🔼The name Pedaiah: Summary
- Meaning
- Yah Upgrades, He Upgrades To The Standard Of Yah
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb פדה (pada), to upgrade the operating standard, and (2) יה (yah), the shortened name of the Lord.
🔼The name Pedaiah in the Bible
There are quite a few men named Pedaiah mentioned in the Bible, among whom the father of Zerubbabel:
- Pedaiah of Rumah, who was the father of Zebidah, who was the mother of king Jehoiakim of Judah (2 Kings 23:36 ).
- A grandson of king Jehoiakim, and son of Jeconiah, the last king of Judah nicknamed the prisoner. This Pedaiah was the father (or grandfather) of Zerubbabel (1 Chronicles 3:18-19).
- The father of Joel, chief of Manasseh in reign of king David (1 Chronicles 27:20). In this instance our name is spelled פדיהו, Pedaiahu. It's common for names that end on yah to also occur as the yahu-variant.
- A son of Parosh, who helped repair Jerusalem after the return from the exile (Nehemiah 3:25). This man is probably not the same as the father of Zerubbabel but may be the same as the following:
- One of the men who were position at the left hand of Ezra, when he read the Book of the Law to the people (Nehemiah 8:4).
- One of the ancestors of Sallu of Benjamin who resettled Jerusalem (Nehemiah 11:7).
- One of the Levites who were in charge of the storehouses were the provisions for the Levites were kept (Nehemiah 13:13).
🔼Etymology of the name Pedaiah
The name Pedaiah consists of two elements. The first part comes from the verb פדה (pada), to pay an individual price for a collective higher level of freedom:
פדה
The verb פדה (pada) describes a letting go of an old standard (say, phonetic spelling) and assuming a new one (standardized spelling). The new standard may appear more restrictive at a personal level but it allows a much greater precision and thus basin of exchange and thus liberty at the collective level.
This verb speaks of an individual price paid for collective freedom and is as such often translated as to ransom or redeem. In the stories of the Bible, the old standard often appears as captor or abductor or slave-driving task master.
Nouns פדוים (peduyim), פדות (pedut), פדיום (pidyom), פדיון (pidyon) and פדין (pidyon) all mean ransom or price of redemption.
The second part of our name is יה (yah), which is an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
🔼Pedaiah meaning
For a meaning of the name Pedaiah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List has Yahweh Redeems. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads Redemption Of The Lord. And BDB Theological Dictionary proposes Yah Hath Ransomed.