The Name Game (Part 2): Do You Like Your Name?

In my last post I talked about how it was a common practice in the ancient world for captives to be renamed by their captors. We considered Daniel and his three friends as a case study. While Daniel 1 records their renaming, there are several other references to it later in the book. In 4:7-9 King Nebuchadnezzar admits that he had renamed Daniel after his own god. Daniel takes it with no recorded complaint. In 5:11-13 the next king Belshazzar is counseled by his queen to call on the man formerly known as Daniel for insight into the vision of the handwriting on the wall,

There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him, and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers, because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”

It should be noted that last night of the Babylonian empire, in stunned deference they revert to calling Belteshazzar Daniel! But later under the Persian we find that the Belteshazzar name continued to stick (10:1-2). So why doesn’t Daniel make an issue of it? Was he really intimidated by his captors? I don’t think so, he had a lot of leverage in the dream interpretation gig, yet he was respectful. It’s like he knew who he was in the Lord and nothing else mattered even as “third ruler in the kingdom”.

While I am not justifying the practice of naming as a show of power and control, I do ask the question what difference it makes when we know who we really are…or perhaps whose we are. It didn’t seem to bother Daniel and company. He was following in the footsteps of Joseph who, when he was taken from the dungeon and appeared before Pharaoh, was given a new name (and a hyphenated one at that) Zaphenath-paneah (Genesis 41:45).

Sometimes we get stuck with a bad name at the hands of our parents , take Phineas’ son for example, “And she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel!’ because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband.” (1 Samuel 4:21) He was named “No glory” right from the start—ouch! Or perhaps we could think of Nabal ” in 1 Samuel 25 whose name means “fool”, as his wife pointed out to David, “Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him…” (v.25) Or what about Jacob the “heel-grabber”? Or Isaac (laughter), Issachar (wages), or Jabez (caused pain)? The possibilities are nearly endless.

So are we doomed to be only what others have named us to be? No, we have a choice. We can always respond to God's love and live for his glory no matter what our past might suggest. Nabal had an opportunity to make a wise and diplomatic decision but chose not to. Jacob was concerned about the things of God, but had to learn to surrender to God’s plan and timing. By the way, God changed his name to Israel. God is in the business of changing names, bad names for good and good names for better.

The question facing us is, will we receive his blessing or insist on our own way?

 

More on this next time!