Why can't I isolate "the LORD" in the NIV?

Kristin · 2025-04-03T18:36:52+00:00

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This screenshot is of the NIV, and I am looking for all of the English hits of "the LORD" as opposed to "the Lord" or "lord" or whatever.

If I don't use the case sensitive it of course finds everything with the letters, but if I do have it on there are no results.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-04-03 um 13.29.57.png

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Francis

Does this work?

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Francis

My guess is that it has trouble with the small caps. Best is to search for lemma.h:יהוה. If you want to ensure that you only have hits where the tetragrammaton is translated "LORD" add INTERSECTS LORD to that lemma search.

Kristin

Hi @Francis,

Thank you for your help and the screenshot. I just tried to mimic your screenshot just to make sure I could do it. That said, I am not sure if this accomplishes what I am trying to do.

The fundamental issue is that the ESV sometimes says "the LORD" when his name isn't in the text (it isn't common, but it does happen). So I was just trying to do a quick search of the ESV of how many times "the LORD" occurs and compare it against the actual hits, and then the same with the NIV. Tbh, I had first tried to do this in Accordance but ran into the same issue you described about the small caps.

So if I am understanding correctly, the search in your screenshot is capturing when "the LORD" occurs and God's name is behind it, but it would exclude the times when the NIV says "the Lord" as well as the times when it says "the LORD" and his name isn't there?

So I am kind of thinking that there isn't a way to simply get a clean count of "LORD" in English, is this correct? I am already not impressed that published Bibles took his name out of the text, but that really makes it worse if small caps aren't even searchable in either Accordance or Logos.

NetworkGeek

A simple way I attack these kinds of search formulations is that I find one instance of what I am curious about; this is not hard, as usually we see something that we want to explore more of!

So as your screen shot shows, Gen 2.4 has an instance of Lord/small caps. Assuming you are in a bible with an interlinear (NIV has it), right click on the word, click on the lemma in the left sidebar of the context menu that comes up, click the 'Bible' search button in the right sidebar, and voila - in my bible, 6,828 results in 5,792 verses!

PS - to see the instances of where the lemma is not transcribed at LORD (like 'he'), I would just append a NOT (LORD INTERSECTS lemma.h:יהוה). I am no Hebrew expert however, but this seems to work and is simple - not requiring much knowledge of the search syntax.

Kristin

and voila - in my bible, 6,828 results in 5,792 verses!

Hi @NetworkGeek,

Thanks for the idea. With the NIV? What is this counting exactly, the amount of times the name of God is translated as "lord" in some fashion, is that correct? I have 6831 hits, and I am not sure why there is a discrepancy, so I assume you are using another version?

PS - to see the instances of where the lemma is not transcribed at LORD (like 'he'), I would just append a NOT (LORD INTERSECTS lemma.h:יהוה).

Thanks, this sort of works, as it captures Gen 4:10 and Gen 15:9, but of the 1,085 results, the vast majority are just "lord" and are not intending to convey the name of God. So since there are just a handful of actual hits, (I would guess roughly 10), it seems like there should be a way to isolate small caps. I understand that it is a special character, but given that it is standard to be used for the name of God, it seems like both Accordance and Logos should be able to handle that script.

On a side note, it says there are 1,085 in 1,015 verses. So in the aligned view, for verses where it occurs more than once, does it list the verse twice, once under the other? Or how do I see both hits in the aligned view?

Bildschirmfoto 2025-04-03 um 15.14.42.png

Francis

@Kristin the practice of using LORD (with capital L and small caps ORD) is to render the tetragrammaton (YHWH) as distinguished from normally capitalized Lord which usually translates adonai. Sometimes, this creates a problem in verses where "adonai YHWH" is used as a title. Instead of putting "Lord LORD" which would be ugly, they often translate "Lord GOD" or something like it. That being the case:

Looking for the lemma for YHWH will find all occurrences of the Name.
Looking for the lemma of YHWH with INTERSECTS Lord will find when it is translated LORD in the Bible you are searching.

If you are looking for places where you suspect LORD is supplied but is not in fact representing the presence of the YHWH lemma, it's a bit more complicated. The simplest way probably is to use BWS to search the english word "Lord" in the OT and set the Hebrew Words section to ESV. You can then examine the listed verses. When you click a word that corresponds to a segment of the wheel, you will see the list of hits. This shows, for instance, that the ESV also uses LORD in places where Yah is used.

Isaiah barker

@Kristin I think I've got what you're looking for.

I started trying to make up a search query that would achieve what you want and I was getting close with this:

("the Lord" NOT INTERSECTS root.h:יהוה) AND ("the Lord" NOT INTERSECTS root.h:אָדוֹן) OR ("The Lord" NOT INTERSECTS root.h:יהוה) AND ("The Lord" NOT INTERSECTS root.h:אָדוֹן)

But then I figured out in Analysis search you can just sort the headings. So, for example, if you just search the below, and don't search case sensitive:
("the Lord" NOT INTERSECTS root.h:יהוה)

Then go into analysis search, you can click the "Form" header, and sort such that the blank forms are all at the top. You'll see there's 31 of these. I hope this is what you wanted! You could create a passage list for these 31 verses, then create a visual filter from these if you want to be sure to know when these occur.

Kristin

@Kristin the practice of using LORD (with capital L and small caps ORD) is to render the tetragrammaton (YHWH) as distinguished from normally capitalized Lord which usually translates adonai. Sometimes, this creates a problem in verses where "adonai YHWH" is used as a title. Instead of putting "Lord LORD" which would be ugly, they often translate "Lord GOD" or something like it. That being the case:

Hi @Francis,

Ya, I agree with what you wrote above is my understanding as well. It is just that since the small caps have been standard to use for YHWH since the KJV, it just seems like bible softwares would be used to being able to handle that specific font by now.

Looking for the lemma for YHWH will find all occurrences of the Name.
Looking for the lemma of YHWH with INTERSECTS Lord will find when it is translated LORD in the Bible you are searching.

Thank you for clarifying this.

If you are looking for places where you suspect LORD is supplied but is not in fact representing the presence of the YHWH lemma, it's a bit more complicated.

Yes, you are correct about my goal. I am looking for all verses like Gen 4:10 where both the ESV and NIV say "the LORD said" but the Hebrew just says "and he said."

The simplest way probably is to use BWS to search the english word "Lord" in the OT and set the Hebrew Words section to ESV. You can then examine the listed verses. When you click a word that corresponds to a segment of the wheel, you will see the list of hits. This shows, for instance, that the ESV also uses LORD in places where Yah is used.

Thank you for the screenshot, and I am not super concerned about Yah. I am more concerned about the times when it is just not in the text at all. In your screenshot, for example, it lists all the various options on the right, but as you can see, verses like Gen 4:10 aren't on that pie chart, since the "LORD" isn't actually linked to anything, it is just sitting there in the text on its own.

@Kristin I think I've got what you're looking for….

Hi @Isaiah barker,

Thank you for the instructions. I am still finding the Logos commands sort of confusing, so it was sort of complicated to mimic what @Francis and @NetworkGeek said above, but I will try to follow your instructions also. It might just take me a minute.

Francis

Does this work?

Kristin

Does this work?

Thank you so much, @Francis! It would have taken me an hour to set this up! I think this is likely the best option. While I wish that either Accordance or Logos could just show me the actual hits, this is for sure more manageable to work with. I will also save it as a layout to remember the formula.

On a side note, something I appreciate about Logos is that you can post that link and then it asks me if I want to open it in Logos. I just appreciate the efficiency and simplicity to import complicated layouts.

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1365169#Comment_1365169

@Kristin I got 6831 also. This was using the lemma lemma.h:יהוה, different than @Francis 's example, as he used the INTERSECTS to eliminate results where the english translation was not LORD/small caps but such as 'he'.

And no, you did not get the INTERSECTS search correct per what I was saying. This iamge shows it, there are 15 returned -

Justin Gatlin

Interestingly, small caps are not caps. It is a font formatting, so the word itself will still come across as Lord when you do match.case:Lord. You cannot search by small caps - in fact, small caps do not even show up in the analysis view on search. Small caps go away if you uncheck Bible text formatting:

I like the idea of using Analysis. If you make the word Lord case sensitive, you probably still get a few false positives where the text is Lord instead of LORD, but if you do match.case:Lord INTERSECTS person:God then you will only get the cases where it is tagged as a reference to God. Then you can go to the Analysis view and drag "Lemma (Hebrew)" to the top to sort by the underlying word:

Kristin

Interestingly, small caps are not caps. It is a font formatting, so the word itself will still come across as Lord when you do match.case:Lord….If you make the word Lord case sensitive, you probably still get a few false positives where the text is Lord instead of LORD, but if you do match.case:Lord INTERSECTS person:God then you will only get the cases where it is tagged as a reference to God.

Hi @Justin Gatlin,

Thank you for clarifying this about small caps, and it certainly explains why it isn't searchable. Thank you also for explaining the two methods, and how the first would produce false positives. If I am understanding correctly, while the second method you listed would weed out a lot of false hits, it might also leave a true hit out, as it would be depending on whether the word just happened to be tagged as "God" or not. I actually don't know much about Logos' tagging methodology, but I assume there could be a hit where it isn't tagged as God. Is that correct?

@Kristin I got 6831 also. This was using the lemma lemma.h:יהוה, different than @Francis 's example, as he used the INTERSECTS to eliminate results where the english translation was not LORD/small caps but such as 'he'.

Hi @NetworkGeek,

I see. Thank you for confirming that you got the same number, and also for the screenshot.