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Rth_1:2
In a time of severe famine, a man belonging to this place withdrew, with his wife and two sons, into the land of Moab for a subsistence. The names of all these persons are particularly given. The names of the father, Elimelech (my God is king), and of the mother, Naomi (pleasant, happy), indicate Divine favor and worldly prosperity; the names of the sons, Mahlon (weakness, sickness), Chilion (consumption, decay), imply the very reverse of health and comfort. Some old writers speculate curiously upon these names. Indeed, many of the Hebrew names are so remarkably appropriate to the persons who bear them, that it has been much questioned how this conformity was produced. Some have supposed that the names were changed as circumstances arose to render the old names inappropriate. In proof of this we are referred to this very book of Ruth, in which Naomi, in the sequel of the history, says, “Call me not Naomi, but call me Mara (bitter), for the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me.” Yet this seems rather a mode in which she expressed the sense of her condition, than an intention or wish for an actual change; and in fact there was no change, for she continued to be called Naomi. Instances of change of name do indeed occur; but the very instances are such as to show that the practice was not common, the chance being generally mentioned as a memorable circumstance, and as imposed by God himself, or by some great public authority, mostly by a foreign king or conqueror, who imposes or confers a name proper to his own nation upon the person. Of the former kind, is the change of Abram’s name to Abraham, Sarai’s to Sarah, Jacob’s to Israel; and in the New Testament, of Simon to Cephas (in Greek, Peter)—and of the latter, the change of Joseph’s name to Zaphnath-paaneah, of Daniel’s to Belteshazzar, and of those of his companions Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. In all the latter class of changes, and in some of the former, the original name still remains, not withstanding, the common name by which the person is known; and in the exceptional cases of even the first class of changes—those made by Divine authority—the old and new names remain in concurrent use, save only in the case of Abraham and Sarah, in regard to which it is probable that the slightness of the oral change led to the exclusive adoption of the new name. There is no example of a change of name by private or paternal authority, and certainly not any of a man making such a change himself. Indeed, as names are intended to identify men, and to distinguish them from each other, all the use and purpose of proper names would be lost were they to be frequently changed. Such cases occur among ourselves by change of titles used as proper names. The rarity of this case prevents the inconvenience from being very sensibly felt; but the degree of inconvenience which is experienced when, for instance, a Gower becomes an Egerton, and then an Ellesmere, and has a public reputation under each of these names, may show what confusion would arise were such a practice common among any people.
We find, in fact, from various instances, that the names which people use all their lives, were imposed at the time of birth, and were founded upon peculiarity of personal appearance—as Esau, from his redness; upon some circumstance attending the birth—as in the case of Jacob; or upon some hope or expectation which the parents entertained, or upon some sentiment or idea that was then prominent in the paternal mind—as in the case of Cain, Seth, Noah, and the twelve founders of the tribes of Israel, not to mention later instances.
As to the question of appropriateness, it may appear that the point has been too much pressed by some writers. Most of the names of which we know the origin are appropriate to the occasions in which they originated; but not many of these, or of others, bear any special appropriateness to the character or career of the men by whom they were borne. Some of the names are manifestly inappropriate to the history of the persons who bore them. Thus even the wise Solomon was mistaken in giving the name of Rehoboam (an enlarger), to his son; for that son, instead of enlarging the dominions of the house of David, reduced it from the dominion over twelve tribes to two. So David gave the name of Absalom (father of peace, or, as some make it, father’s peace) to the son who proved the greatest disturber of his peace and happiness. So also Jehu signifies . constant man, yet the king who bore it proved inconstant in his latter days, and “regarded not to walk in the ways of the Lord God of Israel,” 2Ki_10:31. Naomi felt her name to be inappropriate, as it certainly was during ten years of her life; and such is the course of human life that there is no name, whether of pleasant or unpleasant import, which will not be suitable in some portion of any man’s life, and unsuitable at another. Still there is a degree of appropriateness in many of the Scripture names considerably beyond what might be expected, and sufficient to justify surprise. Some go so far as to suppose that parents were often inspired to bestow names upon their children predatorily indicative of their future state and career. A pious and intelligent writer Note: Bush, in his Notes on Judges. remarks, on the very case before us, “Perhaps the names were respectively given by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit to indicate the mournful contrast between the once flourishing condition of the hopeful pair, and the subsequent sore adversity and blighting desolation of the family.” That this was sometimes the case we know. How far it was so in this particular case we know not; but it is quite possible that both Chilion and Mahlon were such weakly children as to suggest a difficulty in rearing them, and to indicate the probability of that early death which actually befell both of them. In a learned American writer Note: Hughes’s Female Characters of Holy Writ, ii. 26. 1846. we find a remark on the general subject which well deserves consideration. He is speaking with regard to the name of Gideon’s aspiring son, Abimelech, which means “my father a king,” and hints that the name may have prompted to the ambitious course he pursued, by reflecting upon the import of the name. “The influence of names,” he adds, “in the formation of character, is probably much greater than is usually imagined, and deserves the especial attention of parents in their bestowment. Children should be taught that the circumstance of their bearing the names of good men or women who have lived before them, constitutes an obligation upon them to imitate or perpetuate their virtues.” This observation has peculiar force in America, where the people are prone to give the surnames of noted persons as first names to their children.
To the same effect an old writer Note: Richard Bernard, “Preacher of God’s Word at Batcombe in Somersetshire,” in his Ruth’s Recompense. London, 1628. observes on the place before us: “And here note, in all their names, how significant they be, which the Hebrews did ever observe in naming their children. True it is, that good names have no virtue in them to make men better, nor names without significance to make any worse; yet, for reverence of our holy profession let us give our children good names, significant and comely—not absurd, ridiculous, and impious, as some have done, out of the spirit of profaneness.”
Christopher Ness makes substantially the same remark, adding, “Our very names should mind us of our duty.” He pleasantly applies this view of the use of names to the case of Elimelech: “A good name (in its sense and signification) may be of great comfort to a man in an evil day. Thus it was to this man, whose name signified, My God is king. He might make a believing use thereof, pondering in his mind after this manner—‘Although there be a famine in the land of promise, whereby I am driven out of my native country, and constrained to dwell in idolatrous Moab—yet my God is king over all—over all persons, over all nations. He hath an uncontrollable sovereignty over all men and matters, and is not bound to give an account of any matter to any man. Note: Job_33:13. ’Tis good for me to be where my God, who is my king, will have me to be. I am, wherever I am, evermore upon my Father’s ground; for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’” Note: Psa_24:1.
Let us recollect that these names, which are to us abstract and unintelligible proper names, were to those persons apparent in their full meaning whenever used. This is rarely the case with us; for although most of the names we employ are significant, their significance lies hid in the foreign languages from which they are derived; and even if we use the very same names the Hebrews employed, they would not appear to us, unless specially instructed, in the same force and meaning which they had to them. Yet we are disposed to regret the increasing disuse into which names consciously significant—at least to those who give and to those who receive them—have fallen. They are even treated with something like disrespect. We have lived to hear the use of one of the most touching and beautifully significant names of Scripture received, as a name merely—and merely from its unusual sound—with coarse merriment in one of the highest assemblies of our nation. Let the scorners refer to 1Ch_4:9-10, and “laugh” no more. And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren; and his mother called his name Jabez (sorrowful), saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested.” This is in fact an illustration of the use the Hebrews made of their significant names; and precisely of the kind which is suggested by Ness, although he takes no account of this proof. The application in which the name originated we see clearly enough; but the interesting recognition of it in the last words of his prayer escape notice in a translation. In the original, the word grieve (“that it may not grieve me”), is the verb from which his own name (sorrowful) is derived.