Introduction 

My name, John, has passed through many forms in many languages since the original Hebrew Yehochanan (Yahweh has been gracious). In the same way, the beautiful name of Jesus (Rescuer) has passed through many forms and languages over the millenia.

Hoshea Becomes Joshua

In a sense, the name of Jesus began in Hebrew as Hoshea (salvation). The son of Nun of the tribe of Ephraim served Moses as his servant. The prophet chose him, along with Caleb ben Jephunnah and ten other tribal leaders, to go into the land of the Canaanites and bring back information about the people and the cities. At that time, Moses changed the young man’s name to Jehoshua (Jehovah is salvation). Joshua and Caleb urged the Israelites to go up and take the land promised to their ancestors. Hearing the reports of the other ten men about how big the produce of the land was… and how large the people were, the Israelites refused. They feared the giants in the land would kill them and take their women and children.

Because of their disbelief and disobedience, Yahweh condemned all the Israelites twenty years old or more to die during the forty years of continued wandering in the Wilderness… except for Joshua and Caleb. At the age of sixty plus, Joshua led the younger generation into the Promised Land and through the campaign to conquer the inhabitants. Caleb, at the age of eighty- five, led his own family against the inhabitants of Hebron (Joshua 14:6-12).

Jehoshua Becomes Jesus

By the time a messenger from God spoke to the virgin Mary, the Aramaic form Yeshua was a popular name. Meanwhile, the influence of the Greek conquerors showed itself in the translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language (called the Septuagint). Yeshua was rendered as Iesous.

The writers of the New Testament wrote in Greek and used that form of the name. The early church modified this to the Latin Iesus. William Tyndale used this Latin name but also introduced the use of the ‘J’ in his English Bible. Finally, the version of the Bible authorized by King James 1 of England codified the name as Jesus. This form of the Rescuer’s name has been revered ever since.

We can now see the forms of the beautiful name as follows:

• Hebrew Jehoshua
• Aramaic Yeshua
• Greek Iesous
• Latin Iesus
• English Jesus.

Questions 

The song by Hillsong Worship, What A Beautiful Name, proclaims the name of Jesus as beautiful, wonderful, and powerful. The apostle Paul wrote that “at the name of [Ieosus] every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). 

Have you surrendered to King Jesus? Have you come to love His beautiful, wonderful, powerful name?