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Discover the meanings of thousands of Biblical names in Abarim Publications' Biblical Name Vault: Neriah

Neriah meaning

נריה

Source: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Neriah.html

🔼The name Neriah: Summary

Meaning
Yahweh Is A Lamp, Lamp Of The Lord
Etymology
From (1) the noun נר (ner), lamp, and (2) יה (yah), the name of the Lord.

🔼The name Neriah in the Bible

There's only one Neriah in the Bible, although he plays no active role. We know about him only because of his famous son: Baruch, the amanuensis of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 32:12). He is also called נריהו; Neriahu (Jeremiah 36:14), and his other son Seraiah worked for Jeremiah as well (Jeremiah 51:59).

The Lucan evangelist mentions a Neri in the genealogy of Jesus, namely as the grandfather of Zerubbabel (Luke 3:27). That would mean that Neri and Neriah were roughly contemporaries.

🔼Etymology of the name Neriah

The name Neriah consists of two elements. The first part comes from the noun נר (ner), meaning lamp:

Excerpted from: Abarim Publications' Biblical Dictionary
נהר

The verb נהר (nahar) means to flow or stream and is used for both water and light (which in turn demonstrates that the ancients had Relativity Theory; see our expanded article for more). Noun נהר (nahar) means river or stream. Noun נהרה (nahara) means light or daylight and מנהרה (minhara) "place of nahara". Nouns נר (ner) and ניר (nir) mean lamp, and nouns מנורה (menorah) and מנרה (menorah) mean lampstand.

The second part of our name is יה or יהו, which are abbreviated forms of יהוה, the Name of the Lord: YHWH.

🔼Neriah meaning

For a meaning of the name Neriah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Yahweh Is A Lamp and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has the similar: Lamp Of The Lord. BDB Theological Dictionary does not translate this name.