Lydda meaning

Meaning

Unknown, but possibly Production, Begotten

To Be Loved

Etymology

From the verb ילד (yalad), to beget.

From the prefix ל (le), onto, and דד (dod), beloved.

Related names

• Via ילד (yalad): Ahilud, Eltolad, Lud, Lydia, Moladah, Molid, Tolad

• Via ל (le): Beer-lahai-roi, Beth-le-aphrah, Hacaliah, Ladan, Lael, Lamech, Lasha, Lebo-hamath, Lidbir, Paul

• Via דד (dod): Almodad, Bildad, David, Dedan, Dedanim, Dodai, Dodanim, Dodavahu, Dodo, Eldad, Elidad, Henadad, Iddo, Jaddai, Jedidah, Jedidiah, Medad

The name Lod (that's Hebrew) and Lydda (that's Greek) belongs to a city in the plain of Sharon. It was built, along with Ono plus satellite settlements, by Shemed, son of Elpaal of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12). Both Ezra and Nehemiah report of returnees from Lod, Ono and environs (including Hadid; Ezra 2:33, Nehemiah 7:37), and Nehemiah additionally declares that the region remained under control of the tribe of Benjamin (Nehemiah 11:35).

In Greek times, Lod became known as Lydda (Acts 9:32, 9:35 and 9:38 only), and it's there where Peter famously healed Aeneas, "who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed". Nobody in the original audience of the Book of Acts would have missed the pun: this story obviously refers to Octavian and Virgil's Aeneid.

Author Luke places Lydda in the plain of Sharon, in the north of Israel, near Joppa. The city of Lydda was obviously not the same as the country called Lydia, which was a country more to the north, but the Bible writers appear to have maintained a tradition of calling local towns after much greater phenomena that were or had been at play in the world — making Israel a miniature version of the history of the world at large. The town of Nazareth, to give an example, appears to have been named after the Diaspora (and Nazareth may actually not have been a physical town at all but rather a literary device that explained where the pre-public human-embodied-version of God's Word had "domiciled"). The town of Aenon-near-Salim, where John baptized, likewise may have referred to Jesus' mysterious dual genealogy. And Capernaum, rather obviously, relates to Nineveh, or more elaborate: was named in order to commemorate that Nineveh was once warned by Jonah but then destroyed by the flooding Tigris, as foretold by the prophet Nahum.

The similarity between Lydda and Lydia, in combination with the obvious wink to the Aeneid, liberally brings to mind that the Lydians stemmed from the Hittites (and note that king Solomon was a son of Bathsheba, the original wife of Uriah the Hittite), and in Italy became the Etruscans, whose civilization north of the Latins, strongly influenced that of Rome.

When John the Revelator wrote: "And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city" (Revelation 20:9), nobody in his original audience would have missed the reference to Lod in the plain of Sharon, or the murderous Roman Army and the ruins smoldering in the broad plain of Pax Romana.

It's a mystery where the name Lod may have come from, or why it was transliterated into Greek with a double-d. Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) confidently presents an Arabic root that in Hebrew would look like לדד (ladad) and means to content, but no trace of it exists in Hebrew or even Aramaic. A very similar city-name of equal mysterious origins is Lud, from which comes the name Lydia, and which possible derives from the verb ילד (yalad), meaning to beget, bring forth:

It's an admitted long shot, but from this verb ילד (yalad) comes the noun ילד (yeled), meaning (male) child, the equivalent of the Greek noun τεκνον (teknon), also meaning child, from the verb τικτω (tikto), to bring forth. Also from this verb, the noun τεκτων (tekton) means assembler, and describes the earthly profession of Jesus.

Shooting even farther, the striking double-d of the Greek version of our name may not (merely) be due to a faithful phonetic transliteration but rather a wink to the striking double-d stock of Hebrew words like דד (dod), beloved, and hence the name David:

The leading ל (le) of our name Lydda may then be interpretated as the common prefix meaning to or onto:

For a meaning of the name Lod/Lydda, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Contention. No other of the sources we commonly consult offers an interpretation.

Here at Abarim Publications we don't know either, but we're guessing that to an informed audience in the first century, the names Lod and Lydda probably reminded of Lydia, which in turn was recognized as one of the primary tributaries of what would become the glorious Roman Republic, only to ultimately deteriorate into the diseased and paralyzed Roman Empire.

A very playful Hebrew poet may even have seen in this name something like Onto Love or To Be Beloved.