Not sure your question in relation to this commentary?
(curious, because he does use both, and some modern digital do make the change you reference) I have read that some digital translations may do this. Not sure if you are referring to those or SwordSearcher? My information came from SwordSearcher, then a floow up article.
AI search:
Yes, Albert Barnes uses both
Yahweh and
Jehovah in his commentaries included in SwordSearcher Bible Software.
- The search snippets from his Notes on the Bible (specifically Isaiah 48) explicitly use Yahweh to refer to the Lord, often defining it as the "true God" or "source of all existence."
- Barnes also employs the name Jehovah, as seen in phrases like "Jehovah, ye that are of the fountain of Israel" and "Jehovah hath sent me."
- His commentary notes frequently analyze the distinction and usage of these names, noting that "Jehovah" is a variation of "Yahweh" and often translating the divine name (YHWH) found in the Hebrew text.
AI STOP:
Albert Barnes used the name Yahweh in his commentaries, while also retaining the term Lord in standard biblical translations.
In his commentary on Job 1:21, Barnes explicitly identifies the Hebrew text as יהוה yehovâh and states that the phrase "Blessed be the name of the Lord" means "blessed be yahweh."
Regarding Isaiah 48, Barnes notes that the prophet mentions Yahweh as the source of all existence and frequently uses Yahweh or Jehovah interchangeably when discussing God's name in the Hebrew text.
Barnes clarifies that the Hebrew term "name" often refers to the person himself, and he interprets "name" as including God's attributes, character, law, and will, rather than just a pronunciation.
While Barnes acknowledges the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (יהוה), he generally follows the traditional practice of rendering it as Lord in English, though he explicitly translates the underlying Hebrew name as Yahweh or Jehovah in his explanatory notes.
Job 1:21 (KJV) And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Job 1:21
And said, Naked came I out - That is, destitute of property, for so the connection demands; compare
1Ti 6:7; "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." A similar expression also occurs in Pliny, "Hominem natura tanturn nudism." Nat. Hist. proem. L. vii. Job felt that he was stripped of all, and that he must leave the world as destitute as he entered it.
My mother's womb - The earth - the universal mother. That he refers to the earth is apparent, because he speaks of returning there again. The Chaldee adds קבורתא לבית
lebeyt qeburata' - "to the house of burial." The earth is often called the mother of mankind; see Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 26; compare
Ps 139:15. Dr. Good remarks, that "the origin of all things from the earth introduced, at a very early period of the world, the superstitious worship of the earth, under the title of Dameter, or the "Mother-goddess," a Chaldee term, probably common to Idumea at the time of the existence of Job himself. It is hence the Greeks derive their Δημητνρ
Demeter (Demeter), or as they occasionally wrote it Γημητηρ
Gemeter (Ge-meter), or Mother Earth, to whom they appropriated annually two religious festivals of extraordinary pomp and solemnity. Thus, Lucretius says,
Linquitur, ut merito materhum nomen adepta
Terra sit, e terra quoniam sunt cuneta creata.
v. 793.
- "Whence justly earth
Claims the dear name of mother, since alone
Flowed from herself whate'er the sight enjoys."
For a full account of the views of the ancients in regard to the "marriage" (ιερος γαμος
gamos hieros )of the "heaven" and the "earth," from which union all things were supposed to proceed, see Creuzer's Symbolik und Mythologie der alt. Volk. Erst. Theil, p. 26, fg.
And naked - Stripped of all, I shall go to the common mother of the race. This is exceedingly beautiful language; and in the mouth of Job it was expressive of the most submissive piety. It is not the language of complaint; but was in him connected with the deep feeling that the loss of his property was to be traced to God, and that he had a right to do as he had done.
The Lord gave - Hebrew יהוה
yehovah. He had nothing when he came into the world, and all that he had obtained had been by the good providence of God. As "he" gave it, he had a right to remove it. Such was the feeling of Job, and such is the true language of submission everywhere. He who has a proper view of what he possesses will feel that it is all to be traced to God, and that he has a right to remove it when he pleases.
And the
Lord hath taken away - It is not by accident; it is not the result of haphazard; it is not to be traced to storms and winds and the bad passions of people. It is the result of intelligent design, and whoever has been the agent or instrument in it, it is to be referred to the overruling providence of God. Why did not Job vent his wrath on the Sabeans? Why did he not blame the Chaldeans? Why did he not curse the tempest and the storm? Why did he not blame his sons for exposing themselves? Why not suspect the malice of Satan? Why not suggest that the calamity was to be traced to bad fortune, to ill-luck, or or to an evil administration of human affairs? None of these things occurred to Job. He traced the removal of his property and his loss of children at once to God, and found consolation in the belief that an intelligent and holy Sovereign presided over his affairs, and that he had removed only what he gave.
Blessed be the name of the Lord - That is, blessed be
yahweh - the "name" of anyone in Hebrew being often used to denote the person himself. The Syriac, Arabic, and some manuscripts of the Septuagint here adds "forever." - "Here," says Schmid, "the contrast is observable between the object of Satan, which was to induce Job to renounce God, and the result of the temptation which was to lead Job to bless God." Thus, far Satan had been foiled, and Job had sustained the shock of the calamity, and showed that he did not serve God on account of the benefits which be had received from him.
