S3E6: What's the significance of name changes in the Bible?

Please note: This episode contains a mention of birth trauma within the biblical narrative

In this episode, Tony, James, and Caleb discuss name changes in the patriarchal narratives. They look at how common it was for names to be changed in the ancient world, as well as the significance of the name changes within the biblical narrative. 

Edited by Tyndale House 

Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.

Transcript

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T: Hello.

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Welcome to the sixth episode of series

three of the Tyndale House podcast.

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We're looking at names in the Old

Testament and in the ancient world.

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in our last episode,

we were looking at Genesis chapter 14,

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some of the names that are going on there.

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And we're going to follow on from that to

start with today, talking about Abram,

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who becomes Abraham.

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And so we're going to be talking about

the idea of, people having different names

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at different times or in different

contexts and changes of name and so on.

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So that's where we're going.

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I'm joined again by, Caleb Howard,

who heads up our Old Testament team,

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and James Bejon, who is,

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a researcher.

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Almost forgot what you were then James

J: So do I

T: But nevermind

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so James is a PhD

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candidate here in Cambridge

and also works on the Old Testament team.

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So it's very good to have you with us again.

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So we're talking about name changing.

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If you were going to have a different name,

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have you ever thought about what it would be?

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C: You first

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J: Well, the answer is no,

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I haven't thought about what it would be.

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I'll get a new name one day,

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according to revelation.

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I don't know what that will be either.

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T: You've never been tempted

to change your name?

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J: No

C: I have slightly.

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So my name is Caleb, as you know,

but that's my middle name.

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T: Oh really?

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C: And, so when I sign my name,

I sign my name J. Caleb Howard.

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Because legally, people always assume that

I go by John, which is my first name.

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But I don't, I go by Caleb,

and that's always been a bit of a nuisance

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when I'm sort of interacting

with people who expect my first name to be

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the given name that the name that I go by,

J: Oh so you would’ve changed it just to...

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C: I might have, I might have changed it

to Caleb John or something like that.

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something

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Or just go by John.

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I don't know. Some people have call me John. So.

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T: So you are kind of working with a changed

name in some way.

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I mean, Caleb is your name but you are

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C: Yeah. 

T: Yeah, okay

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C: Well, my parents always call

me Caleb and, yeah.

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J: I would have been called Rachel

had I been a girl,

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but I would not change my name to that

C: Okay

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J: Just to...

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Just to state that.

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C: Yeah

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T: I quite fancy some Latin name I think.

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yeah I think that would, that has

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a certain gravitas to it,

but I don't know what it would be.

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Anyway, let's, let's get on with, with

today's subject rather than talking about,

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these things,

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The way that names

work in the Bible,

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we've already said in earlier

episodes, is different

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than we're familiar

with in the Western world.

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and the idea of people

having different names

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or multiple names

even is, is quite alien to us.

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so yeah, I mean you’re

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you're not really using multiple names.

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They're both your names.

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It's just you're using one

rather than the other.

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How different is it

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from Western ways of naming?

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How do our preconceptions of the way

that names work, kind of, fall down

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when we come to

some of these biblical texts?

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J: Well,

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a large part of the name in the Western

world is an identifier, isn't it?

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You want to be able to type it

in a database, get all

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James Bejon's records, etc. and

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that requires a lot of uniformity.

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It needs to be spelt the same way

consistently by everyone, etc.

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that's probably a very modern, well database is obviously a modern notion,

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but that whole thing's

probably a modern notion. In Scripture

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You see more in later books

and the New Testament

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people who are explicitly

referred to as having two names

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X, who was also called Y, that sort of thing.

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Judas, who was also known as...

You get that in Maccabees as well.

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You've also got multiple names

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when people move to a new society,

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Joseph gets a new name doesn’t he?

Daniel gets a new name.

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Sometimes you've got translated names

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Dorcas, who was called Tabitha.

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You know, Tabitha is sort of something

Aramaic for gazelle.

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Dorcas is Greek for [that].

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And that kind of thing even goes on

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today. We've got a lady, Devon, who works here.

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She's got a friend called Ayelet

that’s Hebrew for a deer or something.

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But when Ayelet talks to Arabic

speakers, she's generally known as Reem,

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which is just the sort of Arabic

equivalent for something like a

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 antelope. So this kind of thing is odd

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to us at first blush,

but not to most people.

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T: Yeah, right.

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Okay, that's very helpful.

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C: There's an Assyrian queen

called Zakutu, which is the Akkadian

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word, the native word for ‘pure’ or ‘clean’.

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And she also has the Aramaic name Naqi’a,

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which is the Aramaic word

for ‘clean’ or ‘pure’.

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Yeah.

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It's possible that she's Aramean and

she marries the Assyrian king Sennacherib,

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that we know from the Bible it's his queen,

and she produces

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In fact, the

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the next king of Assyria,

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Esarhaddon.

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but yeah, it's interesting

that she has kind of the same semantic

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category in the two languages,

the local kind of Mesopotamian language,

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Akkadian, but also potentially her

native language, Aramaic.

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We don't know that for sure, but

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difficult to explain

why she has both these names otherwise.

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Yeah. 

T: Yeah.

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So we may see some of that going on

possibly with,

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with some of the kings later on.

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We'll come to that a little bit later or

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J: Yeah

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T: there are some definitely they've,

they've got variations of names

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and so on.

But let's, let's start with Abraham.

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Well we'll come back to them later on. So

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in the chapter

we were looking at last time,

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chapter 14, he's called Abram as he is

for the first few chapters.

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And we’re so used to calling him Abraham

that we

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we often forget that he's Abram

until we get to the name change.

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And, I've often heard

people read the passage in church

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and they, they say, Abraham,

even though it's Abram at that point.

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And then we get to Genesis chapter 17

and he's getting on a little bit, 99.

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And, the Lord appears to him again.

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and he gets a new name. Do you want to read some of that for us, James?

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And then we'll, we'll talk about

what's going on.

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J: Yeah, sure.

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‘So when Abram was 99 years old,’

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we need to pause

for the numerical significance,

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don’t we? Abraham is...

C: Do we?

J: We do, we do

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Abraham is a man of tens, isn’t he? Adam

to Noah is ten generations.

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Noah to Abraham is ten.

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Abraham has the battle

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of five kings versus four kings.

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So he becomes a 10th king as he wins.

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He's now 99. He's going to be 100.

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So he's going to be ten squared

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When his son is born.

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So we need to pause.

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C: Phenomenal. Pause accomplished.

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Keep going.

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J: All right.

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‘So the Lord appeared to Abram and

he said to him, I am the Lord Almighty.

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Walk before me and be,

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[what should we say,

blind, blameless,] be perfect,

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and I will establish my covenant

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between me and between you.

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And I will multiply you greatly.’

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It's interesting here,

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there's a lot of repeating of

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the verb give isn’t there?

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I  will give my covenant literally.

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And then he's going to make, Abram

a great nation, which is sort of the same,

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giving, just sort of the grace of God

as gift behind it all

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‘Abram fell on his face and God

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spoke to him, saying, “I am.

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Behold,

my covenant is with you, and you will be,

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[a great,

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well,] a father of many nations.”’

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And this phrase, ‘father of many nations’

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av hamon

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that seems to be

a play of what's going to come.

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So Abraham, has an insertion of an ‘H’

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and doesn't sound so different from av hamon

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‘you will not, no

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No longer will your name

be called [Abram] Abraham, but you'll...’ 

T: You’ve just

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J: Oh no sorry, I’ve done it, yeah

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‘...be called Abram

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but your name will be called Abraham for

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[father or] I will make you a father of,

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a great multitude of nations.’

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Let's say

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C: ‘I will give you’ There’s that ‘give’ word again.

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J: Yeah

C: Yeah, it's very interesting.

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So the difference between Avram (Abram)

and Avraham (Abraham): ham.

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And the point here is that the ‘H’ insertion

that James has just mentioned

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is that ‘H’ in ‘ham’. Avraham (Abraham). Right.

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the question is sort of

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what's the difference

between those two names?

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Avram (Abram) means ‘exalted father’

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or ‘father is exalted’. Av

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is the word for ‘father’, ram, ‘exalted’.

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And it's a pretty common

name in the ancient

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Near East and over a long period of time as well.

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It's not specific to this kind

of early second millennium period.

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It's throughout the second millennium

and first millennium as well.

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and it's worth knowing that the word

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father occurs alongside

a lot of other kinship terms in names.

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So you get mothers and sisters

and brothers and paternal

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and maternal uncles

and so on showing up in names.

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And what's interesting about them

is that in sentence names,

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so, names where you have more than one word

and they make up a sentence,

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father, alongside

some of these other kinship terms,

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do the same things in those sentences

that deities do

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So alongside ‘exalted father’

or ‘father is exalted’, you might have

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‘Haddu is exalted’, or ‘El is exalted’, or something

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like that in other names,

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which suggests, I think, that suggests that,

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in Abraham's world,

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people often regarded their dead ancestors

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as, in some sense, divine.

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And we know that that's true

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for some people at least, because,

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places of worship or veneration of the dead

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ancestors, has been, have been discovered and studied

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their particular rituals

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that people did, for the ancestors

where they, they celebrated meals or had

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meals in celebration of the ancestors,

and they made prayers to them and so on.

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So the ancestors seem

to have had a place alongside

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deities in, let's say, Levantine religion,

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and also in

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Mesopotamia,

kind of around the Fertile Crescent,

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where they were venerated

and depended upon for,

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the, the well-being of the family.

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And if you look at the sorts of things

that are that are said about them, so

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they are paradigmatically

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related to deities in what they do,

that is to say they do the same things.

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They have the same the verbs associated with them,

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or adjectives or nouns that described in a similar way.

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So ‘father is exalted’. ‘Haddu is exalted.’

You might have

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‘father is good’, ‘Haddu is good’, and so on.

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Haddu is a deity, a divine name.

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So because these names are so similar,

and the kinship terms

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are doing the same things as deities,

it suggests that these

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kin, these ancestors are regarded

as, in some sense, divine.

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The question is sort of

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T: Even while they’re alive?

C: No.

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T: So—

C: not necessarily

T: But he has the name

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while he’s alive.

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C: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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It doesn't necessarily refer to him.

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T: Yeah, oh I see

C:Yeah. ‘father is exalted’

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If you look at what the ancestors do,

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they often do things that help the birth

or help conception and so on.

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So it suggests that the dead ancestors are in view.

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Now, I should say

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what you're what you're seeing is an

inherent ambiguity about the name, right?

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Names are so terse that we don't, it's hard

to know sort of exactly what

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father is in view

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And it, to my mind, it's

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theoretically possible that such names

could be interpreted in all sorts of ways.

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It's possible

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that someone could have thought of father

as the living father.

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Difficult to know.

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I mean, you could you could have a sort

of, let's say, a kind of secular sense

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of this name referring to the living

father, let's say Abraham's father,

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as, as an exalted person.

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so, that's possible.

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but when we study

lots of names from this region

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and we see how the father, the mother,

the sister, the maternal uncle,

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and so on are all doing similar things

in the names as the deities.

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Sometimes those things kind of go

beyond the

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the role of the father and the kind of living father.

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So look, the relationship is, is somewhat tentative, but it does

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I think it's fair to say

that we have a kind of divine father.

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I say, a kind of divine father, because,

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when you look at the spelling of the word father

00:13:32:16 - 00:13:35:16

in the names, particularly in cuneiform,

the cuneiform script,

00:13:37:13 - 00:13:40:07

there's a there's a sign,

00:13:40:07 - 00:13:43:21

a symbol that goes before words

that refer to deities,

00:13:44:14 - 00:13:47:14

and it indicates

what kind of semantic class they're in.

00:13:47:15 - 00:13:50:08

They're called determinatives.

00:13:50:08 - 00:13:52:03

So personal names have their own

00:13:53:05 - 00:13:55:10

determinatives.

00:13:55:10 - 00:13:58:03

Objects made of

wood have their own determinative,

00:13:58:03 - 00:14:01:03

a wood determinative that indicates

that the thing is made of wood.

00:14:01:24 - 00:14:04:05

C: And deities...

J: Mr, is a kind of determinative, isn’t it?

00:14:04:05 - 00:14:05:12

C: Yeah. Well that's true. Yeah. That's right.

00:14:05:12 - 00:14:06:22

T: Yeah. 

00:14:06:22 - 00:14:11:06

C: So there is a divine determinative,

a dingir sign so we have dingir in Sumerian.

00:14:12:02 - 00:14:16:01

and it indicates that what follows

it is a is a deity. Well the father

00:14:16:01 - 00:14:17:00

in these kinship terms

00:14:17:00 - 00:14:20:22

never have that divine determinative

in front of them, with rare exception.

00:14:21:08 - 00:14:25:16

So at the site that I'm mainly studying

right now, Alalakh, [it] never occurs

00:14:26:02 - 00:14:29:14

at other sites, just occurs sort of 1 or 2 times at that at most,

00:14:30:07 - 00:14:35:02

which again, kind of fits this notion

that the kin are in a sense divine,

00:14:35:02 - 00:14:38:11

but they're not quite at the same level

as the other deities if that makes sense.

00:14:38:15 - 00:14:38:23

T: Yeah.

00:14:38:23 - 00:14:41:16

C: So to bring it back to Abram, Abraham,

00:14:41:16 - 00:14:47:00

an argument could be made that Abram

in his sort of pre-Yahwistic background

00:14:47:00 - 00:14:51:03

Let's say, that’s before he became a worshiper of the Lord or something like that.

00:14:52:23 - 00:14:54:02

perhaps he participated

00:14:54:02 - 00:14:57:08

in that sort of thing and his name

participated, at least in that sort of,

00:14:57:21 - 00:15:01:09

worship and that sort of conception and that this shifted

00:15:01:17 - 00:15:05:14

when he's called from

Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan.

00:15:05:14 - 00:15:06:17

difficult to know.

00:15:06:17 - 00:15:07:06

Right.

00:15:07:06 - 00:15:09:22

This is speculation.

00:15:09:22 - 00:15:11:15

But that's one possibility.

00:15:11:15 - 00:15:14:01

T: I've heard some preachers say

00:15:14:01 - 00:15:17:09

that, I've probably said it myself,

that it's a bit rough

00:15:17:09 - 00:15:20:13

for Abraham to be called ‘exalted father’

when he has no children.

00:15:20:13 - 00:15:24:07

But actually, all that you're saying

suggests that the father is

00:15:24:24 - 00:15:27:00

that his name is not referring to him.

00:15:27:00 - 00:15:29:21

It's not an expectation

that he'll be an exalted father,

00:15:29:21 - 00:15:34:11

but but that his father is exalted, or there is an exalted

00:15:34:11 - 00:15:37:11

father that his name reflects.

00:15:37:11 - 00:15:38:09

C: Yeah.

00:15:38:09 - 00:15:39:24

T: Am I understanding that correctly?

C: Yeah. A bit.

00:15:39:24 - 00:15:41:02

Yeah, yeah. That's right.

00:15:41:02 - 00:15:45:05

So we've talked in previous episodes

about the fact that names aren't just

00:15:45:14 - 00:15:47:17

they don't just get their meaning

from their etymologies.

00:15:47:17 - 00:15:48:12

T: Sure. 

C: Right.

00:15:48:12 - 00:15:51:23

They get their meaning

from sound similarities to things

00:15:51:23 - 00:15:56:03

that are going on with words

in the context of texts

00:15:56:14 - 00:15:59:03

I mentioned Samuel in previous episodes.

00:16:00:16 - 00:16:01:16

Or just I mean, that

00:16:01:16 - 00:16:05:13

there may be ancient conceptions

of relatedness between words

00:16:05:13 - 00:16:08:18

that we don't necessarily perceive

as correct or as right,

00:16:08:18 - 00:16:12:11

and maybe they're not philological

or linguistically correct,

00:16:13:04 - 00:16:16:10

but in the in the name bearer’s

minds or on the name bestower’s minds,

00:16:17:03 - 00:16:18:18

the connections

they were making were real.

00:16:18:18 - 00:16:24:00

And that that is, for all intents

and purposes, real, a valid connection.

00:16:24:00 - 00:16:26:04

it's unfair and inappropriate,

00:16:26:04 - 00:16:29:04

I would say, of us to say

that such connections are not real.

00:16:29:23 - 00:16:33:22

And I think what's going on,

I think James agrees, with Abraham.

00:16:34:11 - 00:16:37:11

 (we discussed this beforehand,

so I know he does)

00:16:37:13 - 00:16:39:10

is that an ‘H’ is being inserted

00:16:39:10 - 00:16:42:10

That's something that happens

in other Semitic languages.

00:16:42:16 - 00:16:45:07

It happens in Aramaic, for example,

00:16:45:07 - 00:16:48:21

where words from one language

like Hebrew say

00:16:49:09 - 00:16:53:22

appear also in Aramaic cognate words,

but an ‘H’ is added to them

00:16:54:07 - 00:16:57:07

in the middle, and that's a bit like what

we have here with Abraham.

00:16:57:22 - 00:17:00:22

But there's this sound play with av hamon

00:17:01:01 - 00:17:04:21

in the previous, in verse four, which establishes the relationship

00:17:04:21 - 00:17:08:07

between Abraham's new name

and his role as an exalted father,

00:17:08:16 - 00:17:11:07

so there's a, there's a kind of playing with words

00:17:11:07 - 00:17:14:08

at several levels going on,

and that matters.

00:17:14:12 - 00:17:17:05

It's worth sort of

we should access all of those levels

00:17:17:05 - 00:17:19:00

if we want to understand

what's going on in the text.

00:17:19:00 - 00:17:22:13

Yeah, and ‘hamon’ is a known name

element, isn't it?

00:17:22:13 - 00:17:25:13

We've got the geographical name,

Ba’al-hamon

00:17:25:24 - 00:17:30:14

which it probably meant something

like ‘Lord of armies’ could of meant?

00:17:30:14 - 00:17:34:01

‘hamon’ can be like a multitude,

so might not have been that dissimilar

00:17:34:01 - 00:17:38:06

to the sense of Adonai tzava’ot, ‘Lord of hosts’, that kind of thing.

00:17:38:06 - 00:17:41:02

So it's a known naming concept.

00:17:41:02 - 00:17:44:11

I mean, just to give

some biblical parallels, Caleb’s

00:17:44:11 - 00:17:48:11

sort of bringing a wealth of cuneiform knowledge to

00:17:48:11 - 00:17:52:01

to all this, but its consistent

with what we see in Scripture, isn't it?

00:17:52:01 - 00:17:57:03

You can think of quite a few names

where ‘Av’ and ‘El’ interchange.

00:17:57:03 - 00:17:59:12

So just as we've got a,

00:17:59:12 - 00:18:01:20

Avishua (Abishua) we've got an Elishua

00:18:01:20 - 00:18:04:01

Just as we've got an Avimelech (Abimelech),

00:18:04:01 - 00:18:05:06

we got an Elimelech.

00:18:05:06 - 00:18:09:23

So you can see sort of ‘Av’ and ‘El’ doing

similar things and some of those

00:18:10:14 - 00:18:13:22

I wouldn't doubt for a second

that Elimelech  was a statement that ‘God is

00:18:14:05 - 00:18:16:18

King’, ‘God is in charge’.

Something like that.

00:18:16:18 - 00:18:19:12

Avimelech (Abimelech) seems to me, in the case of Gideon’s

00:18:19:12 - 00:18:24:15

son was a name that Gideon’s son gave himself talking about

00:18:24:23 - 00:18:28:23

‘my father is king’

because he used that to claim the throne.

00:18:28:23 - 00:18:32:21

There are sort of syntactic arguments

behind it but I think as a good argument

00:18:33:01 - 00:18:33:18

you can say that,

00:18:34:22 - 00:18:37:24

Gideon’s son gave himself that name.

00:18:38:08 - 00:18:40:13

Yeah, we'll get to throne names later.

00:18:40:13 - 00:18:43:13

T: Yeah, yeah. Okay

00:18:44:06 - 00:18:49:07

J: But yeah, either way, Abraham's name, however,

we exactly parse it,

00:18:49:07 - 00:18:53:02

it changes from possibly a sentence type

00:18:53:06 - 00:18:58:04

name, a statement about a divine father

to something that is

00:18:58:04 - 00:19:01:22

going to describe much more closely

what Abraham is going to be

00:19:01:22 - 00:19:02:15

and become.

00:19:02:15 - 00:19:06:14

He's going to be a father of many nations

and of great multitudes.

00:19:06:14 - 00:19:10:04

And that, of course, is the whole context of the passage, isn't it?

00:19:10:23 - 00:19:13:23

And I suppose that the sense that

00:19:14:22 - 00:19:18:02

Abraham's new name,

with the ‘H’ inserted does

00:19:18:02 - 00:19:23:09

reflect what's going to happen to him, and

and the Lord's promise to him.

00:19:23:09 - 00:19:29:05

I suppose that's a driver for people

to see Abram as an i—

00:19:29:05 - 00:19:32:05

kind of an ironic, unfortunate

00:19:32:08 - 00:19:35:00

name, referring to himself

that has never been fulfilled.

00:19:35:00 - 00:19:38:11

So I can understand

why people would make that that connection

00:19:38:21 - 00:19:42:17

because of what happens to that

revised or new name.

00:19:42:17 - 00:19:44:00

J: Yeah, yeah

00:19:44:00 - 00:19:47:16

And so we're seeing a kind of accrual

of names aren’t we?

00:19:47:16 - 00:19:50:16

just as God accrues

names as the narrative goes on.

00:19:50:16 - 00:19:52:20

So do various characters.

00:19:52:20 - 00:19:53:24

T: Yeah. Okay.

00:19:56:15 - 00:19:58:10

I know that,

00:19:58:10 - 00:20:01:10

Sarah going to Sarai (sic)

is a little tricky.

00:20:02:03 - 00:20:05:17

do you just want to step by that,

or do you want to say anything about it?

00:20:06:09 - 00:20:08:17

C: I don't like saying things if I don't feel sure about them.

00:20:08:17 - 00:20:11:24

So I have some ideas, but they're probably wrong.

00:20:12:02 - 00:20:14:19

T: Well, we'll come back to that

in a future episode

00:20:14:19 - 00:20:15:16

C: Okay, yeah.

00:20:15:16 - 00:20:18:16

T: There will be a second series of,

00:20:18:23 - 00:20:21:23

looking at names in the Bible

in the ancient world,

00:20:21:23 - 00:20:22:08

Caleb.

00:20:22:08 - 00:20:25:13

So just if you can get your ideas

clear by the next series,

00:20:25:13 - 00:20:28:13

C: people can't get enough of it.

00:20:29:16 - 00:20:32:06

T: Shall we talk about Benjamin

00:20:32:06 - 00:20:35:06

briefly? because we've talked about

Jacob's other sons.

00:20:36:03 - 00:20:41:15

so, Benjamin is born in

Genesis chapter 35,

00:20:42:13 - 00:20:46:18

and Rachel goes into labour

in verse 16.

00:20:47:14 - 00:20:49:21

And, she had hard labour

00:20:49:21 - 00:20:53:11

and, she gives birth to a son and then dies and,

00:20:55:05 - 00:20:57:04

as she's dying, as her soul was departing.

00:20:57:04 - 00:20:59:03

She calls him Ben-Oni.

00:20:59:03 - 00:21:02:00

but his father calls him Ben-yamin.

00:21:02:14 - 00:21:03:23

What's going on there?

00:21:05:18 - 00:21:06:11

J: Should I kick off?

00:21:06:11 - 00:21:07:10

C: Yeah

00:21:07:10 - 00:21:12:16

So, I think what we've got here

is another example of

00:21:13:19 - 00:21:17:14

kind of the way in which a name

can have multiple interpretations.

00:21:17:14 - 00:21:21:05

So one of the most common name types

in ancient

00:21:21:08 - 00:21:25:16

names has to do with, the birth event,

if you like.

00:21:25:16 - 00:21:29:13

So when people were born,

people could be named after the month

00:21:29:18 - 00:21:33:02

when they were born

or the time of day when they were born.

00:21:33:02 - 00:21:37:06

I mean, Dawn might have started off

like that as a name I don't know,

00:21:37:07 - 00:21:41:08

it's kind of lost that significance,

but it still has that significance

00:21:41:08 - 00:21:45:21

in many places in Africa, in many Arabic communities.

00:21:47:02 - 00:21:50:01

and this seems to be a

00:21:50:01 - 00:21:54:23

name first and foremost, as Rachel names

her son Ben-Oni

00:21:54:23 - 00:21:57:23

to do with the pain of childbirth.

00:21:58:01 - 00:22:01:11

so Jabez is, a similar example,

00:22:01:11 - 00:22:03:20

which would mean something

like ‘he hurt me’.

00:22:03:20 - 00:22:07:04

It's probably a, kind of metathesised

00:22:07:07 - 00:22:10:05

form of the root that we see in the curse.

00:22:10:05 - 00:22:12:23

That's to do with, when Eve will

00:22:12:23 - 00:22:16:07

have pain in childbirth itzavon or etzev.

00:22:16:07 - 00:22:20:07

I think is probably

a slightly transposed form of that.

00:22:20:07 - 00:22:25:11

So I think that that's the name

that Rachel is giving her son

00:22:25:15 - 00:22:28:16

like ‘a son of sorrow’, ‘a son of

00:22:29:13 - 00:22:32:21

affliction’ and my sense

00:22:32:21 - 00:22:35:09

is that,

00:22:35:09 - 00:22:38:22

now Isaac is going to give Benjamin.

00:22:39:00 - 00:22:42:00

Sorry. Jacob is going to give Benjamin,

00:22:42:15 - 00:22:46:01

a different interpretation of this word ‘on’.

00:22:46:01 - 00:22:49:21

So ‘on’ can refer to, sorrow, etc.

00:22:49:21 - 00:22:54:02

it can also refer to kind of strength

and power.

00:22:54:02 - 00:22:54:20

And so in,

00:22:56:01 - 00:22:57:24

Jacob's blessing his sons

00:22:57:24 - 00:23:00:24

Reuben, he refers to as

00:23:01:13 - 00:23:06:06

reshit, I think, oni

so ‘the first fruits of my strength’

00:23:06:06 - 00:23:09:06

and it seems to have to do there, with

00:23:10:00 - 00:23:11:24

yeah, with power, with inheritance.

00:23:11:24 - 00:23:15:03

You know, Reuben is there the firstborn and

00:23:16:03 - 00:23:19:03

I'm thinking that,

00:23:19:08 - 00:23:21:17

the name Benjamin is

00:23:21:17 - 00:23:25:03

‘a son of a right hand’ has kind of,

00:23:25:19 - 00:23:29:12

is a different interpretation of Ben-Oni

00:23:29:12 - 00:23:32:01

and a more positive interpretation.

00:23:32:24 - 00:23:36:09

you were thinking about this

to do with a favourite weren’t you, Caleb?

00:23:36:09 - 00:23:38:11

Do you want to...?

T: Just before you come in

00:23:38:11 - 00:23:40:16

So just to clarify.

00:23:40:16 - 00:23:43:16

So Ben-yamin, son of my right hand,

00:23:43:19 - 00:23:47:23

is the right hand is picking up

the strength possibility for ‘On’?

00:23:47:23 - 00:23:50:23

Is that what you saying? 

J: I think so, yeah.

00:23:51:04 - 00:23:54:23

but it could also pick up the idea of favourite?

00:23:54:23 - 00:23:58:14

C: Well, I mean, my thought,

is that ‘yamin’

00:23:59:18 - 00:24:02:22

‘Right,’ ‘right hand’ could be taken in the sense of,

00:24:03:17 - 00:24:07:12

well, not unlike, you get in Psalm 2

‘sit at my right hand

00:24:07:12 - 00:24:10:12

while I make your enemies,

a footstool for your feet’

00:24:10:14 - 00:24:13:16

the sense of pre-eminence or favour.

00:24:15:11 - 00:24:18:05

and I say that because Jacob

00:24:18:05 - 00:24:21:05

clearly has favourites among his children.

00:24:21:08 - 00:24:22:18

he has Joseph as a favourite.

00:24:22:18 - 00:24:25:10

And then Joseph appears

to have died to him.

00:24:25:10 - 00:24:28:18

And the way he treats Benjamin

after that is, is somewhat similar.

00:24:30:07 - 00:24:33:01

and this causes problems in the family,

of course, and becomes a theme in the rest

00:24:33:01 - 00:24:37:19

of the story, at least in sort

of the background of what's happening.

00:24:37:19 - 00:24:41:15

So I'm wondering if ‘yamin’ can be

taken here in the sense of,

00:24:43:07 - 00:24:46:01

well, ‘son of the right hand’, meaning ‘favourite son’

00:24:46:01 - 00:24:49:13

or ‘favoured son’ or ‘pre-eminent son’

or something like that.

00:24:50:06 - 00:24:51:23

We were discussing the possibility,

whether it

00:24:51:23 - 00:24:54:23

whether it might have inheritance

implications.

00:24:55:03 - 00:24:57:01

it's difficult to know

00:24:57:01 - 00:25:00:01

whether that whether it would but

00:25:00:08 - 00:25:05:00

to my mind, the notion of favourite fits

very well with Jacob's character as a

00:25:05:00 - 00:25:08:23

as a father who was a pretty bad father

in a lot of ways.

00:25:09:10 - 00:25:12:08

And one of them,

he has favourites among his children.

00:25:12:08 - 00:25:16:03

J: The one seated at the right hand

inherits in some sense, don't they? So

00:25:16:15 - 00:25:19:10

there seems to be a link there

00:25:19:10 - 00:25:21:11

there's also just a kind of

00:25:21:11 - 00:25:25:16

this double sense of kind of, well,

life and death

00:25:25:16 - 00:25:31:04

in terms of Rachel's death and life

coming from it and strength and sorrow.

00:25:31:05 - 00:25:31:24

There's just a sort of,

00:25:33:05 - 00:25:34:22

this mixture of notions

00:25:34:22 - 00:25:38:13

seem almost to plague Benjamin's tribe.

00:25:39:01 - 00:25:42:03

You know, kind of, you think of Hannah's

00:25:43:01 - 00:25:45:19

travail, where she's misunderstood.

00:25:45:19 - 00:25:51:11

Kind of Saul's ambiguous background

and the kind of mix of weeping

00:25:51:12 - 00:25:55:08

and death and hope and failure

that's connected.

00:25:55:17 - 00:25:58:10

There seems to be this kind of mix of,

yeah,

00:25:58:10 - 00:26:01:13

hope and tragedy

that that works through Benjamin's

00:26:02:17 - 00:26:05:03

almost whole story as a tribe, you know.

00:26:05:03 - 00:26:06:02

T: Yeah, interesting.

00:26:06:02 - 00:26:08:21

C: Worth just saying that that Benjamin is attested

00:26:08:21 - 00:26:12:02

in the early second millennium

as a personal name for a person.

00:26:13:00 - 00:26:15:03

we have it in a list of an administrative

00:26:15:03 - 00:26:18:03

list from Mari,

00:26:18:05 - 00:26:21:05

a city on the middle Euphrates

from the 18th century BC.

00:26:22:11 - 00:26:25:13

And it also is attested

as the name of a,

00:26:26:15 - 00:26:29:11

tribal confederacy, a kind of federation

00:26:29:11 - 00:26:32:15

of tribes, underneath the category,

00:26:32:15 - 00:26:33:05

Ben-yamin.

00:26:33:05 - 00:26:35:19

And it would have corresponded to Ben-simal

00:26:35:19 - 00:26:39:01

which is ‘son of the left hand’, possibly referring

00:26:39:02 - 00:26:43:07

to Ben-yamin being the South, let's say,

and Ben-simal being the North.

00:26:44:18 - 00:26:46:22

I raise that not

just because of the historical interest,

00:26:46:22 - 00:26:51:04

but because this is an example

of how the Bible pretty regularly takes,

00:26:52:13 - 00:26:55:13

things that we can access

in historical records like that

00:26:56:03 - 00:26:58:09

and weaves them

into this brilliant narrative.

00:26:58:09 - 00:27:00:16

It's amazing,

00:27:00:16 - 00:27:04:24

just the level of sophistication

that we find in the, in the Hebrew Bible.

00:27:04:24 - 00:27:08:04

It's unparalleled, in my opinion, in the Near East.

00:27:09:14 - 00:27:12:09

maybe a matter of taste of mine,

but it's remarkable.

00:27:12:09 - 00:27:13:14

It's remarkable.

00:27:13:14 - 00:27:14:24

And here's an example of that.

00:27:14:24 - 00:27:17:24

A text is sort of capitalizing

on the meaning of the name,

00:27:18:07 - 00:27:21:17

in this case etymologically,

but it has significance in relation

00:27:21:17 - 00:27:25:00

to Ben-Oni being taken potentially in two senses.

00:27:25:09 - 00:27:29:09

It's a really sophisticated form

of philology or interpretation of

00:27:29:10 - 00:27:30:14

the use of language.

00:27:31:22 - 00:27:32:23

J: Yeah, yeah.

00:27:32:23 - 00:27:36:00

And the narrative also has got some interesting,

00:27:37:22 - 00:27:39:23

what’s the word? Implications to it as well

00:27:39:23 - 00:27:42:23

insofar as, where are we? verse...

C: 18?

00:27:43:13 - 00:27:45:04

J: No, I'm just thinking earlier.

00:27:45:04 - 00:27:47:06

Where is it talking about kings

coming forth?

00:27:47:06 - 00:27:47:14

Oh sorry.

00:27:47:14 - 00:27:51:23

Verse 11 so we've just had God speaking

00:27:52:08 - 00:27:57:11

about himself again as El Shaddai,

and the command to be fruitful and multiply.

00:27:57:11 - 00:28:00:11

So there’s a lot of continuation with Abraham

00:28:00:16 - 00:28:03:14

and then kings will come forth from you

00:28:03:14 - 00:28:07:16

it seems interesting to me

that you've got a promise of kings.

00:28:08:02 - 00:28:12:02

You've then got Benjamin born, from whom

the first king, Saul,

00:28:12:02 - 00:28:16:13

is going to come,

and he's born en route to Bethlehem.

00:28:16:13 - 00:28:18:14

That's sort of,

00:28:18:14 - 00:28:19:07

C: Ephrath

00:28:19:07 - 00:28:21:09

J: Yeah. It's so

00:28:21:09 - 00:28:24:06

And it gives you the gloss in verse

19, doesn’t it?

00:28:24:06 - 00:28:28:19

And so it seems significant

that from Benjamin, you know,

00:28:28:23 - 00:28:33:03

Saul is going to be born and en route,

00:28:33:03 - 00:28:37:13

if you like, of the kingship

shifting to Bethlehem with David.

00:28:37:13 - 00:28:41:18

And so there seems to be kind of,

just a little microcosm

00:28:41:18 - 00:28:44:05

of what's to come

00:28:44:05 - 00:28:45:07

T: That’s fascinating, yeah.

00:28:46:10 - 00:28:47:15

Shall we draw stumps there?

00:28:47:15 - 00:28:47:21

Yeah.

00:28:47:21 - 00:28:50:19

To use a good cricketing metaphor,

which you will appreciate, Caleb

00:28:50:19 - 00:28:53:09

C: I have no idea what you're talking.

00:28:53:09 - 00:28:56:19

T: Okay, well, we'll stop there

and then we'll we'll pick this up again

00:28:56:19 - 00:29:00:01

in a in a seventh episode of series,

00:29:00:01 - 00:29:03:17

one of, names in the ancient world

and in the Bible.

00:29:03:17 - 00:29:06:03

So thank you very much for joining us.

00:29:06:03 - 00:29:08:00

come back again soon.

00:29:08:00 - 00:29:10:23

We're going to carry on our conversation

now, but you can wait for a little while

00:29:10:23 - 00:29:13:18

before you hear the next episode

talking about throne names.

00:29:13:18 - 00:29:14:10

Thanks very much.