Are “Lord” and “God” interchangeable?
Is there any difference between “The Lord is my shepherd” and “The God is my shepherd”?
Are Lord and God interchangeable?
It does change the meaning to swap them around. In the KJV OT:
- Lord usually translates adonai, which is the equivalent of ruler or master (as in English today).
- LORD usually translates Yahweh (Jehovah), the sacred covenant name of God.
- God usually translates elohim, which appears to mean something like "the mighty one."
Also, in terms of articles:
- God seems to be taken in English as the name for God, and so you do not write the God. You do write the god(s) if you are talking about other gods than Him.
- Lord and LORD both take articles, because in English they are titles, just like king and president. As @BrettReynolds notes, however, they can be used without articles in vocatives, just as you would say, "Teacher, will you . . ."
What do you mean by “is there any difference?”?
As others have noted, “Lord” is a title of respect; “God” is a description, like calling someone a “plumber” (no intent to be disrepectful with that analogy); and “YHWH” or “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” – all attempts to represent the same Hebrew word in English – is God’s proper name. (The Judeo-Christian god’s proper name, if you prefer.) (As others note, “LORD” in all caps is often used by those who, for various reasons, think it is inappropriate to write or say God’s proper name.)
So it’s like the difference between referring to the queen of England as “Your/Her Majesty”, “the queen”, and “Elizabeth”. Do they all refer to the same person? Yes. Are they the same word? Obviously not. Do they mean the same thing? Well ... in what sense?
If you’re quoting a Bible verse, I think it would simply be wrong to swap such words around. It would be like quoting Lincoln’s Gettysburg address as “87 years ago our ancestors ...” The meaning might be the same, but it wouldn’t be an accurate quote.
If you’re just speaking generally, if you said, “Psalm 23 says that God is our shepherd ...”, I don’t think that would be inaccurate.
Whether the Bible intentionally uses different words to convey subtle differences in meaning or some such is a much bigger subject. I’d be cautious about second-guessing the choices of Moses, Isaiah, Paul, etc for how to refer to God, never mind the choices of God himself. (And I’m not going to get into debating the Documentary Hypothesis here.)