His Name is Jesus / Yeshu‘ah
– about the wonderful Name of God’s Son
André H. Roosma
16 May 2012
(NL original: 27 March 2012;
last updated: 6 Nov 2023)
... you shall
call His Name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. Mattit-Yahu (Matthew) 1: 21b
The above sentence is a translation of a sentence that was spoken at the
time by an angel of the highest God, YaHUaH1, towards Joseph, the human father of Jesus. The logic in this
sentence is not immediately clear to us from this translation. What has the
Name Jesus to do with saving His people from
their sins?
For an answer to this question we have to go to the Hebrew source. In the
Hebrew that the angel will have spoken with Joseph, the Name mentioned will
not have been ‘Jesus’ but Yeshu‘ah, [Y'-shoo-ah] or some
variant thereof, such as Yahushu‘a [Ya-hoo-shoo-ah] or Yeshu‘a [Yay-shoo-a].
In Bible times, names had meaning. Someone’s name stood for who he
was, in circumstances, character, and/or life goal. So, it is good, to pay
some more attention to this.
The Name Yeshu‘ah (and all variants of it) occurred a lot in the First
Testament of the Bible. There we encounter various variants of this Name,
presented as Ἰησοῦς - Iesous in
the Greek of the Second or New Testament. Below I have enlisted the most
frequent basic First Testament Hebrew variants:
- יְהוֹשׁוַּע or יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
(H3091) - traditionally:
Yehoshu‘a or Yehoshua‘. This is the Hebrew name of Joshua, among others
the early leader and son of Nun, and the high priest at the time of the prophet
Zachar-Yahu (Zachariah).
This Name is derived from a combination of God’s Own Name YaHUaH1 and a form of the verb יָשַׁע -
yasha‘ - to be free, to save, to rescue, to set free.2
This means: ‘YaHUaH saves’.
This Name is therefore better pronounced and written as: Yahu-shu‘a [Ya-hoo-shoo-ah].
(This variant appears as name of the early
leader in: Exodus 17: 9-14; Yahu-shu‘a 1: 1, 10, 12, 16; 2: 1, 23-24;
3: 1, 5-7, 9-10; 4: 1, 4-5, 8-10, 14-15, 17, 20; etc. - 24: 1-2, 19, 21-22,
24-29, 31; and as name of the later priest in Zachar-Yahu 3: 1, 3, 6, 8-9;
6: 11.)
- A shorter variant: יֵשׁוּעַ (H3442) - Yeshu‘a (also יֵשׁוַּע -
Yeshua‘) [Yay-shoo-a]
- ‘He will save’.
(This form appears a.o.
in Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah) 3: 19; 7: 7, 11,
39, 43; 12: 1, 7-8, 10, 24, 26.)
- יְשׁוּעָה (H3444) - Yeshu‘ah [Y'-shoo-ah]. This is the word that occurs most
often of all variants in the First Testament and is often translated as
‘salvation’ or ‘deliverance’ in our English Bibles.
(This variant appears a.o. very frequently in the Psalms
- e.g. 3: 8; 35: 3, 9; 62: 1, 2, 6; 91: 16; 98: 2, 3; 118: 14, 15, 21; 119:
123, 155, 166, 174; and in Yesha‘-Yahu (Isaiah) 12: 2-3; 25: 9; 26: 1; 33: 2, 6; 49: 6, 8; 51: 6, 8; 52: 7,
10; 56: 1; 59: 11, 17; 60: 18; 62: 1.)5
The first two of these are represented in the Septuagint by the Greek name
Ἰησοῦς -
Iesous or Ιησου -
Iesou, commonly translated in most English New Testament texts by
‘Jesus’.
The Greek basis of Mattit-Yahu 1: 21 used for the verb ‘to
save’ is σώζω -
sozo. This verb is also the basis of the Greek nouns σωτήρ - soter -
saviour, deliverer; and σωτηρία - soteria -
deliverance, salvation. And these are the Septuagint versions of the Hebrew
Yeshu‘ah - the third variant above;
in itself already enough reason to include this variant as well.
With this background the announcement of the angel towards Joseph already
becomes a lot clearer. The Name Yeshu‘ah represents that He was YaHUaH coming down to save us.
And there is even more. It all becomes even more wonderful, when we go
further back in time and look at the appearance of the above Hebrew words in
the First Testament. The oldest pre-Hebrew script (in
which a major part of the First Testament was originally written) was a
pictographic script.3 In this script Yeshu‘ah reads (read from right to left, as usual
in Hebrew):      . These symbols
subsequently stand for:
- an arm with open hand: He (God) gives;
- a pair of motherly breasts, a source or
well;
- a tent pin: security, safety, connection;
- an eye, to see;
- a worshipping, celebrating figure: to worship, to
wonder, joy.
Altogether, it says: God gives
a view on a source of secure attachment, to be
able to worship Him in joyful wonder.
Or, in one of the shortest forms: Yeshu‘a -
– He (YaH) gives a source of security/safety &
attachment to see; in those days the way to denote: He (YaH) saves.
In the First Testament we see various grammatical variants of this
wonderful Name.
One of the first of those is with Jacob. Since God had been clear towards
Jacob that He was not glad about how Jacob had pushed his own will in the
choice of a life partner, Jacob had never mentioned God’s glorious Name
of intimacy anymore. Only at the end of his life, when blessing his own sons,
Jacob just once calls God by His glorious Name again, saying:
“... I wait for Thy
Salvation
[  - Yeshu‘atkha -
Yeshu‘a ’s cross by which
He blesses us], O YaHUaH...” Genesis 49: 18
By blessing his twelve sons, Jacob was confronted with the observation that
the source of salvation and blessing can only be found in YaHUaH, and he also said that.
In Exodus 14 the people of Israel is in a very awkward position, with the
red sea in front of them and an angry Egyptian Pharao with an army behind them.
They protest against Moses.
But Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand
firm, and see the salvation
[
- Yeshu‘at -
Yeshu‘a ’s (cross) sign; the
sign that YaHUaH saves] of YaHUaH, which He will work for you today; ...
Exodus 14: 13a
When YaHUaH has indeed saved them a
little later by creating a path through the sea, and had let the dangerous
Egyptian army drown in the sea, Moses sings with all descendants of
Isra’el (Jacob) a song of praise and thanks
towards YaHUaH:
“I will sing to YaHUaH, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his
rider he has thrown into the sea. YaHUaH
is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation [ - Yeshu‘ah - joy
about YaHUaH’s salvation]; this is my God, and I will
praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
YaHUaH is a hero; YaHUaH is His Name. ...”
Exodus 15: 1b-3
The Psalmist says somewhere:
Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in
You, and the ones loving your salvation [
- Teshu‘atekha
- the sign of blessing of the cross in which there is salvation (that is, it
shows a source or well of security)] always say, YaHUaH is great! Psalm 40: 16
And God Himself says somehwere else to the Psalm writer:
With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my
salvation [
- Yeshu‘ati -
Yeshu‘a ’s cross sign that
He gives (me) ]. Psalm 91: 16
That Yeshu‘ah and the Torah are in no way contradicting each other, appears
clearly in this parallellism in Psalm 119:
תָּאַבְתִּי
לִישׁוְּעָתְךָ
יְהוָה
וְתֹורָתְךָ
שַׁעֲשֻׁעָי
I long for Thy salvation
[
- Yeshu‘átkha - Yeshu‘a ’s cross sign by which He blesses us], O YaHUaH, and Thy Torah
is my delight. Psalm 119: 174
The prophet Yesha‘-Yahu4 (commonly better known as Isaiah) prophesies that there
comes a time that people will say:
“Behold, God is my salvation [ -
Yeshu‘ati
- Yeshu‘a ’s cross sign
that He gives (me)]; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the
Lord YaHUaH is my strength and my
song, and He has become my salvation [ - Yeshu‘ah]. Yesha‘-Yahu (Isaiah) 12: 2
And elsewhere:
YaHUaH
has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends
of the earth shall see the salvation [ - Yeshu‘at - Yeshu‘a ’s cross sign] of our God.
Yesha‘-Yahu 52: 10
Most remarkable I find the great number of times that variants of the Name
Yeshu‘ah are recorded with a cross
mark in them! This is something that in later Hebrew and in our translations
was lost and is totally not be recognized anymore...
An elaborated and probably the most wonderful variant of
Yashu‘ah we find – as said
– in the Hebrew name of Joshua: Yahu-shu‘a (or Yeho-shu‘a) -
- YaHUaH saves! In many
regards Joshua was a pre-figuring model of Yashu‘ah.4
Against the background of all the above it is a lot clearer what the old
Simeon says when he holds Yashu‘ah as
baby in his arms, given how he had longed for and looked forward to
God’s Salvation; YaH’s
Yeshu‘ah:
And see, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name
was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation
of Isra’el, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed
to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen
the Lord’s Christ [that is: the Anointed of
YaHUaH]. And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple;
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus [Yashu‘ah], to do for
him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and
blessed God and said, “Lord [YaHUaH], now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for
mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation [Greek: σωτήριον
σοῦ - soterion sou; YaH’s
Yeshu‘ah] which Thou hast
prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the
Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Isra’el.” Luke 2: 25-32
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I presented here - as well as
I could - from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’.
For more background information on this see:
André H. Roosma,
‘Life, security and belonging in joyful adoration, from the hand of
God’  , brief Hallelu-YaH working
document about the Biblical Name of God in the earliest Hebrew (old Semitic)
script, January 2011.
—— ——, ‘The Shema‘ – the First Testament declaration of faith: Part
(1)’, brief Hallelu-YaH working document,
18 Febr. 2012.
—— ——, ‘The magnificent and most
lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who will be there’ , extensive Accede!/Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009. |
| 2 |
In the old script yasha‘/yesha‘ is: – literally: ‘He gives
a view on a source/well’. In a climate where water was so very scarce,
to see a well meant that life was yet possible again. The story of Hagar in
Genesis 21: 15-21 illustrates this vividly. Therefore, this notation was used
for ‘He saves’. |
| 3 |
More information on the oldest pictographic Bible
script in: André H. Roosma, ‘The Written Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the
pictographic roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest
Biblical script’ , Hallelu-YaH Draft
Research Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011
(1st Dutch original: January
2011). |
| 4 |
Note also that the names of the prophet Yesha‘-Yahu and of the early leader and later
priest Yahu-shu‘a/Yeho-shu‘a are
in fact almost the same; both express that YaHUaH saves. |
| 5 |
A fourth variant is הוֹשֵׁעַ (H1954) - Hoshe‘a [Ho-shay-ah] (often written as: Hosea;
occuring a.o. in the Bible book by the same name);
‘savior’/‘deliverer’. This was the original name of
Yahu-shu‘a/Joshua, the son of Nun (Numbers 13: 16). |
In their Hebrew translations of the New Testament
both Delitzsch and Salkinson & Ginsburg use the short variant: יֵשׁוּעַ
- Yeshu‘a [Yay-shoo-ah]. This is a variant and spelling which surely can
be defended.
At present many Christians (a.o. Messianic) like to
write and speak the Name of the Son of God in a Hebrew way. Above I argued
that there is not just one but at least three Hebrew variants: Yahu-shu‘a [Ya-hoo-shoo-ah], Yéshu‘a [Yay-shoo-a] and Yeshu‘áh [Y'-shoo-ah]. So, in my opinion there is not yet something
like the only one true spelling or pronunciation. All tree variants
still remain possible variants as long as e.g. the Hebrew original of
the Gospel of Mattit-Yahu has not emerged yet...
Mostly I write Yeshu‘ah - one of the
most natural transliterations of: יְשׁוּעָה; also
on the basis of Luke 2: 30 - where the old Simeon says: „now, as my eyes
have seen Your Salvation” - in Hebrew: he
had seen God’s Yeshu‘ah.
Because he talked about God’s, that is YaHUaH’s Salvation, also Yahu-shu‘a,
Yah-shu‘a or Yashu‘ah
can be defended here.
In connection with the relationship with Yahu-shu‘a, and of that
with YaHUaH or YaH, I
also write a chataf patach instead of the shewa‘ in Yeshu‘ah:
Yashu‘ah. After all, it is
‘Yah’s salvation’ here, not
‘salvation’ in general. The Son came in the Name of the
Father (Yahu-chanan / John 5: 43; 10: 25; 17: 6-12)
Irrespective about which variant we are talking, I
want to emphasize to transliterate the ayin in this Name (mostly transliterated as: ‘ - a single left quotation
mark, or even better a small left arc). That is because in the old
pictographic symbols this Name is: ‘He - YaHUaH - gave a view on the source of secure attachment’
(ayin/ainu = = eye, to see). God
gives us a good insight and a hopeful vision. So that’s
why I consider that letter relevant enough to be transliterated.
See also: Jesus vs. Yeshua?, on the site of
One-for-Israel.
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