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Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
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Meaning and etymology of the name Joseph
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Joseph 
The name Joseph is one of the most popular names in the Bible. The most famous one is Jacob's twelfth child and eleventh son;Rachel's first and brother of Benjamin (Genesis 30:24).
Other Josephs are: The father of Igal, who is one of the spies that Moses sent out to the Promised Land (Numbers 13:7); A prophesying musician in the tabernacle service (1 Chronicles 25:2); One among the men who divorced their foreign wives in the purge of Ezra (Ezra 10:42); A returning priest (Nehemiah 12:14); Three semi-ancestors of Christ, including his semi-father (Luke 3:23, 24, 30), and one of His brothers (Mat 13:55); A man of Arimathea who puts the body of Jesus in his new tomb (Luke 23:50); The rejected nominee to replace Judas (Acts 1:23).
The name Joseph comes from the verb  (yasap) meaning to add, increase, do again. This verb is the common word to use when something is simply added, such as a son for Rachel (Genesis 30:24; hence the name Joseph), or a fifth to a certain value (Leviticus 27:13), or fifteen years to a life (Isaiah 38:5). But it's also quite commonly used to mean repeat, such as marrying again (Genesis 25:1), or doing something on top of something else, "also," such as hardening one's heart on top of sinning again (Exodus 9:34), or praise some and then praise some more (Psalm 71:14).
Sometimes this verb used to indicate a gradual increase, such as people to a nation (Exodus 1:10) but sometimes the text treats increase as a autonomous concept. This doesn't occur in English, so translating this curious phenomenon takes a trick or two. In Psalm 115:14 for instance, Israel is wished increase, "you and your children."
The name Joseph means Increaser, Repeater or Doubler, and even the fulfillment of his name is dual: Benjamin becomes Joseph's younger brother, and Joseph himself becomes father of two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (see Ezk 47:13).
For a meaning of the name Jospeh, NOBS Study Bible Name List reads two meanings: (1) May He (YHWH) Add; (2) Increaser. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads He Shall Add.
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