Birth Wright
Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 NASB
Jabez – Bruce Wilkinson made significant mileage out of this obscure passage. In his popular book, he tried to demonstrate that the prayer of Jabez could be incorporated in the lives of current believers in such a way that they would experience material and spiritual blessing. Of course, the book sold. It was exactly what people wanted to hear. Wilkinson turned the offhand story into a kind of incantation—the “secret” to success straight from the mouth of God. But anyone who really understood the text would have balked at his exegesis. Biblical Hebrew includes some odd linguistic arrangements. One of these is that names in Hebrew often portend the destiny of the person. This very short story tells us that Jabez is named because of the pain that his mother endured at his birth. Apparently Jabez thought that such a name would cause him to experience pain, so he prayed that God would prevent this ominous future. Jabez simply responds to the Hebrew idea that a name will bear consequences for the person. He wished to avoid the decree incorporated in his name. And he does. End of story. This two sentence plot is not God’s success plan in summary form. It is a tip of the hat to the biblical connection between names and destinies. It’s as if the author wanted to remind us that we need to pay attention to the meaning of a name, so much so that at times we might want to ask God to alter that meaning. Why does the author include this little sidebar? Because there are more important names that should be read with the same perspective. Like Solomon.
“Solomon is heir to this tradition, but does he himself continue it? Is his destiny—as ruler, as temple-builder, as sage—also encoded in his name?”[1] Weitzman points out that the birth of Solomon is completely unremarkable. In contrast to other crucial biblical personages, Solomon enjoys none of the notoriety associated with kings. “ . . . the text does not suggest any meaning for his name, much less one that portends his destiny.”[2] That hasn’t stopped people suggesting meanings. Weitzman notes that one theory is based on the fact that the letters of Solomon’s name (Shin-Lamed-Mem) can be read as “his replacement,” suggesting Solomon is named because his brother died as punishment for David’s sin. Imagine if this is true. What does it say about the value of Solomon himself in the eyes of his father? Is he nothing more than a substitute? What kind of relationship would you have with a father who named you for a child he lost as God’s punishment? What would your name remind you of? Perhaps Solomon’s birth story is nondescript because it isn’t really about Solomon at all. Perhaps it is about David’s emotional disconnection from his living son. Perhaps the absence of a meaning is more revealing than the presence.
Topical Index: Jabez, Solomon, name, 1 Chronicles 4:9-10
[1] Steven Weitzmann, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom (Yale University Press, 2011), p. 4.
[2] Ibid., p. 5.
Very controversial topic…
I know a few individuals that follow Jabez principle and have achieved great wealth, they even support this view on Proverbs know God in all your paths, and Yeshua everything you ask in my name will be added, then James you receive not as you have no faith…
While I also one a few who wait as Job and believe God’s hand is in all and they just make ends meet, no triple what they had sacrificed.
Trusting in names and principles may be rewarding and may be devastating…
Unfortunately same parents still add value to the name if based on their covenant prayer well this seems biblical. I prayed from God so will name… Etc.
The one name I am called to trust on and in is Jesus Christ or the Hebrew correct version. Then the reference to name has a deeper meaning, as I teach my children their is only one name harmed or benefitted by what they do… Their own. As for trusting in themselves the danger is it ends at the grave. Where do they want their life legacy or soul to end…
Thank you for the explanation on Solomon a substitute or replacement… Adds a lot of exegesis to this man’s lifestyle… What do we want to replace God’s covenant with…
Perhaps I need to go back and listen to Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue again….
People curse their children all the time. I call these curses acts of despair. Its not just naming! The children feel cursed and act accordingly. Despair is contagious.
This is just yet another example in the Bible though, of the correct response to such parental irresponsibility: namely, to take responsibility in all the places where someone handed (or dropped) their ball. Onto you. Go back and identify all the places where there was a lack of faith; or downright sin; or rebellion; or disobedience; or ignorance, even. (And how can you tell that they did? Look for the curses in your life! Take responsibility for all the sin you THINK was committed and not repented for. Ask to be shown!) Also all the places where parents and ancestors did not bless their children properly, unlike what Jacob did. That blessing can still be released in your life, as long as you stop blaming them for their weakness and self hatred (which are the conditions that breed hatred of their descendents, for you naturally hate all those you hurt). Forgive them. Confess their sins (I did not say REPENT for them, for only the person who did the sin can repent for it). But to the extent we suffer the fallout of someone else’s sin, we can and should take responsibility, which is that confession, as per what the entire nation did as per Nehemiah after the Babylonian captivity. They needed to come out from under the curse that their parents brought down around their ears too! This is also what gives us the authority to pray for the nation we live in, for the results of the choices of that nation affect us, whether that be blessings or curses. We are told to be thankful for the blessings if we want to experience them in our lives, but by the same token, we should also take responsibility for the curses, too, and so get them dealt with.
Confession of the sin of my fathers, when I realized I needed to do it, consisted of naming it for what it was instead of continuing the family tradition of excusing it or blaming others and then acknowledging it AS SIN before heaven. And then – this was the important part, folks – falling out of agreement with it, for the fallout (curses) of each and every sin committed in my background that was not repented of got passed down to me! Not only is it in my genetic makeup; the mindsets that it produced, whether they be rebellious or self pitying or blaming of others or self or God or whether they resulted in blindness to the truth or hardness of heart or weakness or even spiritual, mental or physical deformity, need to be recognized for what they are against heaven, and taken responsibility for. Yes, even physical problems inherited from my ancestors. That is Biblical, and I find this OT and New, notwithstanding the shining exception of the healing of the blind man in John 9, for that is just what it is; an exception. Most of us are walking around in the full curses of our backgrounds and we know it! Science confirms it! We feel the unfairness of it, too! But what to do. Thankfully, we are given a way to overcome even all the curses brought down upon us by the choices of others. The rest of the world is just stuck with hoping in reincarnation or in witchcraft or just more despair. All practices of death, I have noticed. Reversing sin? Life, and that more abundantly! Halleluah!
Shalom everyone last night at Bible study the course turn in the direction of curse goes to the fourth generation but the blessing to the 1000 generation quite revealing then we talked about undoing a generational curse confessing wrongful connections and wrongful confessions and repenting through Generations previous to ours bandwidth testimonies of remarkable blessings afterward. Then returning the Redemption blessing of the first born I must say I was quite amazed at this custom. Through scripture the stories told about what God has intended for the first born male of every household is to say the least eye-opening. Paying the equivalent price Redemption as scripture tells it is a lost art of following. Yahweh’s Commandments. Possibly this should become a Spirit-filled believers custom. Just as the feasts of Yahweh are being restored this restoration could be coupled with the Redemption of the first born expecially with pesach coming. W. O. W. Shalom everyone. May the Lord bless you and keep you and may. His face shine upon you and may he give you. His shalom.
“This two sentence plot is not God’s success plan in summary form. It is a TIP OF THE HAT to the biblical connection between names and destinies. It’s as if the author wanted to remind us that we need to pay attention to the meaning of a name, so much so that at times we might want to ask God to alter that meaning.”
Yes. A tip of the hat AND a BOWING DOWN to pay homage to the King of kings who grants deliverance, salvation, redemption, and restoration to those who repent and ask with true faith and right motive. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme.
It’s also as if the author wanted to remind us that we need to pay attention to the meaning of HIS name (character, esteem, and authority), YHWH, Yeshua. We do not have to stay bound by the meanings of the names we have been called or which we have made for or taken on ourselves and by which we have lived. We can repent of the identities that have been pronounced upon us and by which we have lived, and we can receive new meaning of who we are by association of Whose we are, as we take on HIS name and the name by which HE calls us. It’s not in any way easy, but it is that simple, I think. We just must persevere in the ongoing work of repentance, seeking Him, knowing the Truth, and walking it out by faith and receiving all His many ways of empowerment to become who He created us to be in His image, common in character to Messiah and unique in personality to who we are to be and the purposes for which we were created.
“Replacement” or “substitute” do not have to mean something or someone inferior or bound to the original. Messiah was our substitute. It can have the meanings associated with deliverance, salvation, redemption, and restoration. It is said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. The question is, through whose eyes will we see ourselves? We must “tip our hats” (honor) to our parents, despite what they may have named or “called” us but we ought to “bow down” to the King of kings who will call us by a new name.
If Solomon lived by the identity of a name as a replacement of his brother who died as punishment for David’s sin, regardless of how David valued him, would it not be held to Solomon’s account more than to David’s? Jabez did not accept being bound by his name. Neither would Solomon have had to. After all, David himself said, “But the word of Adonai came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and fought many battles. You will not build a House for My Name because you have shed much blood before Me on the earth. Behold, a son will be born to you who will be a man at rest. I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon and I will confer shalom and quietness on Israel in his days. [1Ch 22:8-9] Not a bad name, as YHWH saw it. And if Solomon was “a replacement” due to the sin of his father, maybe he was to be valued as a replacement of David, himself, and not his brother who died as punishment for David’s sin. Either way, being a “replacement” could be seen as a good thing to David and to Solomon.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Ruach is saying to Messiah’s communities. To the one who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone—and written on the stone a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” [Rev 2:17]
When God revealed his name to Moses it brings in the perspective that most of the other characteristics Yahweh we think of them as names did we ever call the Holy Spirit patience or long suffering or any of the other fruit that he is symbolize with?
Is this a test? You meant ‘Birthright”, right?
No, I meant what I wrote. It’s a word play in English
#straightovermyhead
I tend to think that David had expectations for Solomon and he named him accordingly. In his word from God given by Nathan he was told after he was dead and buried GOD would raise up a person and he would build the temple. This man would be a man of peace. David decided that God told him his son would be the Messiah. And HE RAISED UP Solomon to be just that. He named him Solomon–he said God told him to but I don’t find that in the text of the message from Nathan. I also find it interesting that Nathan came to them and said God wanted the child named Jedediah (loved by God). David did not give him that name, though, because he had an agenda. There are several things about the story of Solomon that has really bothered me. I haven’t come away from it holding to the same meanings as most mainline Christians and Messianics.