🔼The name Adbeel: Summary
- Meaning
- Disciplined Of God, Miracle Of God, Grief Of God
- Etymology
- From (1) either a verb that means to discipline, a noun that means miracle, or even the verb אדב (adab), to grieve, and (2) the word אל ('el), God.
🔼The name Adbeel in the Bible
There's only one Adbeel in the Bible and he is one of the twelve sons of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar (Genesis 25:13).
🔼Etymology of the name Adbeel
The name Adbeel consists of two elements. The final part is אל (El), the common abbreviation of Elohim:
אל אלה
In names אל ('el) usually refers to אלהים ('elohim), that is Elohim, or God, also known as אלה ('eloah). In English, the words 'God' and 'god' exclusively refer to the deity but in Hebrew the words אל ('l) and אלה ('lh) are far more common and may express approach and negation, acts of wailing and pointing, and may even mean oak or terebinth.
There are a few ways to go about the first part of the name Adbeel. BDB Theological Dictionary timidly considers relations to an Arabic verb meaning to invite or discipline (?). NOBSE Study Bible Name List goes along with that and reads Disciplined Of God.
The renowned theologian Gesenius sees relations with an Arabic noun meaning miracle and reads Miracle Of God.
Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) follows classical commentators, who read Sorrow Of God, but explains this by transposing letters left and right and arriving at the Hebrew verb דאב (da'eb), meaning to become faint, languish (Jeremiah 31:13, Psalm 88:10).
But Jones' caprioles aren't necessary because the ancients possibly were thinking of the Hebrew verb אדב (adab), meaning to grieve:
אדב
The verb אדב ('adab) is a rare verb that means to grieve or cause to grieve. It occurs just once in the Bible.
🔼Adbeel meaning
Whatever the name Adbeel was intended to mean, to a Hebrew audience it meant Grieved By God.