🔼The name John: Summary

🔼The name John in the Bible

Tav Hebrew Meaning – 22nd Letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Meaning mark, sign, omen, or seal, it is the symbol of truth, perfection, and completion. It represents the restoration Tikkun תיקון of all of existence. It is a return to the essence and purpose of one’s life. This does not mean that Paleo-Hebrew is perfectly clear and that now we can understand everything that is written in the Torah. Nevertheless, it does introduce a new perspective to the language.

The English name John is the transliteration of the Greek name Ioannes, and the Greek name Ioannes is the transliteration of the Hebrew name Johanan.

The Hebrew name Johanan was quite popular in ancient Israel, and the Greek name John, or rather Ioannes, subsequently shows up quite a few times in the New Testament (132 times, to be precise; see full concordance). There are five or six different Johns mentioned in the New Testament:

• John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1)
• John the Apostle (Matthew 4:21) who may or may not be the same as John the Revelator (Revelation 1:4)
• The father of SimonPeter (John 1:42).
• A Levite of high-priestly descent (Acts 4:6).
• A man also known as Mark (Acts 12:12). Peter averts to his mother Mary's house after the angel walks him out of prison.

🔼Etymology of the name John

The name John, or rather the Hebrew original, Johanan, consists of two elements. The first part is יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which is the truncated form of יהוה, which is YHWH, the Name of the Lord.

The final part of the names John and Johanan comes from the verb חנן (hanan), meaning to be gracious:

חנן

The verb חנן (hanan) means to be gracious or to favor. Nouns חן (hen), חנינה (hanina), תחנה (tehinna) and תחנון (tahanun) mean favor or grace. Adverb חנם (hinnam) means freely or gratis, and adjective חנון (hannun) means gracious.

🔼John meaning

For a meaning of the name John, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Yahweh Has Been Gracious, but for Johanan NOBSE reads Yahweh Is Gracious. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names does not treat John or Johanan separately and refers to the name Jehohanan, which Jones takes to mean The Lord Graciously Gave.

Answer: The tradition of casting lots is referenced several times in the Bible. Although they are thought to have been used in 1Samuel 14:40 - 42, when King Saul sought God's counsel, they were not. In this case, what was cast was not lots but rather the High Priest's Urim and Thummim used to render a decision.

The primary reason for casting lots was to render an impartial, unbiased decision on important matters. Once the lot was cast, no one could argue that the decision was the result of human intervention like nepotism, politics, favoritism, and so on.

What Does Gambling Mean In Hebrew Bible

The ancient practice of casting lots would be the same as throwing dice or flipping a coin we commonly use today. In ancient times, they used varying means to cast lots, depending on the place and local customs, such as coins, polished sticks, cards, dice, and so on.

What Does Gambling Mean In Hebrew Terms

What is particularly significant is the fact that, in ancient Israel, the High Priest did use from time to time the tradition of casting lots for important, uncertain decisions. It amounted to consulting God for the answer, as Proverbs states 'The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord' (Proverbs 16:33).

This impartial practice stops arguments and contentions between people (and no doubt could prevent them from occurring in the first place). The book of Proverbs states that 'Casting lots causes contentions to cease, and keeps the mighty apart' (Proverbs 18:18).

What Does Gambling Mean In Hebrew Translation

The last recorded use of casting lots in the Bible is in Acts chapter 1. It occurred when the early church, knowing they needed someone to replace Judas Iscariot as an apostle, asked for God to select one of two men for the awesome responsibility of preaching the gospel.

Then they cast their lots; and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles (Acts 1:26, HBFV).

Humans, for countless ages, have used mediums, readers of cards, palm readers and so on to help them make decisions and plan for the future. God condemns, as made abundantly clear in Deuteronomy 18, these occult practices.

There is nothing wrong, however, with a modern version of casting lots like flipping a coin to arrive at a decision or determine a winner. When done, however, it is important to remember that chance produces the outcome with no additional meaning attached to it.