The Chinese word "耶和华" (Yēhéhuá) is a phonetic transliteration formed to represent the sound of the Latinized name "Jehovah," which itself derives from the Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew divine name (YHWH). Early Western missionaries and Chinese Bible translators in the 19th century, such as those responsible for the Chinese Union Version, selected these specific characters not for their inherent meanings (which are largely neutral or incidental here) but because their combined pronunciation closely approximated "Jehovah." This process of creating new terms through sound-based borrowing is a standard method in Chinese for adopting foreign proper nouns, especially sacred or historical names, into the writing system.