Yahweh (/ˈjɑːhweɪ/, or often /ˈjɑːweɪ/ in English; Hebrew:יהוה‎) is a name for God in Judaism, and also refers to the national deity of ancient Israel (Samaria) and Judah. His worship's origins are mysterious, although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the Late Bronze; his name may have begun as an Epithet of El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon, but the earliest plausible mentions are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern Transjordan.