🔼The name Jotham: Summary
- Meaning
- Yah Is Perfect, Yah Is Complete
- Etymology
- From (1) יו (yu), a short form of the name of the Lord, and (2) the verb תמם (tamam), to be complete.
🔼The name Jotham in the Bible
There are three individuals named Jotham (or Joatham) in the Bible:
- A son of Jahdai, son of Ephah and Caleb, son of Hezron of Judah (1 Chronicles 2:47). This Jotham's granduncle Ram was a great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of king David.
- The youngest of 72 sons of Jerubbaal, a.k.a. Gideon the Abiezrite. Gideon's initially least honored son Abimelech massacred seventy brothers at Shechem but Jotham escaped and cursed Abimelech and Shechem, who indeed ended up mutually excluding each other (Judges 9:5-57).
- The son and successor of king Azariah or Uzziah of Judah, and Jerusha, daughter of Zadok (2 Kings 15:5, 2 Chronicles 26:21). His effective rule began when his father became leprous but was not crowned until his father died. During Jotham's reign, Assyria began to expand (2 Kings 15:37), which seems to have stirred up considerable prophetic energies in Judah (Isaiah 1:1, 7:1, Hosea 1:1, Micah 1:1), and ultimately resulted in Judah's exile to Babylon. Jotham was succeeded by his son Ahaz (2 Kings 16:1). Since this Jotham was an ancestor of Joseph of Nazareth, Matthew incorporates him in his genealogy of Christ, as Ιωαθαμ, Ioatham (Matthew 1:9).
🔼Etymology of the name Jotham
The name Jotham consists of two elements. The first part is יו (yu), which is an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH.
The second part of our name comes from the verb תמם (tamam), meaning to be complete:
תמם
The verb תמם (tamam) means to be complete, finished, ethically sound or upright. Nouns תם (tom) and תמה (tumma) mean integrity or completeness. Adjective תם (tam) means complete or perfect, sound or wholesome, or morally integer (Job 1:8). Adjective תמים (tamim) means complete or whole, or sound or having integrity. Noun מתם (metom) means entirety or soundness.
🔼Jotham meaning
For a meaning of the name Jotham, NOBSE Study Bible Name List has Yahweh Is Perfect and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads The Lord Is Upright. BDB Theological Dictionary lists our name under the verb הוה (hawa), the assumed root of the name יהוה, and translates it as Yah Is Perfect.