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[[File:Zeus Yahweh.jpg|thumb|220px|right|A [[Yehud coinage|drachm]] (quarter [[shekel]]) coin from the Persian province of [[Yehud Medinata|Yehud]], apparently showing the god YHW (Yahweh) as a bearded man seated on a winged and wheeled throne.{{sfn|Edelman|1995|p=190}}]]
:''This article is about the national godGod of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. For other uses, see [[Yahweh (disambiguation)]]. See also: [[Tetragrammaton]].''
{{Middle Eastern deities}}
{{Judaism}}
'''Yahweh''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|j|ɑː|hw|eɪ}}, or often {{IPAc-en|ˈ|j|ɑː|w|eɪ}} in English; {{lang-he|יהוה}}) was the [[national godGod]] ofworshiped by the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Israel]] and [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]].{{sfn|Miller|1986|p=110}} His name may have begun as an [[epithet]] of [[El (deity)|El]], head of the Bronze Age [[Canaanite pantheon#Pantheon|Canaanite pantheon]],{{sfn|Dijkstra|2001|p=92}} but the earliest plausible mentions are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern [[Transjordan (region)|Transjordan]].{{sfn|Dever|2003b|p=128}} In the oldest biblical literature he is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior" who leads the [[Heavenly host#In the Tanakh(Hebrew Bible)|heavenly army]] against Israel's enemies;{{sfn|Hackett|2001|p=158–159}} he later became the main god of the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)]] and of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]],{{sfn|Smith|2002|p=72}} and over time the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.{{sfn|Wyatt|2010|p=69–70}}{{sfn|Betz|2000|p=917}} By the end of the [[Babylonian exile]] (6th century BC), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the [[creator deity|creator of the cosmos]] and the true god of all the world.{{sfn|Betz|2000|p=917}}
==Bronze Age origins==
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