The Bible continues to be one of the most common sources in which we search for names for our children. In this topic I will introduce you to some precious female names that appear in the Old Testament , where there are women with beautiful, exciting and value-filled stories.
Eva
Little presentation requires the mother of mankind. We all know her and her name continues to be one of the favorites of the Spanish, for its simplicity, its euphony and everything it evokes. However, we are going to remember what we know about her, as she also has a misogynistic tradition. At first she is not called Eva , but Adana or Varona, according to the translations.
In the book of Genesis it is narrated how God created the first human beings. In this first passage nothing is said about ribs, nor about the removal of the female from the male’s body, but rather that both were created in the image and likeness of God and it is when he gives them the command to “grow and multiply” that everyone we remember.
And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
The matter gets a bit more complicated later on. The narrator seems to go back again and tells us another version of the creation of human beings and soon the problems begin. Some analysts usually indicate that there are two traditions that merge, but the subject of exegesis and biblical hermeneutics is not something that I will deal with here.
God takes dust from the earth, gives it shape and breathes life into it, and lets it live in a wonderful garden, where, among other trees, was the Tree of Good and Evil, the only one from which he should not eat the fruits.
God decides that man should not be alone and surrounds him with animals to which man names, and finally, makes him sleep and extracts a rib from his body, with which he forms the woman.
She is encouraged by the serpent to convince Adam and they both eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil. After that, they begin to feel fear of being discovered by God and also ashamed of being naked.
Nothing escapes God and makes them confess. He punishes the woman with exhausting pregnancy, painful childbirth, and being under the husband’s control. To him with having to work to earn a living and expels them from Paradise.
She, then, receives her name from Adam, Eve , which means Life, since she will be the mother of the whole human race.
Ada and Zila
These three women are the first two wives of Lannec, a fifth-generation descendant of Cain, and the third his daughter. Of the descendants of Set we will not know the names of their daughters or wives, as far as I remember, until quite some time later.
Ada means “beauty”. Zila means “shadow”. Both are precious names, although we can tell little about their adventures, except that her husband explains that he has committed a crime and that their offspring will be cursed for it. The daughter is called Noema, but I have not been able to know what it means in Hebrew, in Greek, Noema is “thought”.
Sarai, Melca y Agar
I think I remember that we do not meet female names again until the times when Tare, a descendant of Noah from Shem, lived in the land of Ur, in Mesopotamia, and his sons Abraham, Nahor, and Aram were married. We know the names of two of the wives: Melca and Sarai . We will not know much more about the first, only that Rebecca will descend from her, of whom we will speak later.
What if we are going to talk about is Sarai , who being sterile, will end up being the mother of the Hebrew people.
Tare takes his family from Ur to Harar and dies there. Then Abraham will spend time in Egypt, where he makes Sarai pose as his sister so that no one will disturb her and in the end they will march, pitching their tents at Bethel. There the group separates, and Abraham leaves with Sarai towards Canaan and Lot, his nephew, towards the Jordan, settling in Sodom.
Lot also has daughters, but we do not know the names of the girls. Almost better, because his misadventures don’t seem like the best gift to include in a name.
The story of Sarai now begins. As I was saying, Sarai did not beget children and offered her husband to beget them in the slave Hagar . But when Hagar became pregnant with the lord she began to be less respectful to Sarai , and she complained to Abraham. He gave her permission to “discipline her” so Hagar , pregnant, escaped to the desert and there God speaks to her and announces that her son, Ishmael, will be born and will be the father of a powerful people.
We find Hagar after returning to Abraham’s house, since she and her son will later be expelled again. We will get to that part.
Sara
After various adventures, including his abduction by King Abimelech, ourYou will beShe will finally be blessed by God, who announces that she will have a baby in old age. In the end, although she cannot believe it, she will have a son, she is a mother and gives birth to a boy who will be called Isaac, who was born when the father was already 100 years old. Faced with this miracle, Sarai will change her name toSara, which means “princess.”
The older brother, Ishmael, who had to be around 14 years old, seems to have been annoying the little one, so, convinced by God that he tells him that they will not be harmed, Abraham expels him and Hagar from the house so that Isaac, your legitimate child, may inherit.
Isaac, despite the sacrifice in which his father was willing to kill him, will live, and his mother Sarah will see him grow up, as she lived to be 127 years old, being buried by her husband in a cave near Hebron.
We have reached Sara. But the Bible is full of female characters with beautiful names , and we will continue to feature them in our Old Testament review.
In Babies and more | Baby names: mythological heroines (I), (II), ( III ) Baby names: names of heroes from Greek mythology (I), (II), Female baby names: Egyptian goddesses and queens, Male baby names : Egyptian gods and pharaohs, Female baby names: Egyptian origin, Male baby names: Egyptian origin, Baby names: Bible characters
