Genesis 3:4

The Lord God] Where Lord is thus printed in capitals in the English Bible it stands for the Heb. JHVH, the sacred divine name which was probably pronounced 'Yahweh.' In later times the word was considered to be too sacred to be uttered; the title Adonai (i.e. My Lord) was substituted in reading, and thus the true pronunciation was lost. Hebrew was originally written without vowel-signs; when these were added to the MS text, the vowels of the name as read (Adonai) were attached to the consonants JHVH, and thus the artificial form 'Jehovah' was produced, which has come into common Christian use. See on Exodus 3:13 for the significance of the word, which means perhaps 'The Self-existent' (or 'Self-unfolding'). Yahweh (Jehovah) is the proper name of the God of Israel rather than a title, and as such was used by other nations who regarded Jehovah as the tribal God of the Jews (cp. Isaiah 36:20); the name also occurs on the Moabite stone set up by Mesha (2 Kings 3:4). The American revisers have substituted 'Jehovah' for 'the Lord' throughout the OT. In Genesis 2:3 Jehovah is joined with Elohim ('the Lord God'). The latter name was probably added by the editor who combined the narratives in order to show that the Jehovah of this section (the God of Israel) is the same as the Elohim (the Creator of the world) of the previous one. The earth and the heavens] RV 'earth and heaven.' Note the difference in the order from that in Genesis 1:1. The centre of interest in this chapter is man on the earth.