The Western mind is programmed to believe in co-incidences. This would dictate that we are subject to chance, which, if you think on it, requires luck. If luck comes into play, then it stands to reason that we need help from good luck charms… and so we go down a path that leads us away from God and His sovereignty, and toward a place where we give credit to a coin, a rabbit’s foot or a even a special pair of underwear! The Bible calls us to give God thanks in all things and I do not see how we can do that if we are accrediting luck to a pair of special boxer shorts.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. I cannot imagine how it is possible for a believer who claims to accept the Word of God as the Word of God to accredit anything to, or even invoke the name of, luck or chance.
Having a mind that sees co-incidents and credits luck and chance, we often miss some very important subtleties of scripture. God calls us, from the very first chapters of the Bible, to look for signs and symbols. We are even given a huge clue as to the symbolic nature of this world in the passage of Colossians 2:17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. What is a shadow, but a representation of something else. I am not my shadow, my shadow represents my form, depending on the exposure of light. In less direct light, my shadow is larger and more prominent than I, but in more direct light, I overtake my shadow and my true form is seen without shadow. The same goes for Biblical truth.
Throughout scripture, and in the created order, we see symbolism of Christ and His sacrifice. The sacrificial lamb of Passover symbolized the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world.
John 1:28-29 These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Rev 5:6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
Here, we see that Christ is symbolized by a lamb, but we do not worship a lamb, nor do we worship the image of a lamb, because the direct light of the Holy Spirit shines on Christ and we see Him plainly and His image overtakes the symbology to the point which we are able to see only Him!
Jesus said that not one Jot or Tittle will fall and Paul instructed us in his letter to Timothy that 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
We can understand that no word is wasted in scripture and we have the Bible God has intended us to have. There is no coincidences in scripture.
Having established this foundation, I would like to look a a very obscure passage in the book of Ezra that, under normal circumstances, would not gain much attention, but looking at scripture with a more Eastern eye, as it was written by an Eastern hand for an Eastern audience, we can see a rare gem of truth, seemingly hidden in a mundane list of names.
Ezra 2:2-40 They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:
Ezr 2:3 the sons of Parosh, 2,172.
Ezr 2:4 The sons of Shephatiah, 372.
Ezr 2:5 The sons of Arah, 775.
Ezr 2:6 The sons of Pahath-moab, namely the sons of Jeshua and Joab, 2,812.
Ezr 2:7 The sons of Elam, 1,254.
Ezr 2:8 The sons of Zattu, 945.
Ezr 2:9 The sons of Zaccai, 760.
Ezr 2:10 The sons of Bani, 642.
Ezr 2:11 The sons of Bebai, 623.
Ezr 2:12 The sons of Azgad, 1,222.
Ezr 2:13 The sons of Adonikam, 666.
Ezr 2:14 The sons of Bigvai, 2,056.
Ezr 2:15 The sons of Adin, 454.
Ezr 2:16 The sons of Ater, namely of Hezekiah, 98.
Ezr 2:17 The sons of Bezai, 323.
Ezr 2:18 The sons of Jorah, 112.
Ezr 2:19 The sons of Hashum, 223.
Ezr 2:20 The sons of Gibbar, 95.
Ezr 2:21 The sons of Bethlehem, 123.
Ezr 2:22 The men of Netophah, 56.
Ezr 2:23 The men of Anathoth, 128.
Ezr 2:24 The sons of Azmaveth, 42.
Ezr 2:25 The sons of Kiriath-arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, 743.
Ezr 2:26 The sons of Ramah and Geba, 621.
Ezr 2:27 The men of Michmas, 122.
Ezr 2:28 The men of Bethel and Ai, 223.
Ezr 2:29 The sons of Nebo, 52.
Ezr 2:30 The sons of Magbish, 156.
Ezr 2:31 The sons of the other Elam, 1,254.
Ezr 2:32 The sons of Harim, 320.
Ezr 2:33 The sons of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 725.
Ezr 2:34 The sons of Jericho, 345.
Ezr 2:35 The sons of Senaah, 3,630.
Ezr 2:36 The priests: the sons of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, 973.
Ezr 2:37 The sons of Immer, 1,052.
Ezr 2:38 The sons of Pashhur, 1,247.
Ezr 2:39 The sons of Harim, 1,017.
Ezr 2:40 The Levites: the sons of Jeshua and Kadmiel, of the sons of Hodaviah, 74
This list is a seemingly random list of people who accompanied the High Priest Jeshua and the royal governor Zerubabel back to Jerusalem from Babylon to rebuild the Temple. What is amazing about this passage, if you can accept that everything in the Bible is written with design and purpose, is the placement of the name Jeshua in this list. Each Jeshua, a real person in his own right, but also relates to a literal Jeshua of note in the History of Israel. We see the same pattern here as that charged to John, Revelation1:19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. John is told to write what was, what is and what will be, and this list gives us a picture of a Jeshua that was, a Jeshua that is and a Jeshua yet to come, in relation to the time that this passage was written.
JESHUA THAT WAS:
When Moses died, God told him to entrust the leadership of the people to a man named Jeshua. Jeshua led the people into the promised land as Moses, representing the Law, could not. We know the first Jeshua by the anglicized name of Joshua, Joshua’s name was Hosea but was changed to Jehoshua (God saves) by Moses, when Moses sent the spies into the promised land. The man who led Israel into the promised land was a man named God Saves.
JESHUA THAT IS:
When Israel was released from captivity in Babylon, and allowed to rebuild the Temple, the High Priest Jeshua, helped led the people into the land, along with the man who would be king, had Israel not sinned, Zerubabel. Jeshua is a variation of the name of Jehoshua, meaning God Will Save. In fact, in the book of Zechariah, Jeshua’s name is rendered Jehoshua, basically the same meaning. After the people were removed from the land, they returned under the leadership of a man named
God Will Save.
THE JESHUA THAT WILL BE:
The next prominent Jeshua we find in scripture is Jeshua of Nazareth. Known to the Western world as Jesus Christ. Jesus was Hebrew, His mother was Hebrew and His given name was Hebrew. His name was not Jesus, it was Yeshua, meaning God Saves. Just as Joshua’s name was anglicized, so was Jesus’ name rendered in Greek, the common language of the world at the time. At the time of the writing of Ezra, Jesus was still over 400 years in the future. We attribute our salvation to God, incarnated as a man named God Saves.
NAME PLACEMENT ON THE LIST:
Also of note is the placement of the names on the list. There was no natural order to this list, meaning it was not a genealogy, nor was it an alphabetical list. This list has no discernible order, other than it was dictated by God to be written as we see it to represent time. Notice the first Jeshua on the list comes in right towards the top, placing the name in proximity to the beginning of the forming of the nation of Israel, just like the first Jeshua. We do not see the second Jeshua on the list until about 29 lines later, indicating a long period of time period of time passing before the next Jeshua shows up to lead the people to the land. Interestingly, this Jeshua actually represents himself, as this is the literal High Priest Jeshua who led the people out of captivity. Next, after a relatively short period of time, we see the third and final Jeshua appear on the list. This Jeshua represents Jesus, who came on the scene about 400 years after the writing of this passage, a relatively short period time, receiving very little historical coverage in scripture, in comparison to the about 1000 years of Jewish history that most of the Old Testament seems to cover.
The final Jeshua is not a representation of anything, but the genuine Messiah, who leads His people to the Father and ultimately, Heaven, the true promised land.
This passage of scripture took place concurrently with the ministry of the prophet Zechariah, who revealed the name of the coming Messiah to be Jeshua click here to read my blog on this topic
God, our Father, is not a God who leaves things to chance and luck. He is a God of order and design. The plan for the redemption of man through God’s becoming a man named Jeshua, was planned from the foundations of the earth and is encoded in scripture for us to find. Ezra shows it symbolically and Zechariah states it emphatically, yet almost all of Israel missed it and the majority of the Gentile world misses it as well. The truth of God’s plan is hidden in plain sight and we are told to “seek and ye shall find” so go seek out these truths and be enriched in your faith.
Please feel free to comment below – Blessings!
Matthew 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
The Hebrew Meaning of “Jesus”
The name “Jesus” is an Anglicized form of the Greek name “Iesous” found in the New Testament, which represented the Hebrew Bible name Yeshua transliterated to Greek. (“Jeshua” in English Bibles; Ezra 2:2; Neh 7:7). Yeshua, in turn, was a shortened form of the name Yehoshua (“Joshua” in English Bibles). “Yehoshua” is a compound name consisting of two elements.
(1) The prefix “Yeho–” is an abbreviation of the Tetragrammaton, God’s Four-Letter Name: Yod-He-Vav-He or YHVH.
In the Hebrew Bible “Yeho-” is used at the beginning of certain proper names: Jehoshaphat, Jehoiachin, Jehonathan (the “J” was pronounced as “Y” in Medieval English). The suffix form of the Tetragrammaton is “-yah” (“-iah” in Greek, as in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, or Halleluiah).
(2) The second element of the name is a form of the Hebrew verb yasha which means to deliver, save, or rescue.
Thus, linguistically, the name Yehoshua/Yeshua/Jesus conveys the idea that God (YHVH) delivers (His people), or “YAHWEH is salvation.”
Thanks for the great insights. Blessings!
You are very welcome, and thank you for your interesting article. The blessings of our Lord back to you!
Gday Scripsmyth, Paralambano & Amminadab. Before one becomes knowledgeable on “Hebrew Meanings” as aligned to the “Modern Hebrew Language(Aramaic Square Script)” you have to look at the language/letters/symbols of what is “Biblical” or “Paleo” Hebrew.
The Tetragrammaton, YHWH, or Yod- He- Vav -He, depicted in its earliest forms, is actually using the PHONECIAN alphabet. Biblical or Paleo Hebrew is actually PHONECIAN !!!!!!
PROOF?? Quickly verified on Wikipedia >Paleo-Hebrew, images of YHWH, images of Phonecian & Early Greek Alphabets & their Latin & English translations
Sorry you might have to have a “Re – Evaluation” of what you thought, but those “letters” are IDENTICAL to the PHONECIAN symbols, the confusion being the “vav” symbol.
The problem is it was once a “shin” or “W”, but by scribal error into early Greek, which uses the “Sigma” for “S”, (a “w” on its edge), the earliest form looked like a “3″.
See how easily a “3″ can become a “y”………..if this is ridiculous , then it must be ridiculous that god’s name contained a “V” or a “W” >since the letter didnt exist in Old Testament times………. .The letter “W” was pronounced “Sh”, as still today in most Semetic languages , even Modern Hebrew, where it still looks like the Phonecian “W” & stands for shin, pronounced sh.
Since we can understand Phonecian, the letters are as follows
Y = I …..iy/yi……as in Yishrael, Israel
H = E …..he/eh…..as in Yehrico, Jericoh
W = Sh……….same as ‘shin’
YHWH becomes Iy He Sh eH, I E Sh E , pronounced aa sh eh, or ASHER.
This can clearly explain why when the 1st Greeks to translate yIhESheH, or Ihesheh, used the word Iheshuh, but when written in their alphabet becomes I he s u.
The last “s” is common to Greek names adding the suffix, Socrates,Herules,Achillees,Herodotus, etc.
The confusion surrounding the YHWH is everywhere on the internet because no one is looking at the letters as their original Phonecian meaning. You mention Yasha, & Yeshua….so can you have faith that the name of Jesus >Ihesu>Ihesheh is the same name as the Tetragrammaton -YHWH & thus the name of God?
Wasnt Jesus killed for calling himself god?
Isnt YHWH the “hidden” name of God?
Is iy eh sh eh, or aaysher, or Anglicized to ASHER in the Bible?
I am ‘who” i am? ehyeh asher ehyeh? I am Asher I am !!! The Tribe of Asher,named after an Asher, Asherah(god’s wife), Asherim poles in the temple, the god Ashur of Assyria, Ashura Mazda of Persia, Osiris real name is ASAR. the book of Jasher, & the many,many names that have azzar,iasha,echar as part of their make-up.
## Remember that the Hebrew we know today is a recent re-interpretation of this old Aramaic language. Like Phonecian, it was missing the vowels & was a jumble of consonants. This is why in the 800s, the Masorites started using “vowell points”> so they could understand it.
This is where Y a H W eH, & J e H o V a H came from. A geuss at the vowells of YHWH, or the new KJV translation JHVH. From this you can see that Yah, is just a shortened form of Yahweh(hence all the confusion).but is not god’sname. The “iah” you mention is confirmed by the letters when broken down iy(ee) – eh(ah,uh,er)………..Who was Iah, or E.A.?
Thats another story I will get too………….
This argument would hold up except, letters have different sounds in different language use. our alphabet is basically the same in Spanish, French, Italian, and most of Europe, yet accents are the different pronunciations of letters.
for example, in English and Italian, a double L is pronounced with a distinct L sound, but in Spanish, LL becomes a y sound. In Northern Europe, V is pronounced Wa and W is pronounced Va, just the opposite of Britain and the US. Remember, the languages were changed in a day, at the tower of Babel. There will be many similarities in letter systems of ancient groups, but pronunciations make all the difference in the world. Try reading something written in Spanish by pronouncing the letters as you would in English and it will sound completely different.
Theoretically, your argument makes sense, but taking into account accents and letter pronunciation variations from nation to nation, this is not an argument we can make emphatically. Hebrew is not a dead or resurrected language it and there is not linguistic evidence that the pronunciation of Hebrew letters has changed significantly over thousands of years.
Thanks for reading and commenting
Is “Jesus” Lord? Not according to the 1611 KJV Bible!
… What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, do you know?
Can you answer the challenge given in Proverbs 30:4?
The name ‘Jesus’ is never used in the original 1611 King James Version of the Bible. Nor for that matter are the names: ‘Jehovah’ ‘Judah’ ‘Joseph ‘Jacob’ ‘Jerusalem’ ‘John’ or ‘Joshua’ found in the original 1611 KJV. This is beyond controversy. You can still buy copies of the original version!
What is always found in the ‘real’ KJV is ‘Iesus’ (ee-ay-sooce’), the shortened Aramaic (and Hebrew) equivalent of the Hebrew name ‘Yehoshua’.
‘Yehoshua’ is found 218 times in the Tanak (Old Testament). The revised translators renamed him ‘Joshua’.
The actual name that the heavenly Messenger gave to Mary is Yeshua. (See Jesus):
Matthew 1:20-21 “…Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to marry Mary, because the Child conceived in her is from the kadosh (holy) spirit. 21 She will give birth to a Son, and she [Aramaic] will name Him Yeshua, because He’ll Rescue His people from their sins.—The Gabriel Bible
Yeshua is usually translated as “Jesus”, but He was really named Yeshua; that is what His family, friends and followers called Him. While not in any way an eternal life issue, if you claim to love Him, shouldn’t you at least know His name?
Closely related to the Hebrew ‘Yehoshua’ (Jesus) is ‘Yehovah’ (Yeh-ho-vaw’), His Father’s name.
‘Yehovah’ appears in the revised KJV as ‘LORD’. It should have appeared in the revised KJV that most of us are familiar with 6,519 times, but instead the translators substituted His the word ‘LORD’ 6,510 times, GOD 4 times, Jehovah 4 times, and one odd translation. The NASB Interlinear is similar.
There is an excellent article that traces the possible evolution of the Messiah’s name from Yeshua to Jesus here. The article particularly well discredits the modern forgery YAHshua. Here is an excerpt”:
“…many have been falsely led to believe that “YAHshua” is the original Hebrew name for the Messiah. In order for YAHshua to be an actual name in Hebrew, it would need to be spelled in Hebrew as Yod-Hey-Shin-Vav-Ayin. Unfortunately for it’s supporters, this name can not be found anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. What you will find in the Hebrew Scriptures is Yehoshua which is written in the Hebrew as Yod-Hey-Vav-Shin-Ayin or Yod-Hey-Vav-Shin-Vav-Ayin, or the shortened form Yeshua and 3443) which is written in the Hebrew as Yod-Shin-Vav-Ayin.”
As usual, I apply my standard Disclaimer. While the article just referenced traces the Messiah’s true name to Yeshua, the writer really doesn’t care that people don’t actually use the most important name in the history of the planet!
However there is likely a far more sinister origin to the name Jesus, and I don’t mean Je-Zeus! Alexander Hislop, in The Two Babylons, p. 164, also remarked on the similarity of Jesus and Isis”. The etymological evidence presented here is pretty convincing. Of the two scenarios, I’m leaning toward this latter one. Still, I don’t agree with the alternative names presented here, and especially the dire consequences of being ignorant of Their names!
YHVH or LORD?
Romans 10:13 Whoever calls on YHVH’s name will Live! GB
‘Lord’ is another substitute name for both Yeshua and Yehovah that I prefer not to use. It was prophesied that the name of Yehovah would be replaced by “LORD”. Jeremiah says:
Jeremiah 23:26-27 How long will this be in the mind of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own mind? 27 who intend to cause My people to forget My name by the dreams they tell one another, just like their ancestors forgot My name due to Baal [Lord] worship.
Hosea prophesied that Yeshua’s bride would never refer to her husband as “Lord”—after she is punished for idolatry:
Hosea 2:13-16 I’ll come and punish her for the times when she burned incense to the Baals, when she adorned herself with her rings and jewelry, and chased her lovers, and forgot Me”, declares Yehovah. … 16 Yehovah says, “When that day comes, you’ll call Me Husband [Ishi] and you will never again call Me ‘Lord’ [Baali]!
Conclusion
Yehovah winks at innocent ignorance. He excuses it to a point, but ignorance does come at a cost, and lying is not so easily forgivable.
Revelation 3:8-9 I know your works. Look, I have put an open door in front of you that no one can shut, because you have a little strength and you’ve obeyed My Word and haven’t denied My name! 9 I have something for those of the cabal of Satan who claim to be Jews and arent, but lie, I’ll make them come and worship before your feet, and realize that I have loved you!
What would Mary say? Wouldn’t she call Him Yeshua?
Cool article, Scripsmyth. Very enlightening. Thanks.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment
Agreed. Finally someone posts a decent article on this site.