I. The Central Achievement: The Restoration of the Tetragram
At the heart of the VDN 5.0 is a decision that is both linguistically courageous and theologically profound: the restoration of the divine Name JeHoVaH in every occurrence where the Hebrew Tetragram (יהוה) appears in the original text.
In the King James Version and most subsequent English translations, the Tetragram is rendered as LORD (in small capitals) — a substitution inherited from the Greek Septuagint's use of Kyrios and the Latin Vulgate's Dominus. This convention, however ancient, represents a translation decision rather than a translation. The Hebrew original does not say "Lord." It says the Name.
The VDN 5.0 corrects this across the entire Psalter. Where the psalmist cried out יהוה, the English reader now reads JeHoVaH — the Name as it has been vocalized in the Hebrew scholarly tradition, preserved here with its capital letters intact to signal its sacred weight.
The effect upon the reader is immediate and irreversible. Psalm 23, for instance, opens not with the generic "The LORD is my shepherd" but with:
"JeHoVaH-Rohi ('the LORD-Shepherd') is my Shepherd; his presence shall never fail me."
The Name is not a title. It is not a rank. It is the personal Name of the God of Israel, and the VDN 5.0 honours it as such on every page.
II. The Compound Divine Names: A Lexical Restoration
Beyond the Tetragram itself, the VDN 5.0 preserves the compound names of God that appear throughout the Psalms — names that most English translations dissolve into generic equivalents.
•JeHoVaH-Rohi — 'the LORD-Shepherd' (Psalm 23:1)
•JeHoVaH Tzabaôt — 'the LORD of Hosts' (Psalm 84:1)
•Adonai JeHoVaH — rendered with full distinction from Adonai alone
•El Shaddai — 'the Almighty' (Psalm 91:1)
•Elyon — 'Most High', preserved alongside its Hebrew form
Each compound name is given both its Hebrew form and its English gloss in parentheses, so that the reader encounters the original theological precision without being left without a guide. This dual presentation is one of the most pedagogically valuable features of the VDN 5.0: it teaches as it translates.
