Yahweh was an ancient Levantine deity that emerged as a "divine warrior" worshipped first in Edom, and later in Canaan as the national god of ancient Israelites and Judahites. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier.

In the oldest biblical literature he possesses attributes typically ascribed to weather and war deities, fructifying the land and leading the heavenly army against Israel's enemies. The early Israelites were polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal. In later centuries, El and Yahweh became conflated and El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, and other gods and goddesses such as Baal and Asherah were absorbed into Yahwist religion.

Towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, the existence of other gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed the creator deity and sole divinity to be worshipped. During the Second Temple period, speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as taboo, and Jews instead began to substitute other words, primarily adonai (אֲדֹנָי‬‎, "my Lord"). In Roman times, following the Siege of Jerusalem and destruction of its Temple, in 70 CE, the original pronunciation of the god's name was forgotten entirely. Yahweh is also invoked in Papyrus Amherst 63, and in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th century CE.