Yeshua*

Yeshua! Name of Mighty Power!
At which Satan's legions cower.
"God is help," it signifies,
Death and suffering it defies.

Another Yeshua to know,
Jericho's captor, hero who also
Israel out of Egypt led
And Canaan of its pagans shed.

Joshua, young stripling warrior then
Fought like older, battle-seasoned men.
Yeshua, doubtless younger still,
Wise grey-beards taught in their own temple.

Emmanuel meaning "God with us,"
God's beloved Son, whose selflessness
Life eternal for faithful ones won,
Sin's shackles by his death undone.

A potent play upon a word,
El +"us"— power from the Lord
emanating, may it ever
Our behavior mold forever.



*Yeshua and Joshua are slightly different versions     of the same name.
Original Words: William Walsham Howe, 1854

        New Words and Music:   Wendell Hall, as
         played by him on his electronic keyboard

Copyright 2000

*The correct transliteration of the Hebrew to English. In old English it was transliterated with a <j>, which at that time represented phoneme /y/, like the <j> of German. The spelling was retained after the sound shifted to its present phonetic value. Christ derives from the Greek translation of Hebrew Meshiach (the anointed one). Names should be transliterated, not translated. As a joke, I have been called Señor Vestíbulo, but in serious conversation am Señor Hall.

The Messiah's mission was performed among the Jews—the only non-pagan people on earth at that time—not the Greeks. In all propriety we should reverently refer to him and pray in his name as Yeshua Messiah. The softer syllables of Yeshua Messiah lend themselves much less to sacriligious profanation as an epithet and could curb blasphemous cursing to some extent.

As an infantryman in World War II, I participated in the liberation of the six concentration camps at Landsberg and at war's end was at Dachau. Since then, I have been a fierce defender of the Jews. Calling our Savior by a Greek name is a perverse manifestation of anti-Semitism. Praying in the name of the Messiah, we acknowledge his Jewishness and indirectly pay homage to the great chosen people who gave us the Old and New Testaments, including, of course, the prophecies regarding his first and second comings. Yeshua has replaced Howe's Jesus here. His work is in the public domain.

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