I’ll admit, the first time I heard the name Yeshua I understood how the name Jesus can be translated across languages and it made sense to me, but I didn’t understand the full depth of how much I didn’t understand when it came to the name of Yeshua. Now, it feels more weird having the name Jesus come out of my mouth than any thought I had towards the name Yeshua.
It’s All Greek To Me
The name Jesus is a mispronunciation of an English translation of a Greek attempt at translating a Hebrew word. Confusing? Yes. Let’s break it down from the original.
The original name of Jesus is the name Yeshua, which in Hebrew looks like this: יֵשׁוּעַ. When the New Testament was translated to Greek (yes, Greek was not the original… more on that later) the name was translated over as best could be written. Let’s look at this a letter at a time to see where there was a breakdown in communication.
Reading from right to left (as Hebrew is written), the first letter is Yod, or י. This has the ‘y’ sound, which does not have a direct equivalent in Greek. To translate this over to Greek, it is given the 2 letters that would make the equivalent sound, Iota and Epsilon or ΙΕ. This makes the ‘ee-eh’ sound which isn’t too far off from the ‘y’ sound. The 2 dots under the Yod (יֵ) mean that the yod is pronounced with an ‘e’ sound, like ‘ye’.
The next letter is Shin, or שׁ. This letter has 2 sounds depending on where the dot is placed on top. If the dot is on the right (שׁ) it is a Shin and has the ‘sh’ sound. If the dot is on the left (שׂ) it is called Sin and has the ‘s’ sound. The Greek equivalent is the letter Sigma, or Σ. This letter only has the ‘s’ sound, as Greek does not have the ‘sh’ sound.
The next letter is Vav, or ו. Without getting into too complicated of Hebrew, the Vav is a placeholder that can give the previous letter either the ‘o’ sound or the ‘u’ sound. In this case, the vav has a dot inside (וּ) which gives the ‘u’ sound. This means that the previous letter (שׁ) has the ‘u’ sound with it, making the letter combined have the ‘shu’ sound. The Greek equivalent here is the letter Upsilon, or Υ. This letter has the ‘u’ sound, despite looking like a ‘y’.
The final letter is the letter Ayin, or ע. This letter is a vowel placeholder where a guttural sound is made from whichever vowel is used with the placeholder. In this case, the line under the letter (עַ) gives it the ‘ah’ sound. This is where we see the biggest difference between the Hebrew and the Greek. This is due to the Greek grammar for masculine names. Instead of trying to keep the exact transliteration, the name syntax gets a Σ put at the end to have it fit with the rules of Greek. This shouldn’t be surprising if you think of common Greek names, such as Odyseus or Zeus.
Altogether, this gives us the Greek name ΙΕΣΥΣ, or Iesus.
How Doth We Get Hither?
The question then becomes, how did we get to the name Jesus? As you can see from the English transliteration of the Greek, the name Jesus isn’t too far off from the name Iesus. This comes from the way the English language has morphed over time. Originally, the letter J had a hard ‘y’ sound, like in ‘yellow’. For instance, the former country Jugoslavia was pronounced as Yugoslavia (and is sometimes written that way).
When translated to English, the word Jesus would be pronounced as Yesus. However, over time the language changed so that the letter J took on the sound of a hard ‘g’, such as in ‘jelly’. We can see how this progression from Hebrew, to Greek, to English, to modern English has left a lot lost in translation. There is more than just the pronunciation that has been lost, however.
What Does It All Mean?
When we hear the name Jesus, we don’t have any meaning that is associated with the word itself, just references to what we have learned in church about the person named Jesus (or maybe what we heard someone yelling when they stubbed their toe). But in Hebrew, the name does have a meaning.
In Matthew 1:21, the angel Gabriel appears to Joseph and tells him that he is to call the child “Jesus, for he will save his people”. While we may not see the correlation there, in Hebrew the relevance is obvious. In the Hebrew gospel of Matthew, it says to call him “Yeshua (ישׁוע), for he yoshia (יושׁיע).” See the similarities in the words? This is a typical Hebrew play on words. The name Yeshua means “Yah saves” (Yah is the name of God and will have its own dedicated post). The word yoshia means “he will save”. In the original language, we can see that there is a whole lot of meaning packed into this name that unfortunately has been lost by most.
The Most Important Thing
The sweetest sound to a person’s ears is the sound of their own voice. We all enjoy when a friend calls us by our name over a generic term, and worse yet, we feel completely let down when someone who has known us a long time and thought we were close to sits there with a blank stare and can’t remember our name. There is an appreciation when someone calls you by your own name.
Make no mistake though, if someone comes running up to you and says “Hey Riley, please help me! My baby is stuck in my car and I need your help!” you are going to help even though your name isn’t Riley (unless it is…but I’m sure you would still help as well, Riley). Yeshua will answer those who call upon his name, even if his name isn’t fully understood.
The important thing is your heart. If you call upon him with a pure heart, he is faithful to answer you. Although I would encourage you to start using his actual name, Yeshua. I have had some weird looks as I started to say Yeshua instead of Jesus, but as I have continued to use his real name I have seen others start to use his real name as well, and have even been appreciative to hear the name Yeshua be used. Each time you do, you will be proclaiming that Yah saves!