Tetragrammaton

thumb|"Jehovah" at Book of Exodus|Exodus 6:3 (1611 [[King James Version)]] Jehovah () is a Latinization of the Hebrew , one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew BibleOld Testament. The Tetragrammaton is considered one of the seven names of God in Judaism and a form of God's name in Christianity.

thumb|class=skin-invert-image|The Tetragrammaton in Hebrew letters (yod/Y) (he/H) (vav/W) (he/H) The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from right to left, are yod, he, vav, and he. The name may be derived from a verb that means 'to be', 'to exist', 'to cause to become', or 'to come to pass'.

Yahweh was an ancient Semitic deity in the southeastern ancient Levant that became the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel-Samaria and Judah. Although there is no clear consensus regarding the geographic origins of the deity, most modern scholars favor a southern origin hypothesis. The worship of the deity goes back to at least the early Iron Age and apparently to the late Bronze Age.

Jah or Yah (, Yāh) is a short form of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of Jah is , even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant (Hebrew י yodh). The spelling Yah is designed to make the pronunciation explicit in an English-language context (see also romanization of Hebrew), especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study.