ADON, ADONAI AND KURIOS

 

Adon  or Adonai is a title for God that emphasizes his sovereignty, that is, His Lordship…He is “Lord,” He is “Master.” In our English bibles it is  Lord.

 

Adon is basically a title of honour. Out of respect one might address a superior with this title in the same way that we would say “sir” or “your honour”. It would be used by a subject addressing a kin ( I S.24:8), a wife to her husband (Gn.18:12), a daughter or son to their father (G.31:35), a slave to his master (Gn. 24:12; Ex. 21:5) a subordinate to his leader (Nu.11:28).

 

It therefore refers to one’s position of authority and prestige (Gn. 23:6; 45:8).

 

The special spelling Adonai belongs pre-eminently to Yahweh, because He alone is the “Lord of the earth” (Jos. 3:11,13; Ps. 97:5; Mic. 4:13; Zec. 4:14; 6:5).

 

Adon is singular, Adonai is  plural. This name when referring to God, appears some 300 times in the OT and is always plural. If used in the singular it is a reference to a human lord.

 

In the years after the Exile (after 538 B.C.), with reverence for the name of God increasing, the name Yahweh began to be pronounced as Adonai in the reading of the Scriptures. The LXX translators, out of fear of profaning the name of God, were led to translate Yahweh as kurios (Greek) or “Lord”.

 

In the eight century CE the Massoretic pronunciation of the Hebrew text continued this tradition by using vowels of Adonai with the consonants of Yahweh as a signal that the proper name of God should be pronounced Adonai. Later Biblical scholars mistook this vowel substitution for the actual spelling of YHWH and interpreted the name of God as Jehovah.

The Sephardi translators of the Ferrara Bible go further and substitute Adonai with A.

 

The first use of Adonai is Gen.15:2 (Ex.4:10; Judges 6:15; 2 Sam. 7:18-20; Ps. 8; 109:21-28; 114:7;  135:5; 141:8;

 

Kurios is the NT counterpart of both Adonai (Mt.22:44 with Ps. 110:1) and Yahweh (Mt. 4:10 with Dt.6:13) It is used as a term of respect (Mt. 13:27) and submission (Jn. 13:16; 15:20) as well as the title “Lord”. (Mt. 1:20,22)