Theophoric Semitic Names and YHWH

I'm no Bible scholar but here are some of amateurish musings about Biblical names (as usual I would love your criticism/ supporting details):

The fun part of Semitic names is that they tend to be composite words

Fun fact: Hannibal was a Semitic Carthaginian. His name Khen-Baal means "Grace of Baal". This is similar to the name Yeru-Baal which was what the pissed off Baal worshipers called Gideon.

Now how does this affect us non-Baal worshiping Jews.

Well you see the Tanach is replete with names like this (they're called theophoric names by the way. hat tip: On The Main Line)

Take last week's parsha (Shelach) many of the spies or their fathers had names

Gadi-el

Gami-El

Geu-El

Ami-El (Nation of El)

Micha-El

and the names of the "princes" in parshat Nasso

Netan-El (Gave El)

Eli-Av (My El is Father "Great")

Tzuri-Shaddai (Shaddai is my rock)

Shde-Ur (Shaddai is Light)

All these names consist of either Shaddai which as far as I know was limited to the Hebrew God and the name El which was also the name of the head of the Canaanite pantheon. It might be that the Hebrews originally worshiped the Canaanit El who then became YHWH (Bible Critics) or maybe they always worshiped a distinct God form the Canaanites but adopted Canaanite God-terminology (TMS). We'll probably never know


Fine this is all well and good. What I find interesting is this:

A more common Biblical name type is conspicuously rare (at least I think it's rare) in the Pentateuch i.e. The X-Yah name or the Yeho-X name. These names are combination of YHWH with other words. So for example Eli-Yahu means "my God is YH(WH)" (which is very apt because Elijah wanted to do away with Baal and make the only God YHWH) I have heard that Yosef is a shortened of Yeho-sef (as he indeed appears in Psalms) and Yocheved is a Yeho-Cheved but still it is interesting that the YHWH is very rarely used in Pentateuchal names. Also the suffix YA NEVER appears in the Pentateuch. (I think)

Now one could argue that the name of YHWH was only revealed to Moshe so it took a while to catch on. But still its interesting that it took so long for the name to catch on. Also let's say YHWH was a later invention (say by a J author acc. to Bible critics) then why did J not project his YHWH worship onto the Pentateuchal narrative? It must be (though I'm not sure) that the Pentateuchal history was either

A. Real to a certain extent or
B. Started by people who weren't big YHWH fans(but then whats the deal with YEHO-SEF)
C. I'm misunderstanding the whole theophoric names things.

(Actually Yeho-Shua is also a YHWH name interesting that Moshe changed it from Hoshea perhaps the point was to give him a new name reflecting the new revealed name of YHWH)




The first "X-YA" name I can think of (as opposed to YEHO-X) in the Tanach offhand is:

וַיִּשְׁלַח בְּיַד נָתָן הַנָּבִיא וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־ שְׁמֹו יְדִידְיָהּ בַּעֲבוּר יְהוָֽה׃ 2Sam 12:25 And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.   

If I'm correct that this is the first name of this variety in the Tanach (and I'm probably wrong) Then it's very interesting that the verse says explicitly that Yedid-Ya (Friend of YHWH) was named after YHWH!


Also check out this On The Main Line post and also this one