🔼The name Hashubah: Summary
- Meaning
- Thought Up, House Of Devising
- Etymology
- From the verb חשב (hashab), to think up or devise.
🔼The name Hashubah in the Bible
There is only one person named Hashubah in the Bible, and he is mentioned only once: Hashubah is one of five sons of Zerubbabel who are clustered for no obvious reason (1 Chronicles 3:20). These five are mentioned after their brothers Meshullam and Hananiah, and their sister Shelomith. The reason for this curious structure is not clear, but perhaps the three and the five together formed four distinct divisions within the legacy of Zerubbabel.
Zerubbabel was a descendant of David via Solomon and thus from the tribe of Judah. The name Hashubah, on the other hand, derives from the verb חשב (hashab), and the six other names that derive from this verb all belong to Levites and a Levitical city.
Another notable junction between the tribes of Judah and Levi occurs in Jesus, whose legally adoptive father Joseph descended from David and thus Judah but whose mother Mary had a συγγενης (suggenes), "close relative" named Elizabeth who was a Levite (Luke 1:36). This strongly suggests that Mary was a Levite and since Jesus' human genes came only from Mary, Jesus was genetically a Levite and only a Jew by law.
The profession of both Joseph and Jesus was not carpenter, as folklore demands, but τεκτων (tekton), technician or assembler. The name Levi comes from the verb לוה (lawa), to join or connect.
🔼Etymology of the name Hashubah
The name Hashubah is either an otherwise unused feminine noun derived of the verb חשב (hashab), to think up or devise, or it means "house of Hashub" or "place of hashab" in the same sense that the name Pharaoh means "house of para" and the name YHWH may actually mean "house of YHW".
חשב
The verb חשב (hashab) means to think but instead of mere musing or theorizing this verb emphasizes mental activity with a practical (synthetic, technical or artistic) purpose in mind: to think up, to plan or devise.
Noun חשבון (heshbon) describes the entire library of artistic and technological knowledge. Noun מחשבה (mahashaba) denotes a thought, a plan, a device, an artistic object.
🔼Hashubah meaning
For a meaning of the name Hashubah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Esteemed, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Highly Esteemed and BDB Theological Dictionary proposes Consideration.