Today we will finish presenting the heroines of the Book of Genesis to enter the Exodus, to continue discovering name ideas for girls inspired by the Old Testament and telling the stories and the meaning of such beautiful names.
Asenat, the Egyptian wife
We remember Joseph, the penultimate of the sons of Jacob, very loved by him since he was the son of his favorite wife, Raquel. We will not extend with the details of his adventure but if it is necessary to remember that, envied by his brothers for his dreams in which he presented himself as the most important of them and for the excessive love his father showed him, he ended up being attacked by them and sold as a slave.
While Jacob was crying for his teenage son whom he believed dead, eaten by a wild animal, Joseph ended up in Egypt, sold to a high official of the pharaoh, Putifar. Putifar's wife, which the Bible does not give the name but that tradition has called Zuleica, he will try, in vain, to seduce Joseph and, when rejected, accuses him of having attacked her and he is imprisoned.
After repeatedly demonstrating his intelligence, his skills as an administrator and his ability to interpret dreams, José will not only get out of prison but will become the right hand of the pharaoh himself. José will live surrounded by dignities, as a senior Egyptian and was granted as wife to the daughter of Putifar (it is not clear that it is the same Putifar of the beginning of the adventure), called Asenat.
The name of Asenat it means "dedicated to the goddess Neith," a goddess of the Egyptian pantheon who relates to hunting, war, wisdom and is also identified as the mother of the gods and caretaker of the dead.
From Asenat We don't know much, but she was the mother of Joseph's two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim, who, will end up being blessed by old Jacob as if they were their own children and will therefore receive a double inheritance from their grandfather to compensate for Joseph's suffering in the years of slavery or the great joy that turned out to be the encounter with his family.
Well, José, in short, will end up welcoming his father and his brothers and nephews, up to 70 people, in Egypt, to save them from hunger in a time of terrible drought, the famous years of "skinny cows" that Joseph had anticipated translating dreams of the pharaoh
Then we left the sons of Jacob with their families living in Egypt and they stayed there for many years.
Puah and Sifrah
After a long time it turned out that the people of Israel had grown a lot and Pharaoh himself feared his power, so he spoke with the midwives who attended to the women of the Hebrews and ordered them to kill the men as they were born. The women, of whom we know the name, were Puah, which means "girl" and Sifrah, which means "beauty" or "improved", coming from the Hebrew LE-SAPER, which is "to improve."
The two midwives disobeyed the pharaoh and let the babies live despite what they had been ordered. Asked by the pharaoh for the reasons of the survival of the boys, they said that the women were very strong and gave birth before they arrived, so they could no longer do anything against the babies.
Very brave, resisting injustice and disobeying criminal laws these midwives Puah and Sifrah, which saved so many lives playing, surely, their own.
Miriam and Sephora
The pharaoh will not conform and order that all boys be thrown into the river. When the protagonist of Exodus is born, the boy who will be Moses, appears watching over him an older sister he had, who was the one who was watching that nothing happened to him on his journey through the Nile and suggested to the savior, that it was not another that the daughter of the cruel pharaoh, who hired Hebrew nurses to feed the little rescued from the waters. And so, Moises' true mother was his nurse hired by the adoptive mother. Women disobeying the law and creating, weaving, among all, life.
The sister of Moses, whose name is not initially given to us, will then be presented as a character of enormous strength. His name is Miriam or Mirjam. The etymology of the name in Hebrew means "bitter sea" or "myrrh of the sea" coming from the Hebrew words MIR and JAM, which mean, respectively, "bitter" and "sea".
It would then be "bitter sea" or "myrrh of the sea" or "tears of the sea". More modern interpretations of this name derive from Arabic (Egypt), from the root "mry" = "beloved". Or, from the modern Hebrew and the letters "m-r-y" another meaning is derived that would become "fertility" and Mirjam would then be "the fruitful one." Clearly, there is no single answer about the meaning of this name.
Before returning with Miriam, who will accompany Moises in the Exodus, we will introduce his wife, Sefora, whose name is in Hebrew ZIPPORAH and means "bird", represents a white bird, a bird. The charming Séfora was neither Hebrew nor was she a submissive woman who let herself be driven, moreover, she starred in one of those chilling scenes in which terror mixed with admiration. I think I should be a priestess or have but that much, cold blood.
Moses had saved her and her sisters from marauders and soon Moses took her as a wife and stayed to live in Maidan, residing there 40 years. They had two children, Gersón and Eliezer.
The baby was a baby of days when Moses received from God the mandate to return to Egypt to prepare the salvation of his people. The interpretations of what happens then are varied, but the reality is that the text says that God was angry with Moses and wanted to kill him, becoming very serious. Sefora understood what was happening, which was nothing other than that little Eliezer had not been circumcised as ordered by the Hebrew tradition and she, with a flint, cuts her son's foreskin and touches the genitals of Moises with the stained stone, claiming him as a "blood husband". Awesome the scene. With her reaction the kind and quiet Saphora You earn my admiration.
He mentions the Exodus, later, already on the long journey in the desert, that Moises's wife was despised by her brothers for being Kushita (Nubia) and, therefore, presumably black-skinned. It is not clear what woman this is, if they refer to the Maidanite Sefora for some intricate etymological relationship that I do not get to see very clearly or another partner of Moises. We don't know much about her anyway.
However, if it is related to the reappearance of Miriam in the history. From it we know that he was traveling in Sinai and had great influence in the town, like the other brother, Aaron, given the difficulty that Moises had to express himself verbally. Miriam is considered a prophetess and directed women in songs and poems of praise to God.
It happened that she and Aaron were annoyed with Moses by his wife Kushita and murmured, considering that they were also messengers of God. But He put them in their place very bluntly and also punished Miriam with leprosy, although the infection lasted only 7 days and then was forgiven, cured and reintegrated into the town on his trip.
None of our characters will cross the Jordan and end their days seeing, from afar, the Promised Land to which their children and grandchildren will be led by Joshua, a descendant of Ephraim, the son of Joseph and Asenat. But the story of the Hebrews in the Promised Land and the adventures of their heroines will leave them for another day.
With this we finish the review of the Books of Genesis and Exodus, in which we have introduced you to the most beautiful biblical heroines of names and symbolism, to give you ideas about female baby names.
In Babies and more | Female baby names: Old Testament characters (I), (II) and (III), Baby names: mythological heroines (I), (II), (III), Female baby names: Egyptian goddesses and queens, Names baby boys: Egyptian gods and pharaohs, Female baby names: Egyptian origin, Baby names: Bible characters
