GIDEON: MAN OF MANY NAMES

 

                     Gideon: Victory and Defeat (collage and acrylic, 2013)

The Old Testament judge Gideon is actually known by three different names in the Bible, which has confused both common readers and biblical scholars.

It is not at all unusual in the Bible for characters to be known by more than one name during their lifetime. Sometimes God (or Jesus) changes their names to better reflect their new or predicted character, and on other occasions the name change reflects the culture or society in which the person is operating (Paul/Saul).

Gideon

We might assume that this was his original name since that is how he is called at his first introduction in Judges 6:11. And it certainly well describes his character as a “hewer” or “smiter” as he cuts down his father's pagan Asherah pole. But was that name (a) assigned to him at birth, prophesying his future actions or (b) given to him only after he had performed that particular action? There are scholars on both sides of that question.

Jerubbaal

As a compound name containing the pagan deity Baal, this would seem to be a highly unlikely name for one of the foremost of the OT judges. Thus, Norman explains: “The gesture of defiance [in cutting down the Asherah] seems to signify a protest against the assimilation of the worship of Yahweh with the Baal-cult. This act is associated with the giving to Gideon of the name Jerubbaal, which is variously interpreted as 'Baal strives', 'Baal founds', or 'may Baal give increase'. Some suggest that this may have been Gideon's earliest name, reflecting the prevailing syncretism, receiving, however, a new significance of view of this act of iconoclasm.”

That explanation may seem to make little sense to you. However, consider the fact that there is no denying that Gideon's family definitely tried to combine traditional Judaism with the pagan beliefs of their neighbors. And that could well have included originally naming their son 'Baal founds' or 'may Baal give increase.'

And as to the “new significance” of that name mentioned above by Norman, Amerding elaborates: “The powerlessness of idols to aid themselves is a favorite theme of the Old Testament (I Kg. 18; I Sam. 5:1-4, etc). The Heb. text of [Judges 6] v. 31 mockingly stresses the pronouns, 'Will you contend for Baal? Or will you defend his cause?...If he is a god, let him contend for himself...' The name Jerubbaal (v. 32) completes the taunt. 'Let Baal contend', as the context demonstrates, is a challenge to the pagan god.”

Moderate and modern support for the above explanation comes from recent digs in the town of Khirbet al-Rai, believed by some to be the location from which King David first ruled. Whether or not that particular theory is correct, one of the finds reported by Keimer, Davis, Ganor and Garfinkel at this site is of definite interest to the question at hand.

These authors report in a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review the following: “In a large stone-lined silo [a] 3.5 inch-wide fragmented sherd [i.e. piece of pottery] bearing the inscription yrb'l ('Jerubbaal') was discovered. This name is attested in the Bible: The individual more commonly known as Gideon takes this name after destroying the altar to Baal in Ophrah (Judges 6:32). Although there is no direct connection between the biblical story and the sherd from Khirbet al-Rai, the parallel is striking, especially given that the episode from Judges is set in the period just before the rise of the monarchy (12th-11^th centuries BCE), precisely the period with which the inscribed sherd is associated.”

Thus we see how the same name Jerubbaal can mean, depending on the context, either “Baal builds /gives the increase” or “Baal attempts to do something (but is ineffective).”

Jerubbosheth

But this is not the end of the story by any means. Because of the above ambiguity regarding the name Jerubbaal (whether it was his original name or a subsequent one), in later events involving that personage, he is renamed yet again.

In II Samuel 11:21 he is referred to as Jerubbosheth (with the Hebrew word bosheth meaning “shame”) in order to avoid naming the hated deity Baal. This identical name substitution appears in II Samuel 4:4, and a similar case can be seen in the Hebrew text of II Samuel 2:8 where Ishbaal becomes Ishbosheth. Interestingly though, most of the early translations of the OT revert to the original names derived from Baal instead. The cause for the Hebrew substitution in the first place is an example of a theological euphemism.

For a more thorough discussion of the subject of euphemisms, see my earlier posts titled “Euphemisms in the Bible” and “Religous Euphemisms in the Bible.”