Names, Meaning

Abram’s journey from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, and God’s changing his name to Abraham, “father of a multitude of nations,” presage the struggles and aspirations of his descendants’ return migration from Babylon to Judah. At stake is Isaiah’s vision about the place of Israel among the nations.

Jacob makes a series of strategic preparations in anticipation of meeting his estranged brother Esau. Instead of the expected confrontation, we get a totally unexpected, unanticipated, and unprepared for wrestling between Jacob and a mysterious stranger at the ford of Jabbok. By juxtaposing these two accounts, the narrative invites us to think about both the human impulse to control and its limitations.

What does this phrase, found in Numbers 32:38, mean?

A rose by any other name

She named him Moses (מֹשֶׁה) explaining, “I drew him (מְשִׁיתִהוּ) out of the water” (Exod 2:10).

The character of Tamar draws on a botanical motif—the tamar, the date palm—to evoke a recurring trope of female family members whose beauty and presence have the power to destroy or save the family.

A biblical metaphor for God’s relationship with Israel.

Genesis Rabbah surprisingly portrays Lot’s daughters and their choices in a decidedly positive light, while exacerbating Lot’s culpability.

Betuel, Rebecca’s father, mysteriously appears and disappears in the negotiations over Rebecca’s marriage.

Who gets to name the child? Priestly and non-Priestly texts give two different answers.

Naming practices in the biblical and ancient Near Eastern cultures differed significantly from those of medieval Jews in Fatimid Egypt (7^th-12^th cent. CE) as evidenced by the genizah findings. Examining these names presents us with important historical and anthropological data.