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By Tyson Thorne

July 12, 2018
 

NoG Yeshua Large

The Psalmist writes, "I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your name..." (138.2a). When you give thanks to God, what name do you call him by? I bet you end your prayers "in Jesus name", but is that right? A while back a reader emailed me asking about the name Yeshua. For the uninitiated, Yeshua (also Yehoshuah) is the Hebrew name of Jesus and it means “salvation.” If this is Jesus’ Hebrew name, how did we come to know the Son of God as Jesus? The simple answer is language.

When the Hebrew name was translated into Greek it became Iesous (as anyone who has seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade knows, there is no letter J in Hebrew). When translated from Greek into Latin it became Iesus, and from Latin into English we derive Jesus. Simple? Well, kind of.

It could be argued (and has been) that early translators didn’t do us any favors by moving from language to language when we could have easily translated straight from Hebrew into English. While that’s true, and that would have resulted in Joshua instead of Jesus, it hardly matters; as Shakespeare pointed out a rose (even the Rose of Sharon) by any other name is still the same, and Jesus, Joshua or Yeshua still means “salvation” to all mankind.

Some Christians have taken to using the Hebrew name instead of the poorly translated English name, boasting that they use the real name of the Savior. Is that important? It's fine to do so, but unnecessary. Use either name in prayer or in speaking about our Savior. It's all good. Just be careful when using the name among those who have not yet put their trust in him for their salvation, as it could result in confusion. The gospel is so simple and easy to understand, there is no reason to make it hard to understand or to insist on a name usage that the Bible itself doesn’t require.

Speaking of confusing, In my research I discovered that the name Yeshua is found in an ancient Hebrew prayer recited during the reprieve of the first horn blasts during the feast of Yom Kippur. For those who don’t remember, this feast is the celebration of atonement and repentance. It is the holiest 25 hours in the Jewish year. The hours of Yom Kippur are used for public and private confessions of guilt; the sins of the nation would be covered by a special Temple sacrifice on the feast day. Jesus is the last sacrifice ever needed and is now the Savior, so finding the name Yeshua in the formal prayer of Yom Kippur is, in a way, to be expected, but because it is Hebrew and not Christian the use of Yeshua is startling. The reference is made in a Jewish prayer book, the Machzor (originally written in circa 950 AD), in a prayer titled Sar HaPanim:

“May it be Your will that the sounding of the shofar, which we have done, will be embroidered in the veil by the appointed angel, as You accepted it by Elijah, of blessed memory and by Yeshua, the Prince of the Face (Face of Hashem) (Prince of God’s Presence) and the one who sits on God’s throne. May You be filled with compassion toward us. Deserving of praise are You, LORD of compassion.”

Some Rabbi’s have suggested that the reference is not to Jesus, but rather to the High Priest mentioned in Zechariah 3. While there was a High Priest named Yeshua, he most certainly never sat on the throne of God or was ever called the LORD of compassion. Jesus, on the other hand, has been called both.

In Near- and Middle Eastern traditions names are very important. Even Solomon tells us that "a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches" (Proverbs 22.1). Not surprisingly, God agrees. Look at the care he takes in renaming some of the most important people in Biblical history: Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel. In the same way, knowing the names of God may lead us to all kinds of discoveries about the one we serve and opens one’s relationship up to the Creator in a very personal way.