🔼The name Asahel: Summary
- Meaning
- Made By God
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb עשה ('asa), to do, and (2) the word אל ('el), God.
🔼The name Asahel in the Bible
The name Asahel is assigned four times in the Bible:
- Best known is Asahel the son of Zeruiah, the sister of David. The brothers of this Asahel are Joab and Abishai. His name is spelled with a maqqep, עשה־אל in 2 Samuel 3:27 and 23:24 and 1 Chronicles 2:16, 11:26 and 27:7.
- Then there are two Levite Asahels mentioned (2 Chronicles 17:8 and 31:13).
- And, finally, the father of a man named Jonathan who opposed Ezra's policies (Ezra 10:15).
🔼Etymology of the name Asahel
The name Asahel consists of two elements. The first element comes from the very common Hebrew verb עשה ('asa), meaning to do, fashion, accomplish:
עשה
The verb עשה ('asa) means to do, make happen or work with. Noun מעשה (ma'aseh) means deed, act, work, doing, making and so on.
The second element of the name Asahel is אל (El), either the prominent Canaanite deity whose name became applied to the God of Israel, or the common abbreviation of Elohim, the genus God:
אל אלה
In names אל ('el) usually refers to אלהים ('elohim), that is Elohim, or God, also known as אלה ('eloah). In English, the words 'God' and 'god' exclusively refer to the deity but in Hebrew the words אל ('l) and אלה ('lh) are far more common and may express approach and negation, acts of wailing and pointing, and may even mean oak or terebinth.
🔼Asahel meaning
The name Asahel means Made By God (or Made Of God as Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has it), and is the exact reverse of the name Eleasah, God Has Made.