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Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Ari, Arieh


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Ari Ari Arieh Arieh

The name Arieh occurs only once in the Bible (although twice more in the compound Ariel). Arieh is a guard who is killed along with king Pekahiah of Israel and a fellow guard named Argob. The assassin's name is Pekah, a royal officer who is helped by fifty men from Gilead. Pekah subsequently becomes king.

The name Arieh is equal to the noun Arieh ('aryeh 158a), lion. The name Ari or Arie is equal to the noun Ari (ari 158a), which means lion as well. According to TWOTOT 'these are two of seven words which are translated lion in the OT. There is no demonstrable difference between the two.'

Lions feature in Scriptures as the proverbial ferocious animal (Judg 14:5, 1 Sam 17:34, Prov 22:13), as metaphor for the destructive power of God (Isa 38:13, Lam 3:10), or enemies (Jer 49:19, Joel 1:6, also see 1 Pet 5:8).

Both forms Ari and Arieh are masculine nouns derived from the verb ara (arah 158), pluck, gather. This verb occurs a mere two times: SS 5:1, "I have gathered my myrrh...," and Psalm 80:12, "...so that all who pass that way pluck its fruit." But these two occasions are enough to derive the fundamental meaning of the Biblical lion: that of gatherer, and predominantly a gatherer of food to eat.

A second derivation of the verb ara is the feminine noun Arieh ('urya 158b), manger or crib; the item around which animals gather to eat (horses: 1 Ki 4:26, or cattle in general 2 Chr 32:28).
Together with the feminine name Deborah and its masculine counterpart Dabar, the feminine word 'urya and the maculine name Arie form the gender-inverted self-similarity between the bee-in-the-lion of Judges 14:8 and the Word-in-the-crib of the Christmas story (for more details see our Introduction to Scripture Theory).

The name Ari, Arie or Arieh means Lion or Gatherer. This secondary meaning relates the name Arie to the name Qoheleth.



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