At present, there is no current translation of the Bible in the Afrikaans language (spoken by South Africans of Dutch descent) that contains God’s name. This is surprising, since many translations into the tribal languages spoken in that country use the name freely. Let us see how it came about.

On August 24, 1878, a strong plea was made at a meeting of the Society of True Afrikaners (G.R.A.) that a translation of the Bible be made in the Afrikaans language. Six years later, the matter was brought up again, and eventually it was decided to go ahead and translate the Bible from the original tongues. The work was entrusted to S. J. du Toit, Superintendent of Education in the Transvaal.

A letter of instruction to du Toit included the following guideline: “The proper name of the Lord, Jehovah or Jahvê, should be left untranslated [that is, not substituted for by Lord or God] throughout.” S. J. du Toit translated seven Bible books into Afrikaans, and the name Jehovah appeared throughout.

Other South African publications, too, at one time contained God’s name. For example, in De Korte Catechismus (The Short Catechism), by J. A. Malherbe, 1914, the following appeared: “What is God’s preeminent Name?” The answer? “Jehovah, which is written LORD with capital letters in our Bibles. This [name] was never given to any creature.”

However, du Toit’s translation was not popular, and in 1916 a Commission for Bible Translation was appointed to see to the production of an Afrikaans Bible. This Commission had a policy of omitting from the Bible the name of Jehovah. In 1971 the Bible Society of South Africa published a “tentative translation” of a few Bible books in Afrikaans. While the name of God was mentioned in the introduction, it was not used in the text of the translation. Similarly, in 1979 a new translation of the “New Testament” and Psalms appeared and it likewise omitted the name of God.