It shows that God’s name Jehovah, written YHWH in ancient Hebrew letters, was well-known and used in daily life during Bible times.

Rachel Nabulsi of the University of Georgia said: “The repeated use of the name YHWH is important. . . .

Recently, the 2004 edition of the popular New Living Translation made this comment in its preface under the heading “The Rendering of Divine Names”: “We have generally rendered the tetragrammaton (YHWH) consistently as ‘the LORD,’ utilizing a form with small capitals that is common among English translations.

The translators of this Bible therefore acknowledge that the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) should be represented in these New Testament quotes.

This document, dated June 29, 2008, decries the fact that despite instructions to the contrary, “in recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel’s proper name, known as the holy or divine tetragrammaton, written with four consonants of the Hebrew alphabet in the form יהוה, YHWH.”

Moreover, in Catholic religious services, hymns, and prayers, God’s name “YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced.”

When archaeologists discovered that temple, they found an Egyptian hieroglyphic that appears to show the Hebrew Tetragrammaton​—YHWH, or Jehovah.

Egyptologist Jean Leclant says that the name that appears inscribed in the shield at Soleb “corresponds to the ‘tetragram’ of the god of the Bible, YHWH.”

That is to say, God’s name is represented by four Hebrew letters Yohdh, He, Waw, and He, commonly transliterated YHWH.

It might come as a surprise, then, to learn that in his recent book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI had this to say concerning the use of the divine name: “The Israelites were . . . perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of God, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities.

The translators of the Pentatúc used the Irish term “Iávé” for God’s name in many of the places where it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, represented by the Tetragrammaton or YHWH.

More recently, the Vatican directed its bishops: “In songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWHa is neither to be used or pronounced.”

That name, represented by four Hebrew letters called the Tetragrammaton and commonly transliterated YHWH (or JHVH), appeared on coins, on facades of houses, in many books and Bibles, and even in some Catholic and Protestant churches.

They clearly show Jehovah’s name, represented in the Greek text by the four Hebrew letters יהוה (YHWH), or the Tetragrammaton.

Reflecting a similar spirit, a recent directive to Catholic bishops said that “the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced” during worship.a

This instruction says that in Catholic versions, “the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH)” should be rendered into “any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning” to Dominus, or “Lord,” as does the second edition of the Nova Vulgata​—even though the first edition used “Iahveh.”b

What survived, then, were the four consonants called the Tetragrammaton, which one dictionary defines as “the four Hebrew letters usu[ally] transliterated YHWH or JHVH that form a biblical proper name of God.”

Composed of four Hebrew letters יהוה (YHWH)​—often called the Tetragrammaton—​this proper name is unique to Almighty God.

As the photograph shows, the four Hebrew letters יהוה (YHWH), or the Tetragrammaton, representing the divine name, are clearly visible.

Significantly, in “Jesus Navinus,” as well as in his 1874 edition of “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” Mussorgsky refers to God, using the Russian pronunciation of the divine name, which is represented in the Hebrew Scriptures by four consonants​—יהוה (YHWH)—​and appears nearly 7,000 times.

That name, written in Hebrew characters and transliterated YHWH, appears some 7,000 times in the Bible.

Such manuscripts and later copies do not contain the divine name, Jehovah, represented in Hebrew by the Tetragrammaton (YHWH).

THE divine name, Jehovah, is represented by the Tetragrammaton, that is, the four Hebrew letters יהוה (YHWH).