🔼The name Jeriel: Summary
- Meaning
- God Sees
- Cast By God, Founded Of God
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb ראה (ra'a), to see, and (2) the word אל ('el), God.
- From (1) the verb ירה (yara), to throw or found, and (2) the word אל ('el), God.
🔼The name Jeriel in the Bible
There is only one man named Jeriel in the Bible. He was one of the six sons of Tola, who was one of the four sons of Issachar, the ninth son of Jacob and the fifth of Leah, and the patriarch of the Israeli tribe of Issachar (1 Chronicles 7:2). Of Jeriel and his brothers the Chronicler submits that they were family heads within the tribe and mighty men of valor.
🔼Etymology of the name Jeriel
The name Jeriel consists of two elements, the final one being אל (El), either the prominent Canaanite deity whose name became applied to the God of Israel, or the common abbreviation of Elohim, the genus God:
אל אלה
In names אל ('el) usually refers to אלהים ('elohim), that is Elohim, or God, also known as אלה ('eloah). In English, the words 'God' and 'god' exclusively refer to the deity but in Hebrew the words אל ('l) and אלה ('lh) are far more common and may express approach and negation, acts of wailing and pointing, and may even mean oak or terebinth.
There is no consensus among the sources where the first part of our name might come from. NOBSE Study Bible appears to derive it from the verb ראה (ra'a) meaning to see:
ראה
The verb ראה (ra'a) means to see, and by extension to understand. It may mean to become visible (of, say, an angel) or to become understandable (of, say, a theory). Noun ראה (ro'eh) means either seer, or prophetic vision, and noun מראה (mar'a) means either vision as means of revelation, or mirror. Nouns ראית (re'ut) and ראות (re'ut) mean a looking. Nouns ראי (ro'i) and מראה (mar'eh) mean sight or appearance. Adjective ראה (ra'eh) means seeing.
Both BDB Theological Dictionary and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names derive the first part of our name from the verb ירה (yara), meaning to throw, cast or shoot, or even to found:
ירה ירא
The verb ירה (yara) describes the bringing about of a unified effect by means of many little impulses (arrows, stones, words, instructions, rain drops, and so on). Noun יורה (yoreh) refers to rain that falls during the first period of the agricultural year, when seedlings bud but don't bear fruit yet. Noun מורה (moreh) may either also refer to early rain, or it means teacher, who is a person who teaches children who can't think for themselves yet. Noun תורה (tora), refers to any set of instructions (hence the familiar word Torah).
The verb ירא (yara') describes the same process, but rather from the perspective of the receiving "soil": to revere, to pay heed to, and in extreme cases: to fear. Nouns יראה (yir'a), מורא (mora') and מורה (mora) cover the broad spectrum between reverence and fear, between anything awe-inspiring and anything terrifying.
🔼Jeriel meaning
For a meaning of the name Jeriel, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads God Sees. Both Jones and BDB derive our name from the verb ירה (yara), but render it a meaning that is not Biblical but rather native to the so-called Inscriptions of Zinjirli (or Zincirli) out of Northern Aram. In those Aramaic texts our verb means to found. Hence Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names translates our name with Founded Of God, and BDB Theological Dictionary has the similar Founded Of El.