God’s Word for You

Genesis 2:4 The name of the LORD

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, August 17, 2026

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, during the time when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Here we must especially understand three words: “Account,” “day” (which I have translated “time”), and “LORD.”

As to the “account,” Moses does not cancel what he has already written, nor correct it. In fact, Moses steps back in this chapter and expands on the brief account of the sixth day, giving us more details about that day and elaborating on the creation of Adam and Eve, and some of the things God said to them.

Moses calls this section “The account of the heavens and the earth.” There are ten such “accounts” in Genesis, of unequal lengths. Professor John Jeske’s choice was to call each of these accounts a “history.” I certainly respect his choice in this, even though I have used the less precise term “account.” Our word “history” comes to us from a Greek word (ἱστορίαι) meaning “inquiry” or “research” into the past.

As to the “day” (or “time”), some of the ancient Church fathers were confused by this word and its Greek translation in this verse. Augustine, for example, thought that in the beginning God made all things in a brief moment, all in the same calendar day. Then, trying to explain the six days of creation without taking them literally, he fell into allegorizing and tended to contradict himself. But here, we see “day” used in its third way here in Genesis. In 1:5a, “day” means just the lighted part of a day (as we might say, “daytime”). In 1:5b, “day” obviously means the whole of a 24-hour day. This is clear from the context. Now, “day” means something different, an indistinct time period bounded by activities rather than a given number of hours. “In my day,” we old men say. Moses means the creation week.

Finally, we come to the word LORD. This is God’s name, and unlike the word “god / God,” it is always a proper name. It is spelled יְהוָה in Hebrew, perhaps pronounced Yahweh. It is sometimes referred to as “the four letters” or Tetragrammaton. Older Christians will remember the word used (at least since the twelfth century), which is Jehovah. The word “Jehovah” is an attempt to take the consonants of God’s name and the vowels of the word “Lord” which in Hebrew is Adonai. The reason for “this clumsy arrangement” is that Jews of a past century feared that the reprisal of Leviticus 24:16 (“Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death”) applied to anyone who uttered the name of God without adequate reverence. Therefore they no longer taught their children how to pronounce the name and removed its vowels from their writings, including manuscripts of the Bible. This had already begun by the third century BC, since Greek translations that were first made by that time substitute “the Lord” (Greek kyrios) for the Lord’s name. The faithful Jewish scribes who supplied the vowel pointing of Hebrew Bible manuscripts in the period from 400-900 AD substituted the vowels of Adonai, so that now the undisputably correct pronunciation of the name of God is truly lost.

The name of God is our greatest treasure, “the most sacred thing we have” (Large Catechism, III:38). We pray that his name, which is already holy in heaven, may also be kept holy on earth by us and all the world. How we need the prayer that Jesus taught us, “Hallowed be your name!” The world is full of false teachers and false religions. They shriek and cry out against everyone who proclaims the simple Gospel. They try to suppress it and turn themselves into fanatics. We who have the pure word of God must not be ungrateful for it. When we pray to our God and use his name, he is pleased. He forgives our sins because we put our faith in the holy name of Jesus. And “there is nothing he would rather hear than to have his glory and praise exalted above everything else and his word taught in its purity, and cherished and treasured.” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 118:26).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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