Monday 27 June 2011

Names of People in the Bible

The names that are given to people in the Bible have meanings. When Ma brought up Jonah, and DebbieLynne brought up Abraham and Eliezer, I did a search and found a wonderful link which shows the names and the very detailed meaning of the names. For instance:

ELIEZER:
The name Eliezer is a compound of two elements. The first part is the word el (El), the common abbreviation of Elohim, meaning God (or gods). The second part comes from the verb azar (azar) meaning help, support. This verb is quite common and used in all expected ways. Most notable is its usage in describing the function of Eve to Adam, 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make him a helper suitable for him' (Genesis 2:18).

The meaning of the name Eliezer is God Of Help (Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names and NOBS Study Bible Name List) or God Is Help (BDB Theological Dictionary).

ESTHER:
The name Esther was probably given to Hadassah when she entered the court of the Persian king (compare Daniel and his friends) and as such she was known by the people. Or possibly the name was later attributed to her due to her 'stardom.' But to a Hebrew audience the name Esther, the way it was written, had far more meaning than simply the word 'star' in the language of their abductors.

The name Esther may have reminded of a compound of ason (ason), meaning evil, harm, from the assumed root sh ('sh), plus the word tor (tor) meaning a circle or plait or tor (tor) meaning dove; both from the verb tur (tur), to spy or search out. In that way the foreign name Esther would have looked to mean She Searches Out Evil to a Hebrew audience.

Then there is the word asar (asar), meaning to tie, bind, gird, with among its derivatives esur (esur) meaning bond, band, and asar (issar), binding obligation.

And finally we list the root satar (satar), hide or conceal, with among its derivatives satar (seter) and sitra (sitra) both meaning hiding place, and mistar (mistar) hiding place. That way the name Esther would have sounded like I Am A Hiding Place.

***************************

Those are only small excerpts of what is provided on those names, so I hope you will check out the entire commentary that is at the links provided. Someone put alot of research into it, and there are also Greek names and meanings as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are always welcome, however spam will be removed.

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

If a comment is mocking or otherwise unfruitful it will be removed. If a comment is completely irrelevant to the post it likewise will be removed. If the post contains an audio or video teaching and it is obvious that the commenter has not listened to the presentation the comment may (or might not) be posted and I probably won't reply.