The meaning of Jesse in the Bible
(From International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
jes'-e (yishay, meaning doubtful; according to Gesenius it = "wealthy"; Olshausen, Gram., sections 277 f., conjectures yesh yah, "Yahweh exists"; Wellhausen (I Samuel 14:49) explains it as 'abhishay (see ABISHAI); Iessai; Ruth 4:17, Ruth 4:22; 1Sa. 16; 17; 20; 22; I Samuel 25:10; II Samuel 20:1; II Samuel 23:1; I Kings 12:16; I Chronicles 10:14; I Chronicles 12:18; Psalms 72:20; Isaiah 11:1, Isaiah 11:10 ( = Romans 15:12)); Matthew 1:5-6; Acts 13:22): Son of Obed, grandson of Boaz, and father of King David. The grouping of the references to Jesse in 1Sa. is bound up with that of the grouping of the whole narrative of David and Saul. See SAMUEL, BOOKS OF. There seem to be three main veins in the narrative, so far as Jesse is concerned.
(1) In I Samuel 16:1-13, where Jesse is called the Bethlehemite. Samuel is sent to seek among Jesse's sons successor to Saul.
Both Samuel and Jesse fail to discern at first Yahweh's choice, Samuel thinking that it would be the eldest son (I Samuel 16:6), while Jesse had not thought it worth while to call the youngest to the feast (I Samuel 16:11).
(2) (a) In I Samuel 16:14-23, Saul is mentally disturbed, and is advised to get a harpist. David "the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite" is recommended by a courtier, and Saul sends to Jesse for David.
"And Jesse took ten loaves (so emend and translate, and not as the Revised Version (British and American), "an ass laden with bread"), and a (skin) bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them" to Saul as a present with David, who becomes a courtier of Saul's with his father's consent.
(b) The next mention of Jesse is in three contemptuous references by Saul to David as "the son of Jesse" in I Samuel 20:27, I Samuel 20:30-31, part of the quarrel-scene between Saul and Jonathan. (But it is not quite certain if 1Sa. 20 belongs to the same source as I Samuel 16:14-23.) In answer to the first reference, Jonathan calls his friend "David," and Saul repeats the phrase "the son of Jesse," abusing Jonathan personally (I Samuel 20:30, where the meaning is uncertain). The reference to David as "the son of Jesse" here and in the following verse is contemptuous, not because of any reproach that might attach itself to Jesse, but, as Budde remarks, because "an upstart is always contemptuously referred to under his father's name" in courts and society. History repeats itself!
(c) Further references of a like kind are in the passage, 1Sa. 22:6-23, namely, in I Samuel 22:7-8, I Samuel 22:13 by Saul, and repeated by Doeg in I Samuel 22:9.
(d) The final one of this group is in I Samuel 25:10, where Nabal sarcastically asks "Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse?"
(3) The parts of 1Sa. 17 through 18:5 which are omitted by Septuagint B, i.e. 1Sa. 17:12-31,41,48b,50,55 through 18:6. Here Jesse is mentioned as "an Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah" (I Samuel 17:12, not "that" Ephrathite, which is a grammatically impossible translation of the Massoretic Text), Ephrath or Ephrathah being another name for Bethlehem, or rather for the district. He is further said to have eight sons (I Samuel 17:12), of whom the three eldest had followed Saul to the war (I Samuel 17:13).
Jesse sends David, the shepherd, to his brothers with provisions (I Samuel 17:17). Afterward David, on being brought to Saul and asked who he is, answers, "I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite" (I Samuel 17:58). Jesse is also described (I Samuel 17:12) as being "in the days of Saul an old man, advanced in years" (so emend and translate, not as the Revised Version (British and American), "stricken in years among men"). The mention of his having 8 sons in I Samuel 17:12 is not in agreement with I Chronicles 2:13-15, which gives only 7 sons with two sisters, but where Syriac gives 8, adding, from I Chronicles 27:18, Elihu which Massoretic Text has there probably by corruption (Curtis, Chronicles, 88). I Samuel 16:10 should be translated" and Jesse made his 7 sons to pass before Samuel" (not as the Revised Version (British and American), the King James Version, "seven of his sons"). Budde (Kurz. Hand-Komm., "Samuel," 114) holds I Samuel 16:1-13 to be a late Midrash, and (ibid., 123 f.) omits (a) "that" in I Samuel 17:12; (b) also "and he had 8 sons" as due to a wrong inference from I Samuel 16:10; (c) the names of the 3 eldest in I Samuel 17:13; (d) I Samuel 17:14; he then changes I Samuel 17:15, and reads thus: (12) "Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem-Judah, whose name was Jesse who was .... (years) old at the time of Saul. (13) And the 3 eldest sons of Jesse had marched with Saul to the war, (14) and David was the youngest, (15) and David had remained to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. (16) Now the Philistines came," etc.
According to all these narratives in 1 Samuel, whether all 3 be entirely independent of one another or not, Jesse had land in Bethlehem, probably outside the town wall, like Boaz (see BOAZ) his grandfather (Ruth 4:17). In I Samuel 22:3, I Samuel 22:1 David entrusts his father and mother to the care of the king of Moab, but from I Samuel 20:29 some have inferred that Jesse was dead (although most critics assign I Samuel 22:3 at any rate to the same stratum as chapter 20).
Jonathan tells Saul that David wanted to attend a family sacrificial feast at Bethlehem (I Samuel 20:29). Massoretic Text reads, "And he, my brother, has commanded me," whereas we should probably read with Septuagint, "and my brethren have commanded me," i.e. the members of the clan, as we have farther on in the verse, "Let me get away, I pray thee, and see my brethren." As to Jesse's daughters, see ABIGAIL; NAHASH.
(4) Of the other references to Jesse, the most noteworthy is that in Isaiah 11:1 : "There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit," i.e. out of Jesse's roots (compare Revelation 5:5). "Why Jesse and not David?" asks Duhm; and he answers, "Because the Messiah will be a second David, rather than a descendant of David." Marti explains it to mean that he will be, not from David, but from a collateral line of descent. Duhm's explanation suggests a parallelism between David and Christ, of whom the former may be treated as a type similar to Aaron and Melchizedek in He. Saul might pour contempt upon "the son of Jesse," but Isaiah has given Jesse here a name above all Hebrew names, and thus does Providence mock "society."
See also ROOT OF JESSE.
David Francis Roberts
See more on the meaning of Jesse in the Bible:
Jesse {Easton's Bible Dictionary}
Jesse {Hitchcock's Bible Name}
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