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Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
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Meaning and etymology of the names
Jabesh and Jabesh-gilead
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Jabesh 
— Jabesh-gilead 
The name Jabesh is assigned to one man and a town in the Bible. The man Jabesh is the father of Shallum, who killed and succeeded king Zechariah, son of king Jeroboam of Israel (2 Kings 15:10). He himself is killed and succeeded by Menahem, son of Gadi (v14). And although most, if not all, sources list this Jabesh as a man, it may very well be that Shallum simply came from the town called Jabesh.
We don't exactly know where this town was supposed to be, or even if there was just one or some, but only in 1 Chronicles it's actually called (Jabesh). In verse 12 it's called
 (Jabisha),
in 1 Samuel 31:12-13 it's called
 (Jabasha),
but in 1 Samuel 11:1-10 it's called
 (Jabish).
1 Samuel 11:1 and v9, 31:11 and 2 Samuel 2:4-5 speak of
 (Jabish-gilead), and
Judges 21:8-14, 2 Samuel 21:12 and 1 Chronicles 10:11 say
(Jabesh-gilead). And it may very well be that this town is the same as Gilead, also of unknown location.
The name Jabesh and all its variants come from the verb (yabesh), meaning to be or become dry. There are some other verbs that basically mean to dry or dry up, but yabesh is used predominantly to indicate withering of plants and vegetables (or even souls or body parts). Oddly enough, typically this verb is used to describe the dryness of the earth after the flood of Noah recedes (Genesis 8:14), and the dryness of the Reed Sea that allowes Israel to escape from Egypt (Joshua 2:10). The derived adjective (yabesh) is identical to our name Jabesh, and means dry or dried. The feminine noun (Yabbasha) is similar to the variant Jabasha and means dry land or dry ground.
The meaning of the name Gilead is undeterminable, but see our article on that name for some possibilities.
For a meaning of the name Jabesh, NOBS Study Bible Name List reads Dry. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names offers Dry or Arid.
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