🔼The name Ashkenaz: Summary
- Meaning
- Fire Like Sprinkles, So Fire Is Scattered
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun אש ('esh), fire, (2) כ (ke), like or as, and (3) the verb נזה (naza), to sprinkle.
🔼The name Ashkenaz in the Bible
Ashkenaz is the son of Gomer, son of Japheth, son of Noah (Genesis 10:3).
Since Genesis 10 deals largely with peoples, it's safe to assume that to the authors of it, Ashkenaz represented a certain nation. Which nation that was is unclear, but in the Middle Ages the name Ashkenaz became applied to the Jews of Europe, the Ashkenazi, initially centered in northern Italy but later branching out into the whole of Europe and western Asia. Their (middle-)eastern counterpart eventually dispersed into northern Africa and with the Muslims into Spain (and ultimately Amsterdam), and became known as the Sephardi Jews.
🔼Etymology of the name Ashkenaz
The name Ashkenaz, like other names from the first few chapters of Genesis, apparently stem from deep antiquity, and we're not sure what they are supposed to mean, or even from what language they stem. But since they were written down to serve a Hebrew audience, it may have been spelled in such a way that it came to mean something, and for some reason.
Neither NOBSE Study Bible Name List, nor BDB Theological Dictionary offers any explanation of this name but Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes the following: Jones suggests that the name Ashkenaz can be seen as to consist of three parts:
1) The noun אש ('esh) meaning fire:
אש
The noun אש ('esh) means fire. Noun אשה ('ishsheh) describes a fire offering.
2) The Hebrew comparative particle כ (ke) meaning as, like:
כ כי כה
The prefix כ (ke) means "as if" or "like." The particle כי (ki) means "in that," both in the sense of "because" and "when." The adverb כה (koh) means "thus."
3) The verb נזה (naza), meaning to sprinkle:
נזה
The verb נזה (naza) means to sprinkle and mostly describes ritualistic sprinkling of mostly blood and sometimes water.
🔼Ashkenaz meaning
Whether intentional or not, to a Hebrew audience the name Ashkenaz would have sounded as Fire Like Sprinkles. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names renders this name as So Fire Is Scattered.