“Yahweh Yahweh, we love to shout your name, O Lord…”
Gosh, I love that song by Phil Whickam so much! If you haven’t heard it, let me delight you in some solid worship below:
What does it really mean when we say “Yahweh?” Is it a praise? Is it an anthem?
“Lord of all the earth
We shout Your name, shout Your name
Filling up the skies
With endless praise, endless praise
Yahweh, Yahweh
We love to shout Your name, oh Lord”
Yahweh is a name for God.
A name is defined as something that somebody is called. It’s a description, an identifier, and a reference of characteristics.
A name is a title.
Which means, Yahweh, in it’s most basic form, is a formal title.
Many names in the Bible have a meaning behind them. Sarah, for example, means “woman of high rank,” and is often translated to “Princess.” It derived from Abraham’s wife, whose given name was Sarai, until God commanded that it be changed to Sarah before the birth of her son.
You’ll often see this happen still today. When my husband and I travel to Kenya, many of the children in the Bush will have the same name. A boy named Esekon is named after a specific tree. Often times they will be called that because they were born under that type of tree.
We even see that here in America. People aren’t always named after the tree they were born under, but they are named after something that has a translated meaning. Many times we choose names from our ancestry or even generational names that are passed down.
In the same way, Yahweh is one of many names for God.
In the English Bible, God’s name is almost always translated LORD (all caps). The translation is specifically for the Hebrew word, “Yahweh,” which is built from the name, “I Am.”
God refers to himself in Exodus as “I Am,” when introducing himself to Moses and instructing him to tell the Israelites.
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[a)
It’s one of the many times we see God (and later on, Jesus) refer to himself by one of many names.