🔼The name Gideoni: Summary
- Meaning
- Of Gideon, Of Hewing Down, One Of The Fellers
- Etymology
- From the verb גדע (gada'), to hew down or cut off.
🔼The name Gideoni in the Bible
There's only one man named Gideoni in the Bible, but we only know about him because he was the father of Abidan, a leader among the Benjaminites. In Numbers 10:24 our name is spelled גדעוני, which shows that the letter נ (nun) is probably a remnant of the familiar ון extension, and that the name Gideoni is closely related to the name Gideon.
🔼Etymology of the name Gideoni
The name Gideoni comes from the verb גדע (gada'), meaning to hew down or cut off:
גדע
The verb גדע (gada') means to hew down or cut off, mostly of religious regalia and holy trees and such. Strikingly, there are no nouns formed from this verb, suggesting that whatever was cut off, was no longer discussed and even cut off from speech itself.
The letter י (yod) upon which our name ends may either form a possessive: my Gideon, or it makes Gideon into an adjective: Gideon-ish or from Gideon. It may also be a remnant of יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which in turn are abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
🔼Gideoni meaning
For a meaning of the name Gideoni, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads A Cutting Down. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes Feller. BDB Theological Dictionary doesn't translate this name but does list it under the root גדע.