🔼The name Aspatha: Summary
- Meaning
- Given By The Horse
- Store Room
- Etymology
- From (1) a verb that means to give, and (2) a noun that means horse.
- From (1) the verb אסף (asop), to gather, and (2) the noun תא (ta), chamber.
🔼The name Aspatha in the Bible
The name Aspatha occurs only once in the Bible. Aspatha is one of the ten sons of Haman, who were lynched by the Jews after Hama's plan to destroy them had been thwarted by Esther (Esther 9:7).
🔼Etymology and meaning of the name Aspatha
The name Aspatha is a Persian name, Aspadata, according to Pott & Benfey and confirmed by Gesenius. It's formed from the Persian verb espe, meaning to give, and the noun aspo, meaning horse. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names translates this name with Given By The Horse, and explains that the horse must have been Bramah under the form of a horse. Jones also submits that the proper Lacedemonian name Hipposthenes is of similar meaning.
If the scribes who wrote down this name went from the Persian Aspadata to the Hebrew Aspatha, they obviously took some liberties in spelling. Why they did that or what they were trying to convey (if they were) is hard to guess at, but the way they spelled the name Aspatha, it looks like it consists of two familiar elements. The first part of Aspatha looks like it has to do with the verb אסף (asop), meaning to gather:
אסף
The verb אסף ('asap), means to gather or collect, mostly in reference to harvests, and with a connotation of removal. The nouns אסף ('osep), אסיף ('asip), אסף ('asop), אספה ('asepa), אספה ('assupa) and אספסף ('asapsup) all express nuances of the act of gathering, things gathered, collections or storages. Also note the similarities in form with the ספף סוף ספה (spp swp sph) cluster of words, which all have to do with the extraction of one continuum from another.
The second part of the name Aspatha looks like the noun תא (ta), meaning chamber (1 Kings 4:28). In Hebrew the name Aspatha means Store Room.