other
names of Moshe
משה · ירד · אבי גדור · חבר · אבי סוכו · יקותיאל
Bottom line
These are not synonyms but one man's ten names, and every one of them stays a transliterated name, never an English gloss. The six of Divrei HaYamim I 4:18 (Yered, Avigdor, Chever, Avi-Socho, Yekusiel, Avi-Zanoach) are read as Moshe by Vayikra Rabbah 1:3, each expounded from a Hebrew root; four more (Toviah, Shemayah, Ben Nesanel, Levi) follow. The one thing not to get wrong: the Midrash concludes that of all ten, the Torah and Hashem Himself call him only Moshe, the name Basyah gave him, and that conclusion is the point of the whole passage. Render the derashos by keeping the name in Hebrew and putting the root's meaning in a gloss.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| משה | Moshe | Moshe | Basyah's name for him, and the only one Torah uses (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3) |
| ירד | Yered | Yered | yarad, descend (Torah, Shechinah, mahn), or radah, to rule (Zevachim 102a) |
| אבי גדור | Avigdor | Avigdor | geder, a fence: father of the fence-makers (Megillah 13a) |
| חבר | Chever | Chever | chibbur, joining Israel to Hashem; or ע-ב-ר, punishment passed over |
| אבי סוכו | Avi-Socho | Avi-Socho | socheh, seer, father of prophets; or succah, shelter (Megillah 13a) |
| יקותיאל | Yekusiel | Yekusiel | tikvah, hope: he made Hashem Israel's hope |
| אבי זנוח | Avi-Zanoach | Avi-Zanoach | ז-נ-ח, forsake: father of those who forsook idolatry |
Where the authorities disagree
How many derashos each name carries. Vayikra Rabbah 1:3 gives Yered three readings: he brought the Torah down, he brought the Shechinah down, or, from lirdos, he ruled over Israel as its leader (see Zevachim 102a). Megillah 13a adds a fourth, that the mahn descended in his days, and Taanis 9a specifies in his merit. Chever likewise has two: chibbur, that he joined Israel to Hashem, which the Vilna Gaon (to Divrei HaYamim I 4:18) ties to his erecting the Mishkan; or ע-ב-ר, presumably (so the column reads it) on the interchange of ches and ayin, that he made punishment and retribution pass over, which the Midrash says cryptically and which the column takes, in its own voice ("which I think"), to mean his pleading with Hashem after the Eigel. Avi-Socho has two: from socheh, a gazer or seer, a codeword for prophecy, so that he is father of the nevi'im in that he reached a level of prophecy none of his successors matched; and Megillah 13a, that he was a succah over Israel by the abundance of his merits (see Targum Rav Yosef there), which the Vilna Gaon applies to his shielding them after Taveirah (Bamidbar 11:2).
Who gave which name. The Midrash's own conclusion implies only Moshe came from Basyah. The apocryphal Divrei HaYamim Shel Moshe assigns each name to a different giver: Basyah, Moshe; Amram, Chever, since for this son's sake he remarried the wife he had divorced; Yocheved, Yekusiel; Miriam, Yered, since she went down to the river to see his fate; Aharon, Avi-Zanoach, since his father had forsaken his mother; Kehas, Avigdor, since the decree against the boys was repealed at his birth; the wet-nurse, Socho (Zayis Raanan notes she was hired alongside Yocheved's own nursing); and Israel, Shemayah ben Nesanel. Sefer HaYashar and Yalkut Shimoni to Shemos 166 carry the same tradition. The column closes the point by sending the reader to Ibn Ezra (to Shemos 2:22 and 4:20), who dismisses Divrei HaYamim Shel Moshe as a reliable source, since it comes neither from the nevi'im nor from Chazal. It does not itself rule between them.
Whether Yehonasan is one of the names. Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, on the strength of Yetziv Pisgam (read on the second day of Shavuos) and its "humble man Yehonasan," claims it as one of Moshe's ten. His grandson-in-law Rabbi Chanoch Henoch Teitelbaum of Sassov points out that no rabbinic source claims Yehonasan as one of Moshe's names. The column does not rule between them, but adds a note of its own: Yehonasan and Nesanel are built the same way, a cognate of nasan plus a theophoric element, Yeho- as a prefix standing for the first three letters of the Shem HaMeforash in the one and -el as a suffix in the other; and Bava Basra 109b-110a identifies the idolatrous priest Yehonasan ben Gershom ben Menasheh (Shoftim 18:30, where the nun of Menasheh is superscripted as though not part of the text) as Moshe's own grandson, since Menasheh without the nun is Moshe and Moshe had a son named Gershom. So, the column concludes, even if Yehonasan is not named as one of Moshe's own names, it is certainly the name of a grandson who may have been named for him.
Whether Tamar was his original name. Rabbi Gedaliah Ibn Yachya (Shalsheles HaKabbalah) cites a tradition that Moshe's original name was Tamar or Tamur, meaning "raising" in Egyptian. The column knows of no other source for it, and neither does this entry.
Distinctions
The four additional names
Vayikra Rabbah adds four beyond the six of Divrei HaYamim I 4:18, bringing the count to ten. Toviah, because at his birth his mother "saw him, that he was good" (tov, Shemos 2:2). Most people today say Tuviah, though Tanach vowelizes it Toviah; Dr. Alexander Beider notes in his Dictionary of Ashkenazi Given Names that scholars do not know what caused the vowel shift. Others in Tanach bear the name: the head of a family that returned with Zerubavel (Ezra 2:60, Nechemiah 7:62), a kohen in the early Second Beis HaMikdash period (Zechariah 6:10, 6:14), and the Ammonite slave who tried to thwart Nechemiah's rebuilding of Yerushalayim (Nechemiah 2:10-19, 3:35, 4:1, 6-7, 13:4-7). Shemayah (Divrei HaYamim I 24:6), because Hashem heard (shama) his tefillos; the man of that name in Divrei HaYamim is read as Moshe because he had a part in establishing the twenty-four mishmaros, which go back to Moshe. Others in Tanach carry it too: a true navi in Yeravam's day (Melachim I 12:22; the article prints II Kings 12:22, and Divrei HaYamim II 12:5-15), a false one in Yirmiyahu's (Yirmiyahu 29:31-32), and various other Levi'im and Yisraelim. Ben Nesanel (Divrei HaYamim I 24:6), because he gave (nasan) the Torah over from Hashem to Israel. Levi, because he was Levi's grandson.
Heiman
Bava Basra 15a identifies Heiman of Tehillim as Moshe. The name means the trustworthy one, and the column says that identification might be the basis for the Zohar's title for him, Raya Mehemna, the trustworthy shepherd.
The point of the list
Vayikra Rabbah 1:3 and Shemos Rabbah 1:26 close by noting that of all ten, the Torah uses only Moshe, the name Basyah gave, as her reward for the kindness of taking him in; even Hashem calls him by it. Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz reads each name as a different facet of his greatness, and Moshe in particular as the trait he absorbed from Basyah, giving up one's life to do chesed for another, which is why he later asked to be erased from Hashem's book to save Israel after the Eigel (Shemos 32:32).
Rendering guidance
- Trap: an English rendering absorbs the name and kills the derashah. Do not write "the Descender" for Yered or "Father of the Fence" for Avigdor. Keep Yered, Avigdor, Chever, and gloss: "Yered, from yarad, to descend."
- Where the Midrash gives two or three readings of one name, list them; choosing one silently is a translation of the Midrash, not of the pasuk.
- Names are roman and unitalicized. The words expounded from them (geder, chibbur, socheh, tikvah) are terms and take italics or transliteration markup.
- Divrei HaYamim I 4:18, on Radak's plain sense, names three children born to Kalev by his "Jewish" wife: Yered father of Gedor, Chever father of Socho, and Yekusiel father of Zanoach. Chazal teach that the whole of Divrei HaYamim is written for derashah and is not to be read literally (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3), and the Midrash reads all three as Moshe, a reading the column says is bolstered by Basyah's appearing at the end of that very passage. Do not present the Midrash as the pshat.
- On whether the name Moshe is a Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian names Monius or Mosh, the column raises the question and refers the reader to its author's own Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew, Appendix B, rather than settling it.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Moses' Many Names," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 21 Teves 5782 (2021-12-25): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9503-moses-many-names.md. Primary loci: Divrei HaYamim I 4:18 and 24:6; Shemos 2:1-2, 2:22, 4:20, 32:32; Bamidbar 11:2; Shoftim 18:30; Melachim I 12:22; Ezra 2:60; Nechemiah 2:10-19, 3:35, 4:1, 6-7, 7:62, 13:4-7; Zechariah 6:10, 6:14; Yirmiyahu 29:31-32; Divrei HaYamim II 12:5-15; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3; Shemos Rabbah 1:26; Megillah 13a; Taanis 9a; Zevachim 102a; Bava Basra 15a and 109b-110a; Avos 1:1; Vilna Gaon and Targum Rav Yosef to Divrei HaYamim I 4:18; Ibn Ezra to Shemos 2:22 and 4:20; Shalsheles HaKabbalah; Sefer HaYashar and Yalkut Shimoni Shemos 166; Divrei HaYamim Shel Moshe, printed in Rabbi J. D. Eisenstein's Otzar Midrashim p. 358; the piyyut Yetziv Pisgam; Dr. Alexander Beider, Dictionary of Ashkenazi Given Names. Two loci are corrected against the article: it prints Shemos 2:1 for "she saw him, that he was good," which is Shemos 2:2, and II Kings 12:22 for the navi Shemayah in Yeravam's day, which is Melachim I 12:22.