Yeshayahu, Yirmeyahu, Tzekaryahu
YHWH Written in Every Name
Part 6 of 8
The Prophets Who Pointed to the Cross
The Hebrew prophets are the voices that Yeshua quoted most frequently. Their writings are the texts he pointed to when explaining who he was, what sin meant, what righteousness was, what judgment had accomplished. They are the interpretive foundation of everything he taught.
And their names, every significant name among them, carried the divine name YHWH within it.
Yeshayahu
YHWH Is Salvation
The prophet known in English as Isaiah was named Yeshayahu.
His name means: YHWH is salvation.
This is virtually identical in meaning to the name Yeshua himself carried. The prophet whose words Yeshua quoted more than any other, whose scroll he unrolled in the synagogue at Nazareth and read aloud as a declaration of his own mission, shared the substance of his name. YHWH is salvation. The message of Yeshayahu and the identity of Yeshua are announced in the same declaration.
In English, Isaiah and Jesus sound like different words from different worlds. In Hebrew, Yeshayahu and Yeshua are variations on the same root, the same confession, the same divine announcement.
Yirmeyahu
YHWH Appoints
The prophet known as Jeremiah was named Yirmeyahu.
His name means: YHWH exalts, YHWH appoints, YHWH establishes.
Yirmeyahu was the prophet who declared the new covenant, the covenant that would not be written on stone tablets but on the hearts of the people. The covenant in which YHWH himself would be their God and they would be his people, and no one would need to teach another saying ‘know YHWH,’ because all would know him, from the least to the greatest.
The prophet appointed by YHWH to announce the internalized, universal covenant bore a name that said exactly that: YHWH appoints.
Tzekaryahu
YHWH Remembers
The prophet known as Zechariah was named Tzekaryahu.
His name means: YHWH remembers.
Tzekaryahu is the prophet whose visions most directly foreshadow the events of the passion, the shepherd struck, the flock scattered, the one whom they pierced, the mourning that follows. His visions were cited at the crucifixion. His imagery saturates the arrest narrative, the trial, the death.
And his name declared: YHWH remembers.
The prophet who saw the pierced one, who wrote that they would look on the one they pierced and mourn, bore a name that announced the covenantal memory of YHWH. Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is outside the scope of his knowing. YHWH remembers.
The prophet who foresaw the piercing was named YHWH remembers. The name held the theology before the vision was recorded.
The Selective Treatment
Here is the observation that sharpens everything: the prophets’ names were transliterated into Greek and English rather than translated. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, these are approximate sound-renderings of Yeshayahu, Yirmeyahu, Tzekaryahu. The meaning is lost, but the name is at least present in a recoverable form.
The names of those most directly involved in the events of the cross, Yeshua, Yochanan, Mattityahu, Yehudah, were not transliterated. They were translated into forms that bear no trace of the Hebrew. Jesus, John, Matthew, Judas.
Why the prophets were handled one way and the participants in the cross events another is a question this series does not presume to answer definitively. But the difference is real, consistent, and consequential. And it is a question worth sitting with.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
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