The other day the question came up about the meaning of biblical names when someone asked why it is that in some translations Adam is called by that name or as "the man". Adam's name comes from the noun for the red earth. In Gen 2:7 God takes the red earth, fashions it, and breathes life into it creating man. Eve's name is equally symbolic and it means "living one" and comes from the verb to be - an appropriate name for the mother of humanity in Gen 3:20. When Sarah and Abraham are told that in the following year they will be blessed with a son Sarah laughs and the meaning of the name is "he laughs", a name which will describe the joy he brings for the couple and the joke they see in the promise of a son in their old age. Abraham's own name is "father of multitude," a highly appropriate name for someone in whom all the nations will be blessed Gen 17:5.
There are many occasions when a name will be given for a person or a place, and that name will be explained for the reader. Such explanations are called etymologies and they are frequent in the Old Testament. In Gen 11:9 the name Babel is explained as being due to God confusing the languages of humanity as a punishment for trying to be like God in building a tower up to heaven, and Beer-Sheba is the name given to the place where God and Abraham swear their faithfulness to each other in Gen 21:31. When we read these explanations we normally think that this has been added to the text for our benefit, but the explanations are already there in the Hebrew text, and they serve the purpose of pointing the reader towards the deeper meaning of places and people. God's purposes are deeply embedded in the events of life and these names ensured that experiences or attitudes, both positive and negative, would not be forgotten. An example of this is the testing of God and the grumbling of the people when they have no water in the wilderness. While the water is provided the attitude of the people is not to be forgotten and enshrined in the names of Massah and Meribah in Exod 17:7. One only has to look at Deut 6:16; 9:22; 33:8 and Psa 95:8 to see just how representative this moment proved to be and how these names were used as a warning and as a teaching tool.
A beautiful and powerful example of names being used to convey a message of hope and love is found in Is 62:4 when the people of Israel needed to be encouraged at the time of exile and resettlement.
Is. 62:4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
In the New Testament names continue to be used as a means of teaching. Jesus' own name is not without significance and Joseph is informed about Mary: "She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" Matt 1:21. This points us to the heart of Jesus' mission, and only two verses later in Matt 1:23 Jesus' other name of Emmanuel is given which means God-with-us.
In John's Gospel Jesus has a beautiful name for his disciples that is a source of challenge and hope:
John 15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
Chris, in Gen 4, we have only Adam, Eve, Cain & Abel. Questions, why was Cain worried about being killed by others and where did he get his wife? Grace
ReplyDeleteHi Grace, this is a great question and attentive readers of the first chapters of Genesis have commented on this over the centuries. How can Cain be afraid of being killed by others when the book of Genesis has told us that there were only three people in the world?If God is going to avenge Cain then that looks like overkill, pardon the pun, when twofold vengeance would be enough to leave only Cain alive. There is a gap in the logic of the story and the explanation I suggest is that when the first eleven chapters of Genesis were being written down they did not include all of the traditions that they knew of, but just wrote down what seemed the most critical traditions for their purposes. In this case the story that they have chosen to relate about Cain fits the overall purpose of telling how sin spread from from the first generation to the second, and then to the whole of humanity. The people of Israel were familiar with the other traditions of the growth of the nations and did not need them to be related at this stage in Genesis. In a way what we have in Genesis 1-11 is an incomplete selection of their traditions as they combine these particular traditions into a powerful narrative with its own focus.
ReplyDeleteReaders like ourselves centuries later find the gaps a bit jarring because we don't have someone, as they would have had, to ask about the origin of the other people. Then the reader would reply something to the effect: " It's interesting that you ask that question," and go on to fill in the gap for the questioner!
Many thanks for the insight Chris.
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