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I’ve a short question about the biblical name Yoash (יאש or יואש or יהואש, see e.g. מלכים ב:י"ב:ב), online I came across the meaning of: ‘HaShem has given’ or ‘Given by HaShem’, many times. But how can the word אש, which means fire, mean ‘given’?

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    It seems to me the name means "fire of G-d."
    – ezra
    Commented Nov 18, 2018 at 17:28
  • Maybe it’s a combination of the Tetragrammaton (the leading yud) and אש as in en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophory_in_the_Bible
    – Dmitry Minkovsky
    Commented Nov 18, 2018 at 17:30
  • Why would it not mean כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵשׁ אֹכְלָה הוּא?
    – wfb
    Commented Nov 19, 2018 at 15:22
  • The "אש" part is spelled with a kamatz: אָשׁ. Hence, not necessarily the same word as fire, which is spelled with a tzereh: אֵשׁ.
    – Harel13
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 19:42

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R. Eleazar of Worms (Rimze Haftarot, Parshat Shekalim, p. 4b) asserted that the etymology of the name is ‘despair’, for the people had despaired of Davidic reign (cited by Prof. Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews vol. 6 p. 354).

R. Eleazar’s connotation may have been predicated on the Bavli (BB 91b).

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