“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
Eight centuries after the prophet Isaiah recorded these words, the evangelist Matthew wrote about the birth of Jesus Christ and quoted Isaiah’s prophecy, declaring that it was fulfilled in the person of Jesus (Matthew 1:22–23). Born in Bethlehem of Judea, Jesus was the long-promised “Immanuel,” foretold centuries earlier. But why was even His name prophesied?
When names lose their meaning
In modern society, names function mostly as labels—tools for identification. They rarely carry meaning independent of the person who bears them. Standardised, naturalised, or even “nationalised” names are now preferred. This is how the Romanian suffix “-escu” came into being, for instance. While for most readers it may sound like a humorous linguistic footnote, for linguists it is evidence of how words evolve over time. What is now a commonplace suffix was once the Latin ending –iscus, which carried clear meaning for speakers of the day.
In many ancient cultures—and in several contemporary ones—names were meaningful. They described reality. In the West, that tradition has nearly disappeared. Names like “Pale Face” or “Eagle Eye” may seem unusual today and even provoke a smile. Yet two or three millennia ago, names such as Nathaniel, Bogdan, Theodor, Fyodor, Diodatus, Diodor, or Tudor were simply word-names expressing the same idea: “gift of God.” In earlier times, even in the Western world, names had meaning.
Onomastic culture in the ancient Near East
The phenomenon of embedded meaning in names across the ancient Near East is easy to spot in the texts that have survived. Whether we look at the names of Egyptian pharaohs (Ramses = “Ra has fashioned him”), Babylonian kings (Belshazzar = “Bel protect the king”), Assyrian rulers (Sargon = “the true king”), or Hebrew figures (Abraham = “father of many nations”), it becomes clear that in the ancient Near East, names were meant to communicate a message.
The history and worldview of the ancient Orient cannot be properly understood without considering the meanings of personal names, divine names, and place names of the period. This is also evident in the books of the Old Testament, where names both indicate and explain identity. Pharaoh’s daughter named the child she found among the reeds Moses “saying, ‘I drew him out of the water'” (Exodus 2:10). And in 1 Samuel 25:25 we are told that Abigail told David, “Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him.”
In the Old Testament, a change of name marks a significant event because names carry explicit meaning: Abram (“exalted father”) becomes Abraham (“father of many nations”), Jacob (“the deceiver”) becomes Israel (“one who struggles with God”). Biblical onomastics is thus rich with theological significance, revealing the moral or immoral character of a person, God’s purpose for an individual, or the way He has intervened in someone’s life.
Divinity and theophoric names
The importance of the names for God is unmistakably clear throughout the Old Testament. The narrative describing Moses’ encounter with God centers on this very theme. God reveals His name to Moses: YHWH. The Tetragrammaton—those four letters, YHWH—conveys the idea of existence itself, expressed in a form that is nearly untranslatable, a name rendered as “I Am Who I Am.” The divine name communicates theology: “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). God’s name represents God Himself: “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10).
Humanity’s relationship with God is reflected in the many theophoric names—names that incorporate elements derived from a shortened form of God’s name. These do not suggest a cultural preference for a particular deity, but rather semantic expressions conveying theological truths. The name “Isaiah” means “YHWH is salvation”; “Elijah” (or Eliahu) means “YHWH is my God”; “Hezekiah” means “God is strong”; “Elishama” means “God hears”; “Eliezer” means “God is my help.” Even a quick look at these translations is enough to reveal the deeply spiritual resonance of biblical names.
Revelation and the divine Names
In the ancient cultural context, the close relationship between names and theology cannot simply be set aside. The biblical text itself seems to underline this connection. God “reveals” Himself through the names He chooses to bear. This is stated explicitly to Moses, to whom God said: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them” (Exodus 6:3).
A careful study of the divine names revealed in Scripture shows that some of them express God’s distance, majesty, and otherness, while others highlight His nearness to the world. These are the two dimensions of the divine nature that theology calls transcendence and immanence. God speaks of Himself in these terms: “‘Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away?’” (Jeremiah 23:23). Revelation marks a movement in the realm of knowledge from “far” to “nearby.” Divine nearness involves the unveiling of previously unknown dimensions of God’s being. This shift does not reflect humanity drawing closer to God, but rather God drawing near to humanity.
This revelation through divine nearness is expressed in a single name: Emmanuel (Immanu-El— “God with us”). In biblical language, this nearness takes the form of the metaphors of incarnation: “the bread that comes down from heaven” and “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
Emmanuel is not merely a name or a label. Emmanuel signifies a new step in the unfolding of knowledge—God coming so close that human beings can see Him, hear Him, and touch Him (1 John 1:1).
