No, it doesn't mean what you probably think it means, whatever that may be. It's the study of proper names. The Tanakh/Old Testament is the source of most of the popular names for Christian as well as Jewish children. I haven't done any sort of a study, my observations are purely impressionistic, but it's interesting to think about which names are popular and which are not. Of course fashions change and it depends on time, place and culture.
The supply of boy's names is much larger, since most of the stories focus on male exploits and many women are never named at all -- just So-And-So's wife or concubine. So most girl's names get used, from Eve to Sarah to Rachel and Leah, Miriam, Deborah, Naomi, Ruth . .. Hagar is unheard of, I suppose because of her lowly status as a concubine, although God shows favor on her. A commenter has informed us that Zipporah is common in Israel, although
it's pretty much unheard of in the English speaking world. Maybe because
the nickname would have to be Zippy? That doesn't seem so bad, actually. Although Rahab is a heroine, it's easy to see that her profession is disqualifying. However, Delilah is not uncommon, although she is a pardigm of evil -- a manipulative seductress and betrayer. I think for the most part parents just like the sound of a name, without thinking about or even knowing the story behind it.
As for boy's names, there is a good deal more that could be said, and maybe I'll get to some of it. For now, I'll just say that I wonder why Boaz has never caught on. He's an attractive figure, both kind hearted and rich. On the other hand, Saul is a pretty popular Jewish name but Saul is very much in God's doghouse, and as a matter of fact in the next chapter it gets even worse. Saul also happens to be the original name of the founder of Christianity, before he changed it to Paul.
Okay, in Chapter 21, David is fleeing for his life, he does what he has to do, including lying to a priest and obtaining consecrated bread under false pretenses. As we shall see, the consequences for the priest are ultimately fatal. I can't really fault him under the circumstances but I suppose this chapter is fodder for many a moral exegesis.
21 [a]David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
2 David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
4 But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”to
Commentators have tried to link this concept of consecrated bread to Exodus 19:15 in which Moses tells the men to abstain from sex before Yahweh appears on Mt. Sinai, but that has nothing to do with bread. In fact this is a de novo ritual, it doesn't have any connection to prior text.
5 David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever[b] I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd.
8 David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9 The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.”
Again, the word ephod comes up with no explanation of what it is.
David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
David at Gath
10 That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. 11
(The name of my dean, BTW.)
But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances:
“‘Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands’?”12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13
Not clear why this makes David afraid, unless he thinks Achish will harm him out of loyalty to Saul. But in that case how does pretending to be insane improve his situation?
So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
14 Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? 15 Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”
Footnotes
- 1 Samuel 21:1 In Hebrew texts 21:1-15 is numbered 21:2-16.
- 1 Samuel 21:5 Or from us in the past few days since
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