The name Jesus

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21
Several people were told by God what their children’s names were to be (e.g. Ishmael, Gen. 16:11; Isaac, Gen. 17:19; Solomon, 1 Chr. 22:9 (who was also called by God Jedidiah, 2 Sam. 12:25); Isaiah’s son, Isa. 8:3; Hosea’s three children, Hos. 1:4, 6, 9, and John the Baptist, Luke 1:13).
Names in the Hebrew culture are not chosen for their phonetics or aesthetics. They are chosen because of their meaning. Often, children were named because of some event that happened when they were born (e.g. Esau, means ‘hairy’, because when he was born he was covered with thick hair; while Jacob, ‘heel-catcher’ or, figuratively, ‘deceiver’, who was born holding onto Esau’s heel – Gen. 25:25-26). But the times when God announces what a child’s name should be, it is always prophetic of what they would become. The name Jesus, or in Hebrew, Jehoshua, a variation of ‘Joshua’, means ‘The Lord is salvation’. It was actually a very common name in Israel at the time Jesus was born, because every Jewish mother longed for her son to be the Messiah who would deliver Israel. (We read of another man called Jesus in Col. 4:11.) But what a fitting name that God would give His own Son, so that we might know Him. We read, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17). Jesus Himself said, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12:47). The name ‘Jesus’ means ‘The Lord is salvation’. And in Him we find that salvation. Do you know Him personally today?