🔼The name Reaiah: Summary
- Meaning
- Vision Of Yah
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb ראה (ra'a), to see or understand, and (2) יה (yah), the shortened name of the Lord.
🔼The name Reaiah in the Bible
There are three men named Reaiah in the Bible:
- A descendant of Judah, namely the son of Shobal and the father of Jahath (1 Chronicles 4:2). This man is called Haroeh in 1 Chronicles 2:52. These two names may seem very different in English but in Hebrew it's obvious that both these names contain the same verbal element.
- A son of Micah of the tribe of Reuben (1 Chronicles 5:5).
- A patriarch of a family of temple servants, which returned from the Babylonian exile (Ezra 2:47, Nehemiah 7:50).
🔼Etymology of the name Reaiah
The name Reaiah consists of two elements, the final one being יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which in turn are abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
The first element of our name comes from the verb ראה (ra'a), meaning to see:
ראה
The verb ראה (ra'a) means to see, and by extension to understand. It may mean to become visible (of, say, an angel) or to become understandable (of, say, a theory). Noun ראה (ro'eh) means either seer, or prophetic vision, and noun מראה (mar'a) means either vision as means of revelation, or mirror. Nouns ראית (re'ut) and ראות (re'ut) mean a looking. Nouns ראי (ro'i) and מראה (mar'eh) mean sight or appearance. Adjective ראה (ra'eh) means seeing.
🔼Reaiah meaning
For a meaning of the name Reaiah, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads a rather curious Yahweh Has Provided For. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Vision Of The Lord. And BDB Theological Dictionary proposes Yah Has Seen.