Title
Adonai
'Adonai
אֲדֹנָי
- Meaning
- 'My Lord' / 'my Lords' — an emphatic plural of adon, 'lord, master'.
- Occurrences
- ~440 times as a divine title
- First occurrence
- Genesis 15:2
- Languages
- Biblical Hebrew
Pronunciation
ah-doe-NAI
Origin
An ordinary word for a human master, elevated to a divine title and then made the standard spoken substitute for the Tetragrammaton in synagogue reading — which is why English Bibles print 'LORD' in small caps for YHWH and 'Lord' in mixed case for Adonai.
Usage & scribal practice
When YHWH and Adonai occur together (Adonai YHWH), the Masoretes pointed YHWH with Elohim's vowels to prevent reading 'Adonai Adonai' — producing 'Lord GOD' in English.
Cross-references
Genesis 15:2
'Adonai YHWH, what will you give me?'
Isaiah 6:1
'I saw Adonai sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.'
Psalm 110:1
'YHWH says to my adon' — the verse most quoted in the New Testament.
How translations render it
Theories, myths & conspiracy claims
Each claim is stated as its proponents state it, then assessed against the manuscript and linguistic evidence.
The Kyrios bridge
The claim: Because the LXX rendered both YHWH and Adonai as Kyrios, New Testament writers could apply YHWH texts to Jesus by calling him Kyrios.
Assessment: Widely accepted and textually demonstrable (compare Joel 2:32 with Romans 10:13). It is also the linguistic reason the Tetragrammaton effectively disappears from the Christian New Testament.
Adonai derives from the Greek god Adonis
The claim: The similarity of Adonai and Adonis proves pagan borrowing.
Assessment: Reversed. Adonis is the Greek adaptation of the Northwest Semitic adon ('lord'), used of Tammuz. The Hebrew word is the source, not the borrowing.