{"id":237,"date":"2011-10-10T15:41:28","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T19:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/?p=237"},"modified":"2025-07-04T20:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T20:09:56","slug":"lets-name-our-daughter-billy-goat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/2011\/10\/10\/lets-name-our-daughter-billy-goat\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s name our daughter “Billy Goat”!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges records one of the darkest eras in Ancient Israel. The book finishes with gang rape, genocide, and kidnapping. This is definitely an example of what not to do. In fact because the author frequently reminds us that a generation grew up who did not know the LORD that the actions in Judges are the result of disobedience. If we don’t choose to follow God the ultimate result is complete corruption.<\/p>\n

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Photo by David Castillo Dominici<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the midst of all this chaos the role of women take on an important literary element. Randall Bailey’s article on Judges in The Africana Bible commentary suggests that women highlight the flawed men. Several unnamed women take on important roles like the woman at Thebez that kills Abimelech or Manoah’s wife who gets a visit from an angel. In addition to these women several are named and perhaps looking at their names origins could help the English reader understand their literary importance. At this point in my education I am no Hebrew scholar so these meaning simply what I could find in Biblical Hebrew dictionaries in Bible Works or Strong’s.<\/p>\n

This idea first struck me when Bailey used Achsah (Caleb’s daugther) as an example. He mentioned that her named meant “toy” or “trinket”. I found this ironic in light of how Othiniel won her as a prize for\u00a0conquering\u00a0Hebron.<\/p>\n

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photo by Tom Curtis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Deborah narrative two women are named. Deborah appears first as a prophetess who calls Barak as a deliver for the Israelites. Deborah’s name mean bee and she acts almost like a queen bee in this story organizing the action from high above. The name Barak originates from lightning, which comes and goes. He enters the scene, but like lightning can’t stand without thunder he asks for Deborah to come with him. Enter the hero Jael, the\u00a0mountain\u00a0goat, who lures Sisera to her tent with milk and kills him. Instantly, I think of \u00a0the three billy goats cunning the troll out of eating them. A goat is a playful and non-threatening\u00a0animal creating amazing irony for this story.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I thought of Delilah. Surely, I thought there must be some good meaning in her name in this story with Samson. Her name’s origin is very unclear. Now that Delilah is household name modern dictionaries want to say it means delicate. However, there are many possible derivatives of her name that are similar to other Hebrew words. Perhaps her name was suppose to look like night, or poor, or to make humble. Hitchcock’s Bible Names dictionary even suggests that it could mean “head of hair”. Once again I have no Hebrew legs to stand on, but from a literary stand point I think it would make a great story if her name meant “Hairless Night” or “To Make Hairless” or just “Barber”.<\/p>\n

As with most literature names are important especially for characters who take on an ironic role, such as women in Ancient Near Eastern culture. After studying the book of Judges I am realizing that when a woman is mentioned by name it is \u00a0important and the meaning of the name might just be apart of the story as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judges records one of the darkest eras in Ancient Israel. The book finishes with gang rape, genocide, and kidnapping. This is definitely an example of what not to do. In fact because the author frequently reminds us that a generation grew up who did not know the LORD that the actions in Judges are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptures-1","category-scriptures1","tag-oldies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profoundmystery.com\/onemansrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}