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Vision Logo Circle

His Name

by | Tue, Jul 16 2019

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We spent the last couple of programs looking at the purpose of the supposedly boring lists of names, places, dates and so on in the Bible and discovered that while reading a list of names can be boring, they serve very important purposes that we can learn a lot from.

We’ve also touched several times on the importance of names in Hebrew culture and custom, and especially in the context of the Bible. They’re important in most cultures, in spite of the fact that in the modern west, there’s a trend to name children the most outrageous and seemingly ridiculous names possible, especially among celebrities who appear to compete with each other to see who can come up with the weirdest name possible to garner the biggest headlines possible.

In this program I want to focus on just one name, the most important name of all. Yeshua.

First of all, why is the name Yeshua so special? In Bible times it was pronounced Joshua, which is how Yeshua/Jesus would have had been called. (Kind of makes me wonder why His name was transliterated to Jesus when it would have made more sense to simply pronounce it Joshua as that is a common and well-loved name in English too.)

The name Yeshua comes from 2 root Hebrew words: ‘Yasha’ and ‘Shawa’, they’re very closely related, in meaning as well as linguistically.

‘Yasha’ means to be wide, to be loose or delivered, to be saved. It occurs (along with it’s derivatives) 353 times in the Old Covenant alone. The HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says of this word, that the move from distress to safety and deliverance brought about must come from the saviour and that this deliverance can be via a human agency as well as deliverance by God from evil.

‘Shawa’ means to cry, specifically to cry out for help. More than half the occurrences of this verb are first person singular descriptions of someone crying out and they mostly occur during the Psalms.

Together they are Yeshua, which means ‘Yah is Salvation’. Yah just one of the names for God. So, it means God is Salvation.

When Gabriel visited Joseph in a dream to calm his concerns over Mary’s seeming unfaithfulness to him, the angel said of Mary that, “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21) Jesus is the English transliteration of the original Hebrew word Yeshua. God is Salvation.

Look at the meaning of the name Joshua again, it means Jehovah (Yah) is Salvation, the entire book of Joshua is about the salvation of the Jewish people, of victory over and deliverance from their enemies, salvation and their establishment in the Promised Land.

Joshua himself was the instrument to lead his nation in victory over and deliverance from their enemies, their salvation and establishment in the Promised Land. I imagine his parents had no idea that he would eventually become the leader who would see his people take possession of their promised inheritance and be delivered from their enemies!

The man whose name means ‘God is Salvation’ led his entire nation into their deliverance and salvation via the power of God. The entire book of Joshua – a book about the salvation of an entire people, bears the name God is Salvation. Prophetically, the story and life of Joshua is a picture of Jesus before His incarnation.

I want to show a few verses to you and replace the word ‘salvation’ with ‘Yeshua’ – which means ‘salvation’ so you get an idea of how the name of our Messiah impacts those verses when you read them.

Exodus 15:2, ‘The Lord is my strength and song, and He’s become my Yeshua; this is my God, and I’ll praise Him; My father’s God, and I’ll extol Him.’

Psalm 27:1, ‘The Lord is my light and my Yeshua; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread.’

Psalm 62:1-2, ‘My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my Yeshua. He only is my rock and my Yeshua, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.’

Psalm 67:1-2, ‘God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us. That Your way may be known on the earth, Your Yeshua among all nations.’

What about this one… Psalm 78:21-22, ‘The Lord heard and was full of wrath; and a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also mounted against Israel, because they didn’t believe in God and didn’t trust in His Yeshua.’

Psalm 98:2, ‘The Lord has made known His Yeshua; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.’

Remember how Jesus said He was the “living water” in John 7? In that context, enjoy this verse in Isaiah…

Isaiah 12:3-4, ‘Therefore you’ll joyously draw water from the springs of Yeshua. And in that day you’ll say, “Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; make them remember that His name is exalted.”’

This is why His name is so important. This is why Gabriel, in John 1:21, informed Jesus’ step-father Joseph to call the baby Mary was carrying, ‘Jesus’, ‘Yeshua’, which means ‘salvation’, because there’s no other name in all of human history that has the power to give us ‘salvation’ / ‘Yeshua’. He and He alone has that power, the right, the authority, and who paid our debt of sin before God in full.

Speaking about Jesus, Peter said to the Sanhedrin when he and John were arrested…

Acts 4:12, ‘There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.’

 

Shalom

Mandy

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Jesus.html#.W9-fihEzbRY