What's in a Name?

Proverbs 22:1: "A good name is to be more desired than great wealth"

What’s in a name?  I took some professional training where one of the icebreaker assignments was to perform a symbolic story with gestures and hyperbole to represent your name.  You were partnered with another student and they had to act it out.  I thought of going to the doctor, being wrapped up in a gauze bandage and then the doctor pinning his bill on my chest.  It was fun over acting. My name is Bill Goss.  Everybody remembered it.

Is a name important? To find out, I chose to do a Bible study from a book in the Old Testament. I asked those who attended to look at the writers of the Bible as ordinary men, writing with inspired and divine inspiration, but also writing for a specific purpose. 

I decided to study the prophet Hosea.  We were going to look at the first three chapters.  This was to ask why some believe every word in the Bible happened as written.  It was intended to get people to study not just read the Bible. The only preparation for the class was to study the first chapters.  This was going to be an interesting discussion.

One of the first things I always look at when studying the Bible is who wrote the book we are studying and what was going on when it was written.  It was probably written by a prophet named Hosea or his followers. These prophesy were written during time when the Kingdom of Israel was in great instability.  The rulers were not good and old enemies were becoming powerful.  The people were straying from the covenant between the Lord and Israel.

To document these conditions, the book establishes some interesting characters.  In the old television show Dragnet, they always said that the names were changed to protect the innocent.  This may be the case.  Let us look a why.

According to the book of Hosea, the prophet married a woman of loose moral virtues. He chased his wife and pulled her from her lover’s arms.  He even raised children that were not his own. Hosea did this because the Lord told him to do it.

Hosea is a name that means “salvation.”  He is the son of the man Beeri.  Beeri is a name that means “well.”  So Hosea son of Beeri could mean “Well of Salvation.”  This is a good name for a prophet.

Hosea married Gomer daughter of Dibliam.  The name Gomer can mean "finished, complete, failure or come to an end." Some Hebrew origins point to the name meaning “standing for the whole.”  Dibliam means two cakes or double portion.  Gomer is a woman that represents the "entire people of Israel who will get a double portion of failure."

Depending on what version of the Bible you are reading, his wife is described in man ways.  Gomer is identified as a promiscuous woman in the more subtle translations.  Other translation, however, are more descriptive using “wife of whoredom”, “marry a prostitute”, “wife of harlotry”, and "wife of fornication.”  This is the woman the Lord tells Hosea to take as a wife.

This marriage represents the covenant between the Lord and Israel and was actually a visionary prophecy.  The word of the Lord came to Hosea.  This was prophesy given to the prophet.  Hosea (the well of salvation) represents God.  Gomer (the complete failure and entire promiscuous family) represents Israel.  The relationship of Hosea and Gomer is a metaphor of the covenant relationship between God and the Israelites.  At first there was love and then a brief period of fidelity, but this was followed by many years of disloyalty.

So when I asked how the class had interpreted the readings, I got a good answers, but not necessarily the ones I expected.  They thought it was a biographical story which actually happened.  Hosea had married an adulterous wife.  His prophesy was written reflecting on his marriage and comparing it to the peoples relationship with God. The names were interesting and probably meant something but did not consider them important.  The introduction to the book of Hosea in the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) indicates that the names and metaphor are important.

What’s in a name?  Maybe nothing, maybe a lot; but, I'll look at my name. My given name is "William" which means a “strong willed warrior” or “one with a strong desire to protect.”  According to Ancestry.com the family name of "Goss" is the short form of longer names having to with "good, god, and God."  

I think there is a lot in my name and it suits me just fine.