Yeshua: The Name of Deliverance

He wasn’t called “Jesus.”

Not exactly.

The name “Jesus” is a Latin-English transliteration coming from the Greek name pronounced as “eeaysoos,” which was in turn a transliteration of the Hebrew name “Yeshua.”

The name “Yeshua” was extremely common in the days of Christ - perhaps why he was often identified as the son of Joseph of Nazareth, differentiating him from all the other Yeshuas running around.

Yeshua was also a late Hebrew shorthand of the centuries-old name “Yehoshua,” which equates to the name Joshua today.

What’s fascinating about this is commonality is that Yehoshua means “God delivers” while Yeshua simply means “deliverer,” as if to say that Yeshua is the very substance of God’s deliverance himself.

There are rich parallels here. For instance, Moses spoke of a Promised Land to come but it was Joshua who brought God’s people into the new city of milk and honey.

In a similar way, John the Baptist prophesied of one greater than he who was coming after him, yet died before seeing the completion of his ministry (similar to Moses).

It was Yeshua who followed, establishing a new kingdom for the people of God unlike any kingdom of man. Yeshua was the divine prophet of prophets who not only delivered his children from oppression, sin, and death, but delivered them into justice, life, and shalom.

Yeshua is our mighty deliverer because he is complete deliverance.