full range. The Hebrew verb ehyeh is the first-person imperfect of hayah, an aspect that in Hebrew can carry ongoing, future, and promissory force as well as present-tense meaning. In Exodus 3, the name is given at the moment of impending deliverance, and the same form appears in verse 12 (“I will be with you”). This document emphasizes the dynamic rendering — “I will be who I will be” — to foreground the promissory, narrative-opening character of the name as the canon fills it with content. The traditional rendering and the dynamic rendering are not in conflict; they foreground different aspects of the same inexhaustible reality.

2. Deuteronomy 6:4 — echad

Echad (אֶחָד) is the standard Hebrew word for “one.” In the Shema, it declares Yahweh’s exclusive identity: Yahweh alone is Israel’s God, and His claim on His people is total and undivided. The word does not by itself carry a technical argument about composite or compound unity, and this document does not build on that argument. The Shema’s theological importance is covenantal: it calls Israel to the exclusive allegiance that the whole canon develops and that the Great Commandment restates. The later, fuller disclosure of God as Father, Son, and Spirit does not dissolve the Shema but fills the content of the one confessed in it — as Paul’s reformulation in 1 Corinthians 8:6 makes explicit.

3. Genesis 1:26 — “Let us make”

The plural cohortative “let us make” (naʿaseh, נַעֲשֶׂה) has generated several explanations: address to the divine council, a deliberative plural or plural of self-deliberation by the divine speaker, a foreshadowing of the later triune disclosure, or a literary plural of the type used by speakers of authority. This document does not treat the phrase as a standalone proof of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity rests on the whole canonical pattern of divine identity, name, glory, action, and relation — not on the grammar of a single verb form. At the same time, within the full canonical witness, the plural speech can be read as canonically appropriate to the later disclosure that the one God who creates is Father, Son, and Spirit. The passage is read here in its narrative context as signaling the dignity and intentionality of the act by which God creates the image-bearer.

4. Genesis 1:2 — tohu wabohu

Tohu wabohu (תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ) is commonly rendered “formless and void” in standard English translations such as the ESV, KJV, and NIV. This document uses “wild and waste” as an explanatory rendering to foreground the phrase’s concrete, paired force. The standard rendering is not wrong. The phrase describes creation prior to the ordering and filling work of the six days: not philosophical non-being or material absence, but unordered, unfilled, uninhabited existence awaiting God’s creative speech.

“Wild and waste” preserves the pair’s alliterative and concrete character in Hebrew; “formless and void” can sound more abstract in modern ears and may suggest philosophical categories about non-being that the Hebrew text does not require. This document follows “wild and waste” as the more concrete rendering while recognizing “formless and void” as a well-established and defensible translation.

5. Genesis 1:2 — ruach elohim

The phrase ruach elohim (רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים) is rendered “Spirit of God” (ESV, NIV, KJV) or “wind of God” / “mighty wind” (NRSV margin; NEB). The Hebrew ruach carries the semantic range of breath, wind, and spirit, and the noun elohim in this context can function as an attributive genitive of intensity (“a mighty wind”) as well as the personal genitive (“God’s Spirit”). Both renderings are grammatically possible. This document follows “Spirit of God,” understood as the personal, divine presence active over the unordered creation. This reading does not project the full Pneumatology of the New Testament back onto Genesis 1:2; it reads the phrase within the canonical trajectory that runs from creation through the prophetic outpouring to Pentecost, in which the same divine presence — Yahweh Himself, personally active — is the consistent subject.

6. Deuteronomy 32:8 — “sons of God” / “sons of Israel”

The Masoretic Text reads “sons of Israel” (bene yisrael) at Deuteronomy 32:8; the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDeut-j) and the Septuagint read “sons of God” / “angels of God” (bene elohim / angelon theou). The two readings produce different pictures of the primordial division of the nations: one cosmic and involving spiritual beings, the other restricted to Israel’s own numerical count.

The MT reading creates a contextual difficulty: the nations are divided according to the number of Israel’s sons before Israel exists as a distinct nation. This document follows the DSS/LXX reading as contextually and canonically coherent, consistent with Deuteronomy 4:19–20, Deuteronomy 32:17, and Psalm 82.

This is acknowledged as a textual question on which scholars continue to deliberate; this document’s preferred reading is stated for transparency without claiming it resolves the matter definitively.

7. Exodus 34:6–7 — hesed, emet, and “visiting iniquity”

Hesed (חֶסֶד) has been rendered “lovingkindness” (KJV), “steadfast love” (ESV, NRSV), “unfailing love” (NIV), and “covenant faithfulness.” No single English term carries the full range. “Lovingkindness” preserves the relational warmth but can sound sentimental; “steadfast love” captures the reliability and commitment; “covenant faithfulness” foregrounds the relational and obligatory context most explicitly. This document treats hesed as covenantal loyalty — the fierce, unbreakable commitment of a superior party who refuses to abandon the relationship even when the lesser party fails. It is the defining attribute of Yahweh in this text. Emet (אֱמֶת) describes truth as reliability and trustworthiness, rooted in the aman (אמן) stem of firmness. The phrase “visiting iniquity” (poqed avon, פֹּקֵד עָוֺן) names covenantal reckoning: Yahweh holds the moral weight of covenant violation within His governance of history. It is not arbitrary punishment but the integrity of the same holiness that gives hesed its weight — both are expressions of who He is.

8. Daniel 7:13–14 — “one like a son of man”

The Aramaic bar enash (בַּר אֱנָשׁ) means “a human being” or “one like a human being.” The phrase describes the appearance of the figure, not a predefined title. What the passage does with the figure is theologically decisive: he comes on the clouds — imagery widely associated in the ancient Near Eastern context with divine beings and divine rule — and receives from the Ancient of Days dominion, glory, and a kingdom that will not pass away.

The universal and everlasting scope of his rule places him on the divine side of the scene. This document does not treat “son of man” as a standalone divine title but reads the figure’s cloud-riding, enthronement, and reception of universal dominion and service as the canonical context within which Jesus’ self-identification as the Son of Man carries its weight.

9. John 4:24 — “God is Spirit”

The statement pneuma ho theos (πνεῦμα ὁ θεός) concerns the nature of God, not directly the identity of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. In context, Jesus is explaining why neither Jerusalem nor Gerizim is the required location for true worship: God, being Spirit, is not confined to a material location or accessible only through a spatially located cult. The statement draws together the Deuteronomy 4 prohibition against images — grounded in the invisibility and non-material nature of Yahweh — with the New Testament theology of worship in Spirit and truth. It does not collapse the person of the Father into the person of the Holy Spirit; it makes a claim about the divine nature that all three persons share.

10. Philippians 2:9–11 — Kyrios and the divine name

The Kyrios-confession of Philippians 2:9–11 is Paul’s direct application of Isaiah 45:23 (“to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear”) to the risen and ascended Jesus. In Isaiah 45, the one to whom every knee bows is Yahweh; Paul applies this text to Jesus without qualification, distributing it across the universal confession “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Kyrios can mean “lord” or “master” in a broad sense in Greek, but in the LXX it is also the standing translation of both Adonai and the Tetragrammaton. In this context, the Isaiah 45 background gives Kyrios its full divine-name weight: the name above every name given to Jesus carries the full weight of the divine name itself, and the universal eschatological confession is the fulfillment of Israel’s exclusive monotheism, not its replacement.

Names and Titles of God — Reference Table

Abbreviations

Source Texts

Old Testament Hebrew
BHS / BHQ. Lexicography: HALOT.

Old Testament Greek
Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart). The LXX is used as an early interpretive witness and comparative textual tradition; divergences from the MT are evaluated in light of the Hebrew and DSS evidence.

Dead Sea Scrolls
DJD series.

New Testament Greek
NA28, UBS5, SBLGNT.

Second Temple Jewish literature
Philo, Josephus, DSS.

Historical-Cultural Contexts
Relevant primary texts — including Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, Canaanite, and Egyptian religious literature, Greco-Roman philosophical and imperial traditions, and Second Temple Jewish texts beyond Scripture — are consulted only where used for historical-cultural comparison. No source from these traditions is treated as an authoritative theological witness.

Scripture quotations, translation conventions, and copyright notices are explained in Scripture and Translation.