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lower case letters -- such as "LORD," "Lord," and "lord" -- to distinguish between the original
Hebrew words. If those of us who don't read Hebrew rely on this established convention, then
when we see "Lord" written with an upper case "L" we immediately assume that this is a transla-
tion of "Adonai."

Unfortunately, the second word translated "Lord" in Psalm 110:1 is NOT "Adonai" in the
original Hebrew! In this one verse, for whatever reason, the KJV has blurred the issue by assign-
ing an upper case "L" to the quite DIFFERENT word "ADONI." In all other places in the Old Tes-
tament where this word is translated as "lord" in the KJV, it correctly appears with a lower case
"l".

So, with this in mind, we need to look carefully at all the Hebrew words which are trans-
lated "lord." Young's Concordance lists eleven Hebrew words which are translated "lord." The
New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible also lists a total of eleven. However, the
four that concern us the most at this point are listed as follows -- YHVH, ADON, ADONI, and
ADONAI:

1) YHVH (Yahveh or Yehovah)

This word is the first "LORD" found in Psalm 110:1 and means, according to Strong's
Concordance, "self-Existent" or "Eternal" (#3068). It is the Divine Name considered so sacred by
the Jews that they never pronounced it. Instead, when reading from the Scriptures, they substituted
the word "ADONAI."

In English translations it is the accepted convention that this word ALWAYS translates as
either "LORD" or "GOD" (all upper case) -- thus allowing us to recognize that the original word is
"Yahveh" or "Yehovah."

2) ADON

This word is formed from the Hebrew consonants Aleph, Dalet and Nun. It appears often in
this form (without any suffix) and, apart from about 30 places where it refers to the Divine Lord, it
ALWAYS refers to human lords. According to Strong's it comes from an unusual root that means
"to rule," "sovereign," i.e. "controller" (human or divine) lord master, owner.

In English it always has a lower case "l", except on those very few occasions when it re-
fers to God. In those cases it is given an upper case "L".

It is very important to distinguish between "Adon" and three other similar -- but quite dis-
tinct -- words which are formed by the addition of suffixes:
3) ADONAI

This word accounts for two of the three other words just mentioned and is formed from the
root word "adon" with the addition of the suffix "AI".

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