Instructor: Now in Bible narratives names,
often, are very important. Not always.
We don’t always know the name [sic meaning]
of all Bible names because sometimes
they’re from rare roots, and they’re
contested in meaning. But when we know
the meaning, we find that they’re really significant.
And the names all came from one language
—the Hebrew language—unlike names
in English that come from so many backgrounds.
In a given classroom I find some people
know the meaning of their name and
some people don’t. So let me just ask.
Who knows the meaning of your name,
and if so, say your name, and say
what it means. Yes, you here?
Student: My name is Stephanie, and–
Instructor: Oh it’s gonna have to be longer–
louder than that. So again.
Student: My name is Stephanie–
Instructor: Stephanie.
Student: –meaning “crown.”
Instructor: Yes crown. Στέφανος [Stĕphanŏs]
is a Greek word for crown, and that’s
a wonderful name. So it’s been feminized
to Stephanie it’s a beautiful name, crown.
Good. Another one? Yes.
Student: My name’s Desiree and it means
“desired one.”
Instructor: Yeah say it a little louder, though.
Student: Desiree.
Instructor: Yes Desiree.
Both: And desired one.
Instructor: Yeah what a beautiful name that is,
Desiree. Yours?
Student: I have a boring one. My name’s Ashley,
and it means “I’m from the Ash tree meadow.”
Instructor: Yes. Oh not a boring name at all.
It’s a beautiful name. We have a granddaughter
named Ashley. Not only does the name
sound pretty, doesn’t it? Ashley. It’s gorgeous.
And it pictures a meadow, what a wonderful
thing that is, yeah.
Student: Bless you.
Instructor: Good. Another name? Yes?
Student: Mine’s also kinda boring. It’s Misty,
which means “a light mist.”
Instructor: Yeah. [Laughter]. That’s not boring.
a wonderful name. Misty.
Student: Like Dawn.
Instructor: Yeah think about how beautiful
that is, Misty. You think of, you know,
a little bit of mist in the air, and that speaks
of something fresh and beautiful. It’s wonderful.
Student: Aww.
Instructor: Those are good names [laughter].
So when I was a boy, I went to the library,
and I wondered what my name meant
‘cause my parents didn’t know [laughs].
And so I picked a couple of books on
meanings of names, and I found out that
the name, Ronald, comes from Reginald,
and it means “strong and power.”
And I came home so excited from the library.
I rode my bike, and I was– went as fast as I
could get, and my mom’s in the kitchen.
I said, “Mom! Mom! You picked out such
a great name for me to be a preacher.
Do you know that Ronald means: strong
and power?” And my mother started laughing.
She says, “Ronny, you know that we didn’t
know the Lord when we named you.”
“Well, why’d you pick out this wonderful name
for me?” And she was a little embarrassed,
she said, “Oh my favorite movie star was
Ronald Coleman.” [Laughter]. And my point is
that in English, we have names that come
from so many languages that many people
don’t know what they mean, and one is not
expected to know what someone else’s name
would be. But in the Bible world names
conveyed commonly known ideas.
In the book of Ruth, the names are so
appropriate, it’s almost scary. And I define this–
I explain this as the providence of God.
So let me go through the names of
the book of Ruth. So again you know the story;
let me tell you the names. We have some names
we call theophoric. That means names that are
built with one of the terms used for God.
And on the screen there’s the name of God,
יהוה [Yahweh], the four-lettered name for God.
And names that build on a name or designation
of God are terms that are an assurance of faith.
So the name of the first person we read about
in chapter 1 is Elimelech. What a great name
his parents gave him. The word אֵל [ʾēl],
means God; אֱלִי [ʾělî], my God; מֶלֶךְ [mělěḵ],
my God is King. And think of the time
of the judges. This is a time when there
was no king in Israel, and “everyone did
what was right in his own eyes.” And here were
parents who chose a name that’s a name
of significance, especially at the time.
“Our boy, our son, when you grow up,
we want you to be a living embodiment of faith
in our God who is our King.” And what does he do?
He defies the meaning of his name when
he goes to Moab. He left not just for
a change of address, but in going to Moab,
he left everything that made him one for which
the name, Elimelech, would have any meaning.
So here’s Bethlehem. And he goes down into
the deep valley of the Jordan Valley Rift,
ascends the mountains on the other side,
goes through the Judean holdings in Trans-Jordan,
and comes down here to the remote country
of Moab. This was a major decision, and it was
disastrous. And while the Bible says he went
there to sojourn, which suggests maybe he was
planning to return, it turns out that wasn’t
the case at all. In order to do this he had
to sell his heritage at a time that no one did that.
No one moves in Bible times. You flee after
military defeat or a terrible disease or disaster.
But if things are going okay, you don’t flee.
And so he had to sell his property.
There was no money in Bible times, no coinage.
That didn’t come till the Persian period.
Cyrus 539 [BC] came into power, that’s when
coinage developed. So in his day
what he had to do was to sell what he had
for silver and gold pieces, and grain and seed,
and livestock. But he sold his land,
and he would’ve had to pack a huge wagon,
and have a couple of mules or bull or something
to pull it, and then he journeys all the way
from Bethlehem to Moab, this long journey.
And when he got to Moab, he doesn’t come in
and say, “I think I’ll farm here,” he had to buy
property to farm. So he was welcome,
apparently, at that time. Sometimes Moab
was very hostile to Israel. This time,
perhaps not. But he had to buy property,
he had to negotiate for it. And he said,
“This is what I have.” He had grain and seed,
and animals, and silver and gold. And he
kept enough seed to be able to plant for
the first harvest. But he was there to stay.
And then marriages in those days were all
arranged by parents, so he was the one
who arranged for the marriages of his sons
with Moabite families, with the fathers of
Moabite women. And knowing that
their children would be raised as Moabites
and as idolaters, this was a disaster. He left
everything that made him one whose name
would be “my God is King.” That’s why God
took his life early.
Now other names are character descriptive.
And here’s the name Naomi. In contrast to
the life of Elimelech, I look at Naomi,
and I look at the beauty of her name.
As you know I was in Israel just a few weeks ago.
And in Tel-Aviv I found a wonderful place to eat
breakfast before I go do bike riding. Oh it was
so much fun. And anyway I asked the name
of my server—a really pretty, Israeli, young
woman—and I said, “What is your name
in Hebrew?” And she says, “My name is נֹעַם [nōʿam].”
Noam! That’s the same word, and it means
“pleasant one.” And I said, “What a beautiful name.”
She says, “Do you know what it means?”
“Of course, it means ‘the pleasant one.’”
Boy did I get a big smile from her.
And that’s the name, Naomi, but this has the “Δ
on the end, “my pleasantness.” And her parents,
looking at a beautiful baby girl, would have thought,
“Wouldn’t it be something if when she
becomes an adult, people will look at her
and think of how pleasant God is?”
That’s the meaning of her name. She is
the representative of the pleasantness of God.
My pleasantness, what a beautiful name.
And that’s what she was to do.
And to show how important names are
in this book in the Bible. When she came
back from Moab, the village women that she’d
grown up with hadn’t seen her for ten years,
and they’re looking at her with incredulity,
“Is this, can it truly be Naomi?” And she
hears this, and she comes as close to swearing
as she can, and she says, “Stop that! Stop that!
Don’t call me that any longer. Call me Mara!”
Which is the opposite; it means bitterness,
“because Yahweh has done something to me
that is just disastrous. He has brought judgment.
He has brought a lack of joy. He’s brought
disaster into my life. Stop calling me Naomi,”
she says, “call me Mara!” And I look at that,
and I just find myself overcome with
the significance of names in Hebrew Bible.
If the story ended there, she’d have died as Mara,
but we’d have never read it because who
would read the story about a broken woman
who never comes back?
Now another group of names we call
circumstance of birth type names.
And when a beautiful baby is born, everyone’s
filled with joy. But there were two children
born to mother Naomi and father Elimelech
in maybe three years apart. And when
the midwives were helping her—
the principal midwife between her legs,
and one or two women supporting
her upper back on the small three-legged stool,
close to the ground—there’s the crowning,
and then there’s the birth, and one of
the midwives must’ve gasped, “מַחְלוֹן [machlon].”
And three years later, same thing.
Midwife gasped, “כִּלְיוֹן [chilion].”
It means they’re not gonna make it.
And there was infant mortality in Bible times,
and these two boys, who looked like they
wouldn’t make it, did. But what awful names
to grow up with, Machlon and Chilion.
Perhaps this gives the reason that Elimelech
left. Maybe he thought, “My wife isn’t
getting enough food during the gestation
of my babies, and why stay if the babies
are gonna be born looking like they’re going
to die?” May be the reason he left.
Now other names or what we call
physical descriptive names. And the name
of one of the Moabite women is Orpah.
By the way Moabite and Hebrew are very close
dialects of the same Northwest Semitic language.
So if we know the name in Hebrew and we see it
in Moabite, or the other way around,
we know the meaning. And her name is “neck”
as a term of great beauty. So Orpah.
There was a baby named Oprah that we all know.
And we’re not sure what happened,
but somehow there was a misspelling,
and she was supposed to be Orpah,
but she came the only Oprah. But Orpah
today is still a very beautiful name used
in Hebrew culture, Jewish people. When she
turned back, the rabbis make a little play
on her, “she of the turned neck,” but the word
is a beautiful word, beautiful name.
Now this one is just too, too much. It puts
the sense of “it fixes” in. The name, רוּת [Rut]
—Ruth in English—means “friendship.”
And there couldn’t be a better name for her.
So that’s why some people think the whole thing
is fiction, but we take it as providence.
That God providentially caused Pagan parents
in a foreign country—Moab—to choose the word
רוּת [Rut] for their beautiful baby daughter,
and had no idea what this would be in the Bible.
Now other names or what we call, I like,
character-descriptive. Here’s the name of Boaz,
and Boaz means “strength.” Again it’s just
almost too good. When he’s introduced,
we’re told he’s a גִּבֹּ֣ור חַ֔יִל [gibbor ḥayil].
That means “a mighty warrior” usually,
but because the book doesn’t describe
warfare—it’s not a martial book—it’s probably
moral character, which he truly exhibits.
And a man of great strength– And what
a term for him, and for the way he serves
in the course of the story.
Now the child that is born to Ruth and to Boaz
is called עוֹבֵ֔ד [Obed], which means: servant;
one who serves. Like Obadiah the name
of a prophet, “the servant of Yahweh.”
עוֹבֵ֔ד [Obed], he who serves. Again what
a fitting name. And it’s astonishing how he
serves not only his parents as their son,
but he is the blessing of God in the life of
his grandmother, who becomes his nurse,
as we’ve seen.
Now there’s one name that is missing in the story.
And because there’s only one name missing,
that makes it very significant. Turn to chapter 4.
And in chapter 4 Boaz is sitting in the gate
and– with the other elders. We learn here
that Boaz is an elder in the city of Bethlehem.
By the way we talk about Bethlehem as being
a small city, but it’s not that small. It was
a walled city, there wouldn’t be a gate
if there were not a wall. So it’s a walled city.
How large was it? Well we don’t know
because mod– the modern city of Bethlehem
covers whatever was the area of the ancient city.
But the cities weren’t big anyway, in Bible times.
Did you know that the city of Jericho
at the day of Joshua was only seven acres?
Did you know that? Did you know that
the city of Jerusalem—at the time of David,
when he and Joab conquered it—was only
twelve acres? So if Bethlehem was a city
of six to eight acres, that would be small,
but it’s big enough to be walled and to be
significant. And it goes back to Canaanite times.
The name Bethlehem in modern Hebrew
is transparent in meaning: בַּיִת [bǎiṯ] means house,
and לֶחֶם [lěḥěm] means bread; “house of bread.”
But in Canaanite times the city was called
bǎiṯ lāḥmû. Same letters, but different
pronunciation. The house– Meaning the city
of the temple, bǎiṯ here means temple,
“the temple of the god of war,” lāḥmû.
And James Kelso who is an archeologist
from Australia, archeology of the Bible,
he says the charming statement in his book,
“Isn’t it amazing that a city that was named
in antiquity for the god of war, lāḥmû became
the city where the Prince of Peace, Jesus, was born?
And so it’s the city of Bethlehem, and it’s
a walled city, and there’s a gate, and there
are elders who sit in the recesses in the gate,
and one of them is Boaz. And here comes
this guy walking by that was the nearer relative,
and the one who’s gonna ruin the whole story
because by the time we’re to the end of
chapter three, we know that Boaz and Ruth
need to marry. And they think, “Oh, no!
There’s someone that’s gonna mess up
everything. Yikes!” Well he’s walking by,
so Boaz says we’ve got to talk, so he calls out
to him, but the Bible doesn’t tell us what
his name is. Doesn’t say, “Hey, Joe.”
What the Bible says—it’s really funny—he
called out to him, אַלְמֹנִ֑י פְּלֹנִ֣י [Peloni-Almoni].
And he said, “Turn aside, and come sit here,
אַלְמֹנִ֑י פְּלֹנִ֣י [Peloni-Almoni].” That’s a joke phrase.
It means “what’s your face.” [Chuckling].
Now everybody knew his name. The writer knew
his name, but he was called “what’s your face”
because Deuteronomy 25 says, “If a man
refuses to do the right of protecting
the family name, then his name shall not
be remembered in Israel.” So in a book
where every name is given and every name
is fitting in the storyline, there’s one guy
whose name is left off the page. [Chuckles].
If there’s ever demonstrative proof for
the significance of Biblical names, it’s the lack
of this person’s name in the storyline.