After wrapping up the first round of the He Is collection, I turned my focus to The Feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles. I sat down with two different Bibles and began to read and cross reference scriptures and in doing so was taken to scripture that I have read before as I have read the Bible cover to cover, yet these passages of scripture did not stick at the time I read them. There were multiple things that stuck out, but something huge concerning Joshua did, even though at the time these scriptures were written, he had been dead many years.
As the scriptures I am referring will be covered in a post pertaining to the Feast of Sukkot, I am not going to list them here. What I will say is that when I read these same verses in the Complete Jewish Study Bible, Joshua’s name jumped off the page, and seemed to wave its arms at me yelling, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!”. So, I did.
When I wrote the post Salvation’s Choice, I had not begun my journey into in depth Hebrew word studies. While I knew that people’s names in the Bible held weight and meaning, that people were named with purpose, I did not understand the significance of Joshua’s name until I started focusing on the Hebrew. It is from Joshua’s name that the name Jesus is derived. To see the connection, you must go back to the Hebrew. Jesus is the translation of the Hebrew name YESHUA, which in a nutshell means “salvation”. Yeshua is a from of the name Y’hoshua or Joshua, which means “YHVH Saves” or “YHVH Delivers”. Who is YHVH? Adonai, our Father in heaven.
Having come to learn this before reading the scriptures I was studying for Sukkot, what came alive to me was the play on words for “salvation’s choice”. In the original post, I used this scripture from Joshua 24:15 from the KJV, which I am sharing now from the CJSB. If it seems bad to you to serve Adonai, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? Or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve Adonai! Salvation’s choice, while indeed was about choosing to serve Adonai, it was also about Y’hoshua’s name. He drew a line in the sand, admonishing the Children of Israel to serve Adonai, the One True God, to which they said, “We will serve Adonai our God; we will pay attention to what he says.” Joshua 24:24
Verses 25-31 continue, [25] So Y’hoshua made a covenant with the people that day, laying down for them laws and rulings there in Sh’khem. [26] Y’hosuha wrote these words in the book of the Torah of God. Then he took a big stone and set it up there under the oak next to the sanctuary of Adonai. [27] Y’hoshua said to all the people, “See, this stone will be a witness against us; because it has heard all the words of Adonai which he said to us; therefore, it will be a witness against you, in case you deny your God.” [28] Then Y’hoshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance. [29] After this, Y’hoshua the son of Nun, the servant of Adonai, died; he was 110 years old. [30] They buried him on his property in Timnat-Serach, which is the hills of Efrayim, north of Mount Ga’ash. [31] Isra’el served Adonai throughout Y’hoshua’s lifetime and throughout the lifetime of the leaders who outlived Y’hoshua and had know all the deeds that Adonai had done on behalf of Israe’el.
Judges 2:10-11tells us what happened after Y’hoshua’s death. [10] When that entire generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation arose that knew neither Adoani nor the work he had done for Isra’el. [11] Then the people of Isra’el did what was evil from Adonai’s perspective and served the ba’alim.
Once the old leaders were gone, the people forgot about the covenant made with Y’hoshua to serve Adonai. They abandoned Adonai and walked away from salvation’s choice, from Y’hoshua, Joshua’s choice.
Every one of us have loved ones and friends that we are praying for, to come to know Yeshua, salvation. And like Y’hoshua, we can urge them in love, share with them the gospel, and pray for them, as we should. But when it comes down to it, like Y’hoshua, we have to individually make that choice. I heard it said in church a long time ago, “Your children will not make it to heaven hanging on to your apron strings. They have to accept Jesus from themselves.” This is true for every person in our lives. Philippians 2:12 tells us, So, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey now when I am away from you: keep working out your deliverance with fear and trembling. (The KJV says “salvation”). This verse is built from the psalmist who said in Psalm 2:11 Serve Adonai with fear; rejoice, but with trembling. The word “fear” these verses mention is not in the sense of being afraid. It is more of being in awe and wonder, of reverence. I will never stop sharing my love for Yeshua. I will never stop, like Y’hoshua, saying “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” While I can not make that decision for anyone else, I say it in faith believing that my loved ones and my friends are going to one day, if they have not already, stand and make that declaration for themselves.
My name is Melisa, which in the Greek means honeybee. When I looked up this meaning in the Hebrew, there was a name that while not Melisa, means honeybee, bee, or wasp. D’vorah or Deborah. The Bible says that she was “a woman and a prophet, the wife of Lapidot, judging Isra’el at the time.” (Judges 4:4) When I read chapters 4 and 5 of Judges, I can not help but think of her creating quite a “buzz” throughout Isra’el, first because she was a woman, and second because she spoke with the authority of Adonai. I am sure that there were times that her words were like a wasp’s sting, and others sweet as the honey from the honeybees. I hope that carrying the meaning of her name, I too will be worthy of it.
My children are each uniquely named and with the exception of my youngest, they were not named with thoughts towards Adonai, but their names not only fit them, I believe in my heart that they will demonstrate their purpose of Adonai with their lives, just like Y’hoshua.
Matthias, my oldest means “Gift of Jehovah”. I was not walking with Adonai when I named him. I actually named him after discovering this was the name of one of the guitarists from the metal band The Scorpions and it is pronounced in the German rather than the Hebrew. When I discovered that this was the name of the man chosen to replace Judas in the book of Acts, I was blown away.
Tristan, the older of my twins means “noise or bold”. Again, His name fits him like a glove as he is making noise in the culinary industry and he is bold in his creations. My hope is like Saul (Paul) he will always “Speak out boldly in the name of the Lord” (Acts 9:28(29)
Brenden, my third born, has a name that ties more closely to Yeshua than he will ever know. His name means “prince”. Yeshua is the Prince of Peace. Prince means “the consuming man”. I pray daily that my son will consume the Word of God, just as the shalom (peace) of Yeshua consumes our chaos.
Jeremiah, my baby was named on and with purpose. He was named for the prophet Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) which means, “Yahweh loosens, lifts up, shoots or establishes”. Before I knew I was having him, he was prophesied, and like others in the Bible, I laughed and doubted. But Adonai knows what He is doing.
My granddaughter’s name is Aurora which means “dawn or morning”. Her name is by no means Hebrew, but when I looked up dawn, it took me to the word day. Day in Hebrew had a notation that said, “The day of the Lord”.
I shared all of their names to show that there is purpose in them. There is purpose in YOUR name. Adonai has purpose for you with your name, just as he did for Y’hoshua’s. He can take your name and make it a beacon for His kingdom, just as he did Y’hoshua. What’s in a name? Everything as our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life when we are His, and beyond this name we now carry, He has promised us a new one. Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Messianic communities. To him winning the victory I will give some of the hidden manna. I wall also give him a white stone, on which is written a new name that nobody knows except the one receiving it. Revelation 2:17
As the song says, “There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine! All mine!”
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