|
|
|
Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
|
|
|
Meaning and etymology of the name Jerusha
|
|
| | |
Jerusha  or Jerushah 
Jerusha is the mother of king Jotham of Judah, the wife of king Uzziah and the daughter of Zadok (2 Kings 15:33). In 2 Chronicles 27:1, she's called Jerushah.
The name Jerusha(h) comes from the verb  (yarash), meaning to take possession of. In the Bible this verb is used in two ways. In civil matters it denotes the transfer of land or goods due to an inheritance (Genesis 15:3) or even the right of purchases due to inheritance (Jeremiah 32:8). And in military cases (the majority of usages) it means to conquer or gain control over an area (Genesis 15:7, Joshua 18:13) or people (Deuteronomy 2:12, Amos 9:12). On rare occasions this verb is used to indicate the enslavement of persons (Leviticus 25:46) or to impoverish (= dispossess) them (Judges 14:15).
This verb comes with a few derivatives, some of which being:
the feminine noun  (reshet), denoting a net or some other device to catch game with (Proverbs 1:17, Hosea 5:1);
the feminine noun
 (yerasha), meaning a possession (Numbers 24:18 only),
and the feminine noun (yerushsha), also meaning possession or inheritance (2 Chronicles 20:11, Psalm 61:5). This word is nearly identical to our name Jerushah, except that in the name the vowel waw is added for pronunciation purposes. The letters aleph and he sometimes interchange, especially when they denote vowels. The alpeph-version of this name (Jerusha) should be considered the same as Jerushah.
For a meaning of the name Jerusha(h), NOBS Study Bible Name List reads Possessed (married) and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Possessed, and adds: namely, by a husband. BDB Theological Dictionary suggests Taken Possession Of, and adds: i.e. married?
Here at Abarim Publications we completely disagree with these translations. HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament counts 282 occurrences of this root and its derivatives, and never these words are used to describe a marital relationship. Wives are never owned or taken possession of. There was a rule that when a man dies without having any offspring, that man's brother was to marry the wife and produce offspring in his brother's name (called Levirate law, after the Latin word levir, meaning brother-in-law - Genesis 38:8, Ruth 4:5-6). In the no-covet command of Exodus 20:17 the wife is listed among the attributes of a man's house, but no verb is employed to denote the degree of the man's legal association with his house (and wife). In English we must resort to wordings like "whatever belongs to your neighbor," but in Hebrew only the prefix  (le), literally meaning to, is used.
Israel's inheritance of the land of Canaan was a major part of the covenant that God made with Abraham (Genesis 15:18), and because of that, the book of Deuteronomy shows the highest density of occurrences of our verb . In fact, the Abrahamic covenant and its clause of inheritance was the very reason that the modern state of Israel was reinitiated at its present location and not (safely) somewhere else.
Jerusha was surely not named after a man's relationship to his wife, but rather God's promise to Abraham and his offspring. Since Paul teaches that all believers in Christ are Abraham's offspring (Galatians 3:16), this magnificent name ties right into the promise of the New Creation (Ephesians 1:10-11, Revelation 21:1).
The name Jerusha means Inheritance.
|
|
|
•Look for baby names
•Augment your Hebrew language study
•Deepen your knowledge of the Bible
•Enrich your cruise to or travel holiday in Israel
|
|
