🔼The name Mushi: Summary
- Meaning
- Touchy, Ambulant
- Etymology
- From the verb מוש (mush), to sense or search for tactilely, or to sweep about.
🔼The name Mushi in the Bible
The one and only Mushi in the Bible is one of two sons of Merari, son of Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah (Exodus 6:19, 1 Chronicles 6:19, only here spelled משי, Mashi).
We don't know much about this Mushi, but apparently he fared well enough to spawn his own sub-clan, namely the Mushites (Numbers 3:33; Note that the ethnonym Mushite (מושי) is spelled the same as the name Mushi itself.).
Mushi's brother was named Mahli, and Mushi apparently liked that name so much that he gave it to his son (1 Chronicles 24:30).
🔼Etymology of the name Mushi
The name Mushi comes from either of the two verbs מוש:
משש
The verb משש (mashash) means to feel; to sense or search for tactilely. This verb has no derivatives but does show up in two alternate forms, namely מוש (mush) and מיש (mish).
An assumed whole other verb מוש (mush) or מיש (mish) means to depart or remove, and appears most often in the negative, when something is typically not ambulant but stays where it's at.
Perhaps these two verbs relate in the sweeping or scanning motion that usually accompanies tactile reconnaissance. This same motion could be applied to describe a being footloose or untethered.
The letter י (yod) upon which our name ends, may either create an adjective (touchy), a possessive form (my departure), or may be a remnant of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
🔼Mushi meaning
For a meaning of the name Mushi, NOBSE Study Bible Name List appears to derive our name from the verb מוש (mush), meaning to depart or remove, and reads Drawn Out.
Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) insists that the verb מוש (mush) can also mean to prove (by feeling) and proposes Proved Of The Lord.
BDB Theological Dictionary does not offer an interpretation of the name Mushi but does list it under the verb מוש (mush), meaning depart or remove.