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Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Manasseh


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Manasseh Manasseh

The name Manasseh occurs five times in the Bible. The most famous Manasseh is the oldest son of Joseph. Another famous Manasseh is the son and successor of king Hezekiah (2 Ki 21:1). Among the men that divorce their foreign wives during the purge of Ezra are also two men named Manasseh (Ezr 10:30, 33). In Judges 18:30 a Manasseh is mentioned among the tribe of Dan.

The name Manasseh is generally seen as derived from the verb nasha (nasha 1428) meaning forget, deprive. The name is formed by this verb, and the prefix letter mem, which may indicate the particle that means "from," hence From Forgetting. Jones reads Forgetting, Forgetfulness. NOBSE reads Making to Forget.

However, the identical root nasha (nasha 1427) means to lend or be a creditor. The name Manasseh, therefore, also means From A Debt. This is significant because Manasseh's brother is named Ephraim, a name with a distinctly bitter secondary meaning. Perhaps Joseph named his son From A Debt, because he figured that besides his gratitude for being rescued, he felt that either God or his family owed him a debt for tearing him away from his father.



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