God as the Elohim and Yahweh

  “God {אֱלֹהִים} standeth in the congregation of God {אֵל}; in the midst of the gods {אֱלֹהִים} He judgeth.”–Psalm 82 {אֱלֹהִים, נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת-אֵל; בְּקֶרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט.}–Psalm 82

  In Genesis 1 God is named Elohim, but from Genesis 2:4 to its end, He is called Yahweh-Elohim. Why? The following explanation is from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

  “Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites, representing the biblical pronunciation of ‘YHWH,’ the Hebrew name revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus. The name YHWH, consisting of the sequence of consonants Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh, is known as the tetragrammaton.
  “After the Babylonian Exile (6th century B.C.), and especially from the 3rd century B.C. on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal rather than merely a local religion, the more common Hebrew noun Elohim (plural in form but understood in the singular), meaning ‘God,’ tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered; it was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (‘My Lord’), which was translated as Kyrios (‘Lord’) in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures.
  “The Masoretes, who from about the 6th to the 10th century ce worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, added to ‘YHWH’ the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim. Latin-speaking Christian scholars replaced the Y (which does not exist in Latin) with an I or a J (the latter of which exists in Latin as a variant form of I). Thus, the tetragrammaton became the artificial Latinized name Jehovah (JeHoWaH). As the use of the name spread throughout medieval Europe, the initial letter J was pronounced according to the local vernacular language rather than Latin.

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Reference

Encyclopedia Britannica, “Yahweh”. September 27, 2024.