Scholars owe something to the uneducated, and often they are neglectful of the debt. They owe to them such simplicity of speech as will convey their meaning without confusion. We have in our printed Bibles, in a few instances, the name Jehovah; and if the American Committee of the Revisers had prevailed, we should have had it hundreds of times in our Old Testament. It is the distinctive personal name in Hebrew of the true God. Instead of giving us this name in the English version, the translators have represented it by the word LORD, printed in capital letters. It has become quite common to use the name in critical writings; and it is often necessary to do so in order to preserve precision; but the uneducated reader is confused by finding it printed in various works in three different forms. Some writers have it Yahveh, some Yahweh, and some Jehovah, while Dr. James Robertson has recently introduced the form Jahaveh. The first two come nearer representing the original than Jehovah, and so does the last; but so long as the last is found in our English Bible I think it is due to the unlearned reader that English scholars shall give it the preference. If there were a difference in the meaning, this would be proper; for accuracy of knowledge should never be sacrificed for the accommodation of ignorance; but in this case nothing is involved but the [56] form of representing in English a Hebrew name, and the form which our Bible places before the common reader should, in accommodation to him, be employed by scholars.

[SEBC 56-57]