Isaiah family’s name changing reflects Divine game changing
by
Damien F. Mackey
“Isaiah like Hosea
had three known children, all of whose names were prophetic”.
Isaiah, Hosea, whose names are
of very similar meaning, being basically derived from the same Hebrew root for
‘salvation’, יֵ֫שַׁע
- “Isaiah” (Hebrew יְשַׁעְיָהוּ , Yeshâ‘yâhû)
signifies: “Yahweh (the Lord) is salvation”.
- “Hosea” (Hebrew הוֹשֵׁעַ) means practically the same: “Yahweh
(the Lord) is saviour”.
was, in fact, one and the same
prophet.
Hosea’s/Isaiah’s Family
Though no doubt young, the
prophet was given the strange command by God to marry an ‘unfaithful’ woman:
“‘Go, take yourself a wife of
harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by
forsaking the Lord’. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim …”
(Hosea 1:2-3). Biblical scholars have agonised over the type of woman this
Gomer might have been: adulteress? harlot? temple-prostitute? But essentially
the clue is to be found in the statement above that she was a citizen of the
‘land of great harlotry’: namely, the northern kingdom of Israel.
A further likeness between
Isaiah and Hosea, central to this article, was the fact that ‘their names’ and
those of ‘their’ children were meant to be, in their meanings, prophetic signs.
- The prophet Isaiah tells us:
“Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and
portents ...” (Isaiah 8:18).
- Similarly, the names of the
children of the prophet Hosea were meant to be prophetic (Hosea 1:4, 6, 9).
Charles Boutflower, who had
written perceptively on Isaiah’s children, had rightly noted the prophetic
significance of their names and those of Hosea’s children, without however
connecting Isaiah and Hosea as one: “Isaiah like Hosea had three known
children, all of whose names were prophetic” (The Book of Isaiah I-XXXIX,
1930, p. 49).
Previously, I had written:
It is most unlikely, one would
have to think, to have two great prophets operating contemporaneously over such
a substantial period of time, and each having three children whose names were
prophetic.
The fact is, I believe, that this
was just the one prophet, who may possibly have had six children in all. (This
still needs to be sorted out, however).
Just today (14th
August, 2026), though, I have come to think that at least one of these children
was a duplicate.
I intend to write an article
on this, Deo volente.
Stuart Irvine has, in the
course of his detailed study of the so-called Isaianic Denkschrift [‘personal
memoir’] (Isaiah 6:1-9:6) of the Syro-Ephraïmitic crisis, written extensively
on the chronological significance of Isaiah’s children and their names in
connection with this crisis for Judah.
I also appreciate Stuart Irvine’s
concern for scholars to study the prophets (thus Isaiah) according to the
“historical events and politics” of their time….. (Isaiah, Ahaz, and the
Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis, Society of Biblical Literature, Dissertation Series No. 123, Scholars
Press, Atlanta, 1990).
What of Isaiah’s other names,
such as Nahum?
In various articles, now, e.g.
in my detailed:
De-coding
Jonah
I have multi-identified the
Simeonite prophet Isaiah.
Apart from his Isaiah like
names: Hosea; Uzziah (Book of Judith); Asaiah (reign of king
Josiah); and Uriah (Urijah), martyred at the command of king
Jehoiakim (= Manasseh) of Judah, Isaiah was also the prophet Jonah.
Another major identification
of Isaiah that I have proposed is with the differently named (but
Jonah-related, cf. Tobit 14:4) Nahum, who prophesied about Assyria.
See e.g. my articles:
Not
so obscure prophet Nahum
(DOC) Not so
obscure prophet Nahum | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Prophet
Nahum as Isaiah Comforted
(3) Prophet Nahum as Isaiah
Comforted
Now, if names mean anything –
and we know that, in the case of the prophet Isaiah, names mean everything –
then “Nahum” (Hebrew נַחוּם), too, must have a particular
relevance to a new phase in the long life of the prophet, Isaiah, especially in
relation to Israel.
The happy new phase coincides
with the wonderful Isaiah 40, of which we read:
Isaiah
40 RSVCE - God’s People Are Comforted - Comfort, - Bible Gateway
“Here begins the “Book of
the Consolation of Israel,” as it has been beautifully called”.
The chapter begins (40:1) with
what virtually amounts to Isaiah’s new name: Nahum, meaning “consolation”.
Thus: “Console, console, My people, says your God …”.
(נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ, עַמִּי--יֹאמַר, אֱלֹהֵיכֶם) The repeated Hebrew word here,
na-ḥă-mū, is of the same
root as Isaiah’s new name, Nahum.
The next verse tells us what
this new phase was to be in the life of Israel (v. 2):
‘…. proclaim to her
that her hard service has
been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from
the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins’.
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