Jovial (20 Aug 2005)
"Names in Scripture"

Names often have more meaning than we realize in Scripture. Let's take a look at Esther. The book of Esther tells us she had two names: Hadassah and Esther.

"Hadas" means "myrtle" in Hebrew, one of the 4 precious species we use at Sukkot. So to an Israeli Hebrew speaking society, this name sounds like something that is very precious to Hebrew thought. "Hadas" (for a boy) or "Hadassah" (for a girl) therefore connotates something rather special in Hebrew thought.

But "Hadassah" / "Esther" was living in Aramaic speaking Persia, where "haddes" and "haddas" were two ways to describe a mark you might make with your feet when you dance (or what those of us in the South might call "chicken scratch"). "Haddas" means "myrtle" in both Hebrew and Aramaic, but in Aramaic, it is easy confused with the word for "chicken scratch", which can be pronounced either "haddas" or "haddes" in Aramaic, making it hard for an Aramaic speaker to tell the difference between the word for "myrtle", and the word for "chicken scratch". So we can understand why she went by "Esther" in Persia. In Israel, one would never confuse these two words, since the word for "chicken scratch" is "hiddes" in Hebrew, which does not sound enough like "haddas" to confuse the two.

"Esther" means "I will be hidden", and she hid her identity until "such a time as this" In fact, both her names describe the role she played in the book very well, because "haddas" means something precious to an Israeli, but is easily confused for something lowly in Aramaic. Also, being a Jew is something that is precious to G-d, but often looked down upon to Gentiles. So both her names fit her role in the book very well. In fact, this strong fit on names to the characters and roles they played works very well all throughout the book of Esther, something that will be more easily seen as you read on.

Haman means "the rager". Need I say more? It may not have been his real name - his real name may have been erased from history's memory and simply replaced with a description of what kind of person he was. Hatach means "why will you smite" and he was the chamberlain Esther called for when she heard of the order and wanted to know why the king had decided to smite the Jews.

This is just a few. I've got a deeper study of most of the names in the book of Esther that I'll be happy to send to anyone who wants a copy of it. Just email me at the address above. Some of it you really need to see the Hebrew characters for and it takes a long time to set them up on HTML, but I can send someone a PDF that fixes all that.

We see something similar happening in other books of Scripture: In Ruth and many other places, the names people and/or places had (such as the places where Israel camped in the wilderness) always seems to have some significance. It's actually a good exercise to just go through your Bible and write in the margin space the meaning to the names you encounter. You'll be surprized how much depth it adds to your understanding! This only contains a few examples, but there are so many!!!!!

Shalom, Joe

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