GOD
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Proper noun[edit]
GOD
- Typographical variant of God, particularly in English translations of the Bible.
- Synonym: LORD
- 2022, The Holy Bible (Open English Bible)[1], Job 3:7:
- Surely the Lord God [Hebrew: אדני יהוה] does nothing without revealing his purpose to his servants the prophets.
Usage notes[edit]
In Jewish practice, the Tetragrammaton (the Hebrew name of God, יהוה (YHWH)) is written directly in the Tanakh but spoken aloud as Adonai (Hebrew אֲדֹנָי (Adonai, “my Lord”)). The scholars responsible for the Septuagint translation of the Tanakh into Koine preserved this tradition by writing appearances of the Tetragrammaton as ὁ κύριος (ho kúrios, “the supreme one; the Lord, Kyrios”)) and English translations of the Bible have similarly presented appearances of Adonai as "Lord", "the Lord", or "The Lord" while presenting appearances of the Tetragrammaton as "LORD" (as in the 1611 edition of the King James Bible[1]), "lord", "Lord", "the LORD", etc.
However, by this rule, the sequence אֲדֹנָי יהוה would be infelicitously translated as "the Lord the LORD". This is resolved by translating the divine name as 'God' instead of 'Lord', with the corresponding case convention.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ See, e.g., Genesis 2:4, hosted here at the library of the University of Pennsylvania.
- ^ See, e.g., Genesis 15:8, hosted here at the library of the University of Pennsylvania.