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There is an important difference between "the Lord" and "the LORD" in English Bibles. Although they are pronounced the same way in English, they have completely different meanings. "Lord" in the Bible simply means anyone of higher social standing, for example when David addresses King Saul as "my Lord the king." This is the Hebrew word "adoni" and it refers to a human master. A similar Hebrew word, "adonai" is also translated "Lord," but unlike "adoni," "adonai" refers only to God. Both words mean "Lord" but one refers to human lords, while the other refers to the Lord God. In English Bibles, "the LORD" in capital letters is not from the Hebrew words "adoni" or "adonai." "The LORD" is an English translation of the Hebrew word YHWH, pronounced "Yahweh." This word does not actually mean "Lord." YHWH is believed to mean "I AM WHO I AM," based on Exodus 3:14. This is because phrase "I AM" in Hebrew sounds like the word YHWH. Biblical scholars and Hebrew linguists agree that "YHWH" means "the Existent One." In other words, the one who is Eternal - who always existed, always exists, and always will exist. Only God is Eternal in that regard. Strong's Hebrew dictionary defines YHWH [Strong's 3068] as "the proper name of the God of Israel" and notes that the meaning of the Name is "self-Existent or Eternal."

YHWH is literally God's name. Whenever you see "the LORD" in your Bible, think "Yahweh," because that is actually what the Hebrew text says. If the writer wanted to say "the Lord" he would have used "Adonai." The writer actually did not write "the LORD." He wrote the actual name of God! Some foreign language Bibles translate YHWH as "Yahweh" or as "YHWH." The Chinese Union Version of the Bible translates it as 耶和华 ("Yēhéhuá") which is a Chinese transliteration of "Yahweh."  English is one of  a handful of languages in which mainstream Bibles translate YHWH as "the LORD." This is really a terrible practice because it hides the name of God. As a result, many American Christians do not even know God's name.

Where did the practice of translating YHWH as "the LORD" get started? It began with the translation of the Septuagint, which was completed less than 150 years before Christ.  The Septuagint was a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. After Alexander the Great conquered Palestine, Greek became the language of the land, and continued to be the standard language for the next several centuries (this is why the New Testament was written in Greek instead of Hebrew - because it was the language most people at that time used for writing). Many Jews were forgetting how to read Hebrew! The Jews recognized the need to preserve their scriptures in Greek so that they could be read by rabbis who no longer understood Hebrew. So, the Septuagint was made. This Greek translation of the Hebrew translates YHWH as the Greek word "kurios," which means "Lord." Why not transliterate YHWH into Greek, and thus preserve the sacred name of God? The reason is because Jews at that time had become very legalistic, to say the least (just take a look at the Pharisees of Christ's day!). They were deathly afraid of breaking any of the commandments, especially the third one: "Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain; for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." A few hundred years before Christ, Jews stopped using the Name YHWH, because they were afraid of using it in vain. When reading the Torah, they would say "Hashem" whenever they came across the word YHWH, because they were afraid of actually saying the name out loud. It's important to remember that this was a recent development in Judaism. Ancient Jews, such as King David, spoke the name YHWH often and even casually - just take a glance at the Psalms! But shortly before the time of Christ, a new resurgence of legalism led to the refusal to speak God's name out loud.

That same kind of thinking carried over into the Septuagint. Afraid to write the Name of God, or transliterate it wrongly, the Jews who translated the Septuagint simply translated it as "kurios," meaning "Lord."  Many early Christians could not read Hebrew, so the first century church relied upon the Greek Septuagint as its Old Testament Bible. This is why New Testament quotations of Old Testament verses sometimes do not match those verses exactly in English Bibles. In fact, the quotations do match the Septuagint, but our English Bibles translate the Old Testament from Hebrew, not the Septuagint (although the translators of some English translations compare Hebrew and Septuagint while translating). This is proof that the New Testament writers used the Septuagint, not the Hebrew, when they read and quoted the Old Testament. This is not surprising considering the great dominance that the Greek language had at the time. Because the Septuagint uses "Lord" instead of "YHWH," New Testament writers followed suit, and used the word "kurios," not the word "YHWH," to refer to God in the New Testament. "Kurios" is also used to refer to human lords or masters, as in the parables of Jesus.

Jerome continued to practice of translating "YHWH" as "Lord" when he made the Latin Vulgate, translating "YHWH" as "dominus" which is the Latin word for "Lord."  Some early English translations were made from the Vulgate, and continued the practice by using the English word "Lord." As you can see, by this point in the translation-chain, the name of God, Yahweh, had been completely erased from the Bible and replaced with the word "Lord." And why? If God intended for the word "Lord" to be used, he would have inspired the original writers to use the word "Lord." Instead he inspired them to use his proper Name. Translators should have respected that and preserved the name of God through transliteration. But in an attempt to keep from using the Name of God in vain, the Jews had obliterated the Name of God - an even worse blunder!

Fortunately, in the ninth century A.D., a group of Jews called the Masoretes decided to abandon the Septuagint and get back to the Hebrew. Among other reasons, they realized that they needed to keep knowledge of Hebrew alive so that future generations could read the Hebrew Bible in its original language. In a noble effort to preserve the Hebrew scriptures, they collected all the available Hebrew manuscripts, compared them, standardized them, and created an incredible system that uses numerical values assigned to each letter in order to check to make sure that new copies of the texts were 100% accurate. The Masoretic Text, or MT, is a very accurately preserved Hebrew Bible that is the main source text used in translating the Old Testament today. Unfortunately, early English translations like the King James followed that old legalistic practice of translating YHWH as "the LORD" and this has become the standard for English language Bibles, though not for all other languages. At least they put "LORD" in capital letters so we can differentiate it from "Lord" which comes from "adonai" or "adoni."

The King James Version also uses the word "Jehovah" in seven different verses, including Exodus 6:2. Where did this word come from? The story of the word "Jehovah" begins when the Masoretes were standardizing the Hebrew Bible in the ninth century. Not content with the difficulty of ancient Hebrew, the Masoretes forever changed the way that Hebrew is written. Prior to this time, Hebrew had no vowels - you literally had to guess which vowel sound a word makes! The Masoretes added vowel points to the text - symbols still used in Hebrew today. But for the name of God, they were afraid of speaking the Name out loud, lest they should accidentally use it in vain. Remember the old practice of saying "Hashem!" instead of "Yahweh" when reading the Name of God in Hebrew? Well, the Masoretes did something similar. Whenever they came across the Name of God, they would say "Elohim," which is the Hebrew word "god" or "Adonai" which means "Lord." When adding the vowel points to the Masoretic Text, they inserted the vowel points for "Elohim" and "Adonai" onto the name "YHWH." They knew that these are the wrong vowel points and that the name is not actually pronounced that way, but they did this as way of reminding the reader to say "Elohim" or "Adonai" and not "Yahweh," lest they should accidentally use the name in vain.

If only early Bible translators knew about this! But the King James translators and other early Bible translators had no idea that the Jews had done this. Remember, the Bible was translated into English by Christians, not Jews. Most of them were Europeans and they did not know everything about Hebrew history or customs. The King James translators produced a remarkably good translation, but, they were simply unaware that the vowel points on YHWH were not the actual vowels of the word, but a symbol to read "Elohim" or "Adonai." Because they did not know this vital information that was kept secret among the Jews, the King James translators naturally assumed that the Jews had put those vowel points there because those were the actual vowels of the word. As a result, they ended up using the wrong vowels when transliterating YHWH. They used the vowels for "Elohim" and "Adonai" rather than the vowels for "Yahweh." Combine this with the confusion caused by the fact that Y and J are similar in Hebrew, and W and V are also similar. "Jehovah" is a mistranslation of the Name of God, created by the confusion the Masoretes caused when they put the wrong vowel points on the Name in an effort to avoid using the Name in vain.  As a result of all this, many English-speaking Christians today believe that Jehovah is God's name. Worse yet, many Christians today are not aware that God has a name.  We need to remind the world that God's name is Yahweh.

In Exodus 6:3, God says, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Yahweh was I not known to them." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all knew God, but they did not know God by name. They did not have that kind of relationship with God. Now, it is true that Abraham uses the name YHWH to refer to God on certain occasions. So, if those quotations are meant to be taken verbatim, then perhaps he did know God's name. In this case, it is possible Exodus 6:3 means that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not know the meaning or significance of God's name.  Whether they knew God's name or not, it is obvious that the Name of God was not commonly known before the time of Moses, because even Moses himself did not know God's name at first. When speaking to God at the burning bush in Exodus 3, Moses had to ask God what his name was. God replied, in Exodus 3:14, "I AM THAT I AM... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." God's actual name, YHWH, does not appear in this verse. Rather, God is explaining the meaning of his Name. God's Name means "I AM," the one who always was, always is, and always will be. If your Bible is a modern translation, it probably has a footnote here pointing out that "I AM" sounds similar to "YHWH" in Hebrew. Scholars agree that "I AM" is a revelation of the meaning of "YHWH." Although Abraham may have spoken the name Yahweh, its meaning was not revealed until time of Moses.