Numbers 13:16. Moshay changes the name הושע to יהושע
Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 5:57 am
Below is part of an email that I had receive from a freind. It adresses the Hebrew Name of The Anointed One as prophesied in Zekhar-YaHu[Zechariah] 6:9-13. Most scholars will tell you that "The Branch" is a prophetic reference to the coming Moshiach who would be our Eternal Priest and King. See: Yesha-YaHu[Isaiah] 11:1-7, Yirmee-YaHu[Jeremiah] 23:5 and 33:15-16.
I have only posted part of the email here (but have left it intacked as an attached [see Attachment] in hopes to share all the knowledge and wisdom found therein).
"Shlama akhi,
The original name of יהושע Joshua / Y’hoshua was הושע HOSHEYA / Hosea / Hoshea / Oshea. The “Oshea” pronunciation is simply the inconsistency of the older English translations in the realm of transliterating proper names. It is no different than Hosea / Hoshea, so there is no attention necessary to be paid towards the variant of “Oshea.” For example, like how “herb” can be pronounced phonetically as HURB or else by dropping the initial H sound and yielding ERB. Same thing. WHY English does this, I can’t say, but apparently it was at work even back in 1611 when the translators of the KJV did their version…. So the variant reading in English of OSHEA is really wrong – it should read HOSHEA – it is the same in the Hebrew, but different in some English translations which are not consistent in transliterating proper names (a situation when you had more than one translator at work on the same Bible).
Ok, so in this name lay the root word of ישע YASHA / YESHA – “rescue / save / deliver.” The root is definitely ישע YASHA / YESHA – not ישועה YESHUAH. Rather, YESHUAH would be an extension of the root ישע YASHA / YESHA. YESHUAH itself is built off of the YASHA / YESHA root, but it is grammatically feminine in that the “help / aid / rescue” promoted in it is of a “kindness / compassionate” nature, which in Hebrew tends to be written in a feminine gender in a word – it doesn’t make anything “girly” about it, just is done to show the “softer” edge of the term. There are other languages that are gender-specific, such as Spanish, where you will find the same types of subtle differences in terms that are otherwise identical in meaning. But of course, any gender-specific word can only have one root no matter if it were an alien language with “four genders,” right? We can return to this matter at a later date, though, because this is how we can eventually arrive at a correct pronunciation of The Anointed One' Name, when we understand the root and what was happening. But for now, let’s continue on the same topic.
So continuing on, you can see the root ישע YASHA / YESHA in the name הושע HOSHAYAH. Due to the grammatical aspect of Hebrew, instead of it being spelled הישע it has the letter Yud יmorphed into a Waw ו for the end result of הושע HOSHAYAH. The letter Heh ה in the beginning of the name is due to the grammatical tensing of the verb into what is called Hophil which denotes a causal verb where a third party has caused an action to happen to the subject. The idea of the name HOSHAYAH is thus “HE SAVED / RESCUED.”
Put simply, Joshua’ parents could have named him ישע YASHA / YESHA (I keep placing these together because they are the same word and idea, just sometimes pronounced slightly differently), but they chose to tense the idea of “rescue / save” into a “what has been done to him” kind of thing, and that required placing the letter Heh ה in the beginning of the name, resulting in הושע HOSHAYAH.
So as you can see, the letter Waw ו in his name exists only because of the addition of the letter Heh ה at the beginning of his name due to how the name fits verb tense in Hebrew grammar. Otherwise it would have been a letter Yud י as it is part of the root ישע YASHA / YESHA.
Okay, so then we have Moshay come along and CHANGE the name of Joshua / Hoshayah into a new grammatical inflection: the form of יהושע Y’HOSHUAH. This change came about by Moshay adding the letter Yud י to the beginning of the man’s name = יהושע . What this did is effectively change the tense of the name yet again, into Hiphil tense, meaning the subject is causing an action to happen (He Shall Save / Rescue). In this instance, Y’hoshuah the man is about to be going into the land of Canaan, and it will be HIS actions that lead to the “saving” that takes place. Albeit, the actual saving doesn’t take place until a generation later, it is his own actions of faith that bring about his and the people’ eventual entrance into the land after wandering for so long.
What we have, therefore, is the root of ישע YASHA / YESHA (save / rescue) buried in a twice grammatically inflected verb-turned-proper-name: יהושע = Y’HOSHUA .
The end result, therefore, shows that the “Trigrammaton” of the Divine Name YAHU יהו is actually present ONLY in appearance, and not in intention. This can be seen furthermore if one was to remove the transformation of the Yud י into the Waw ו in the name, and “pretend” that aspect of Hebrew syntax didn’t exist, and render it instead as it would appear in the root of ישע YASHA / YESHA, to yield a result of יהישע . As you can see, that would effectively “erase” the Divine Name of YAHU יהו from Y’hoshuah’ name, since it would become יהי . This is not the the Short Form of the Divine Name. Keep in mind also that the letter Heh ה is there only due to the inflection of Joshua’ original name that I explained about above, which was also not originally meant to signify the Divine Name in any way.
Okay, let me pause here and return the first proof. I am going to paste it here but place the Hebrew in it so you can really see what I was talking about. This should help some before we move on, if there is any confusion remaining.
The י to ו YUD-to-WAW is essential to the root word of ישע YASHA / YESHA "Rescue." Without it remaining in place the root falls apart. So IF the YUD-HEH-WAW = YAHU יהו presence signified actually the Name YAHU, then the root of YESHA is destroyed, since the WAW would in effect be confiscated for use in the Short Form of the Divine Name. I’ve broken the name apart to show what would be happening if the Divine Name were really supposed to be part of this name. This helps show how the root word would be broken up if the Divine Name truly was present: יהו + שע
See that IF the Divine Name were present, it would be “stealing” part of the root of ישע YESHA for itself, which NEVER happens in Hebrew grammar and would in effect rob the root word of it' meaning.
The result would leave שע SHUA as the root - meaning "a cry for help" or "riches / valuables." Taken in this way, YAHUSHUA would then mean "YAHU cries for help / YAHU has riches." See how it completely changes the meaning if the root word dissolves? furthermore, since the Waw ו OO sound really only arises in the personal name pronunciation of Y'hoshua, and is not part of the root ישע YESHA, then advocating for SHUA disintegrates at that point, and one would be left with just SHA - a sound and not a word in Hebrew = leaving YAHU-SHA, which would effectively be bringing His Name to nothing while trying to say His Name. [ as you note, the U in SHUAH is indeed implied, but only because of the presence of the root YASHA, and if that dissolves, then so too does the OO in the latter part of the name. If the root changes, and the root determines what is “implied,” then it can no longer be implied.
So to close with this first proof, it should be noted that in Hebrew, a letter from one root CANNOT be shared with another root. In other words, it wouldn't be acceptable in Hebrew for the Divine Name YAHU to borrow a letter from YESHA and still let the root meaning of YESHA stand. It just can't happen in Hebrew grammar.
Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy"
Please take the time to read the ATTACHMENT, as it not only COLOR CODE to help show what it is saying but it goes on to show EVEN MORE PROOF upon this matter.
I have only posted part of the email here (but have left it intacked as an attached [see Attachment] in hopes to share all the knowledge and wisdom found therein).
"Shlama akhi,
The original name of יהושע Joshua / Y’hoshua was הושע HOSHEYA / Hosea / Hoshea / Oshea. The “Oshea” pronunciation is simply the inconsistency of the older English translations in the realm of transliterating proper names. It is no different than Hosea / Hoshea, so there is no attention necessary to be paid towards the variant of “Oshea.” For example, like how “herb” can be pronounced phonetically as HURB or else by dropping the initial H sound and yielding ERB. Same thing. WHY English does this, I can’t say, but apparently it was at work even back in 1611 when the translators of the KJV did their version…. So the variant reading in English of OSHEA is really wrong – it should read HOSHEA – it is the same in the Hebrew, but different in some English translations which are not consistent in transliterating proper names (a situation when you had more than one translator at work on the same Bible).
Ok, so in this name lay the root word of ישע YASHA / YESHA – “rescue / save / deliver.” The root is definitely ישע YASHA / YESHA – not ישועה YESHUAH. Rather, YESHUAH would be an extension of the root ישע YASHA / YESHA. YESHUAH itself is built off of the YASHA / YESHA root, but it is grammatically feminine in that the “help / aid / rescue” promoted in it is of a “kindness / compassionate” nature, which in Hebrew tends to be written in a feminine gender in a word – it doesn’t make anything “girly” about it, just is done to show the “softer” edge of the term. There are other languages that are gender-specific, such as Spanish, where you will find the same types of subtle differences in terms that are otherwise identical in meaning. But of course, any gender-specific word can only have one root no matter if it were an alien language with “four genders,” right? We can return to this matter at a later date, though, because this is how we can eventually arrive at a correct pronunciation of The Anointed One' Name, when we understand the root and what was happening. But for now, let’s continue on the same topic.
So continuing on, you can see the root ישע YASHA / YESHA in the name הושע HOSHAYAH. Due to the grammatical aspect of Hebrew, instead of it being spelled הישע it has the letter Yud יmorphed into a Waw ו for the end result of הושע HOSHAYAH. The letter Heh ה in the beginning of the name is due to the grammatical tensing of the verb into what is called Hophil which denotes a causal verb where a third party has caused an action to happen to the subject. The idea of the name HOSHAYAH is thus “HE SAVED / RESCUED.”
Put simply, Joshua’ parents could have named him ישע YASHA / YESHA (I keep placing these together because they are the same word and idea, just sometimes pronounced slightly differently), but they chose to tense the idea of “rescue / save” into a “what has been done to him” kind of thing, and that required placing the letter Heh ה in the beginning of the name, resulting in הושע HOSHAYAH.
So as you can see, the letter Waw ו in his name exists only because of the addition of the letter Heh ה at the beginning of his name due to how the name fits verb tense in Hebrew grammar. Otherwise it would have been a letter Yud י as it is part of the root ישע YASHA / YESHA.
Okay, so then we have Moshay come along and CHANGE the name of Joshua / Hoshayah into a new grammatical inflection: the form of יהושע Y’HOSHUAH. This change came about by Moshay adding the letter Yud י to the beginning of the man’s name = יהושע . What this did is effectively change the tense of the name yet again, into Hiphil tense, meaning the subject is causing an action to happen (He Shall Save / Rescue). In this instance, Y’hoshuah the man is about to be going into the land of Canaan, and it will be HIS actions that lead to the “saving” that takes place. Albeit, the actual saving doesn’t take place until a generation later, it is his own actions of faith that bring about his and the people’ eventual entrance into the land after wandering for so long.
What we have, therefore, is the root of ישע YASHA / YESHA (save / rescue) buried in a twice grammatically inflected verb-turned-proper-name: יהושע = Y’HOSHUA .
The end result, therefore, shows that the “Trigrammaton” of the Divine Name YAHU יהו is actually present ONLY in appearance, and not in intention. This can be seen furthermore if one was to remove the transformation of the Yud י into the Waw ו in the name, and “pretend” that aspect of Hebrew syntax didn’t exist, and render it instead as it would appear in the root of ישע YASHA / YESHA, to yield a result of יהישע . As you can see, that would effectively “erase” the Divine Name of YAHU יהו from Y’hoshuah’ name, since it would become יהי . This is not the the Short Form of the Divine Name. Keep in mind also that the letter Heh ה is there only due to the inflection of Joshua’ original name that I explained about above, which was also not originally meant to signify the Divine Name in any way.
Okay, let me pause here and return the first proof. I am going to paste it here but place the Hebrew in it so you can really see what I was talking about. This should help some before we move on, if there is any confusion remaining.
The י to ו YUD-to-WAW is essential to the root word of ישע YASHA / YESHA "Rescue." Without it remaining in place the root falls apart. So IF the YUD-HEH-WAW = YAHU יהו presence signified actually the Name YAHU, then the root of YESHA is destroyed, since the WAW would in effect be confiscated for use in the Short Form of the Divine Name. I’ve broken the name apart to show what would be happening if the Divine Name were really supposed to be part of this name. This helps show how the root word would be broken up if the Divine Name truly was present: יהו + שע
See that IF the Divine Name were present, it would be “stealing” part of the root of ישע YESHA for itself, which NEVER happens in Hebrew grammar and would in effect rob the root word of it' meaning.
The result would leave שע SHUA as the root - meaning "a cry for help" or "riches / valuables." Taken in this way, YAHUSHUA would then mean "YAHU cries for help / YAHU has riches." See how it completely changes the meaning if the root word dissolves? furthermore, since the Waw ו OO sound really only arises in the personal name pronunciation of Y'hoshua, and is not part of the root ישע YESHA, then advocating for SHUA disintegrates at that point, and one would be left with just SHA - a sound and not a word in Hebrew = leaving YAHU-SHA, which would effectively be bringing His Name to nothing while trying to say His Name. [ as you note, the U in SHUAH is indeed implied, but only because of the presence of the root YASHA, and if that dissolves, then so too does the OO in the latter part of the name. If the root changes, and the root determines what is “implied,” then it can no longer be implied.
So to close with this first proof, it should be noted that in Hebrew, a letter from one root CANNOT be shared with another root. In other words, it wouldn't be acceptable in Hebrew for the Divine Name YAHU to borrow a letter from YESHA and still let the root meaning of YESHA stand. It just can't happen in Hebrew grammar.
Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy"
Please take the time to read the ATTACHMENT, as it not only COLOR CODE to help show what it is saying but it goes on to show EVEN MORE PROOF upon this matter.