Numbers 13:16

Num 13:16 These [are] the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.

Ver. 16. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.] His name was now changed from Save us O God, to God shall save us. Under the law which brings us, as it were, into a wilderness, we may desire, wish, and pray that there were a Saviour: but under the gospel, we are sure of salvation, and that our Jehoshua hath bound himself "to fulfil all righteousness" for us.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Num 13:16. Jehoshua — Oshea denotes a desire of salvation, signifying, Save, we pray thee; but Jehoshua, or Joshua, includes a promise of salvation, He will save. So this was a prophecy of his succession to Moses in the government, and of the success of his arms. Joshua is the same name with Jesus, of whom Joshua was a type. He was the Saviour of God’s people from the powers of Canaan, Christ from the powers of hell.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Oshea--that is, "a desire of salvation." Jehoshua, by prefixing the name of God, means "divinely appointed," "head of salvation," "Saviour," the same as Jesus [Mat 1:21, Margin].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 16. And Moses called Oshea Jehoshua.] Oshea, Heb. הושע should be written Hoshea: the word signifies saved, or a saviour, or salvation; but יהושע, he shall save, or the salvation of God; a letter, says Calmet, of the incommunicable name of God, being added to his former name. This was not the first time in which he had the name Joshua; see Ex 17:9, and the note there. Some suppose he had this change of name in consequence of his victory over Amalek; see Ex 17:13-14.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(16) And Moses called Oshea . . . —It is not distinctly stated that the change of name took place at this time. It may have taken place at an earlier period, and have been confirmed on the present occasion, as in the case of Israel (Gen_32:28; Gen_35:10), and of Bethel (Gen_28:19; Gen_35:15). On the other hand, it is quite possible that the name may have been proleptically adopted in Exo_17:9; Exo_17:13; Exo_24:13; Exo_32:17; Exo_33:11, and Num_11:28. The original name Hoshea means help, or salvation. The name Joshua, or Jehoshua, means Jehovah is help, or salvation.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. Joshua has not been hitherto mentioned in P . Exo_17:9; Exo_17:13; Exo_24:13; Exo_32:17; Exo_33:11, Num_11:28 are all J E . Hoshea, as the name of the son of Nun, is found only in Num_13:8 and Deu_32:44 (in the latter probably a textual error for ‘Joshua’). ‘Since, according to P , the name of Yahweh [Jehovah] was not revealed until after Joshua’s birth (Exo_6:3), a name containing Yeho = Yahweh could not have been given him at birth. P therefore attributes the name to Moses’ (Gray).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they ascended by the south,.... When they returned, after they had searched the land, then they came into the south country again, which was in their way to Kadesh, where the camp of Israel remained; they are said to ascend, because of the hill country they again came to; for their coming to Hebron, and carrying a cluster of grapes from that place, not far from thence, was upon their return:

and came unto Hebron; which was in the hill country of Judea, in the tribe of Judah afterwards, which before was called Kirjatharba; in the original text it is, "he came" (s), Caleb, and he only, according to Jarchi and the Rabbins in Abendana; and certain it is that he was there, and he had this place on which his feet trod given him for an inheritance, Jos 14:9; and it is very probable that the spies did not go together, but perhaps singly, and at most but two together, which seems to be the case here by what follows:

where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were; where Anak, and these his three sons, dwelt, who were giants; and perhaps from thence Hebron before this was called Kirjatharbah, "the city of the four"; or from Arba, the father of Anak:

now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt; or Tanais, as the Targum of Jonathan, whence one of the nomes of Egypt was called the Tanitic nome: it was the metropolis of that country, and may be observed, to abate the pride and vanity of that kingdom, which boasted of its antiquity. Josephus says (t), that the inhabitants of Hebron not only reckoned it more ancient than any of the cities of the land, but than Memphis in Egypt, accounting it (then in his time) 2300 years old; but who it was built by is not certain; Jarchi thinks it is possible that Ham built Hebron for Canaan his younger son, before he built Zoan for Mizraim his eldest son; which does not seem likely.

(s) "et venit", Montanus, Tigurine version, Drusius, so Onkelos; "et venit Caleb", Junius & Tremellius. (t) De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 9. sect. 7.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Oshea, Hoshea, or Hosea, the name also of the last king of Israel and the first minor prophet, means “deliverance” or and by the hand of him who bore the title of “God’s salvation.” Jehoshua was contracted (compare Neh 8:17) into Jeshua.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Oshea notes a desire of salvation, signifying, Save, we pray thee, but Jehoshua, or Joshua, includes a promise of salvation, that he should save, or that God by his hands should save the people. So this was a prophecy of his succession to Moses in the government, and of the success of his arms.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Oshea — Hebrew, help, is changed into Jehoshua or Joshua, Hebrew, Jehovah-help. See Introduction to Joshua, page 7. It was an occasional custom for Hebrews to change their names if, at any point in their lives, there was a radical change of character or a marked transition from obscurity to distinction. Gen_17:5; Gen_32:28. It is to be noted that the exact time when Moses made this change is not indicated here. The change may have been previously made, while attention is called to it here. He is called Joshua in Exo_17:9; Exo_17:13; Exo_24:13; Exo_32:17; Exo_33:11; Num_11:28.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua. The change was from vewOh (Hoshea, help or salvation) to vuwOhy (Jehoshua the same name with the first syllable of the sacred name prefixed, and one of the vowel points modified). It was afterwards contracted into Wvye, (Jeshua; cf. with Neh_8:17) and has come to us in its current form through the Vulgate. The Septuagint has here epwnomase to Ihsoun , and so the name appears in the New Testament. It is an obvious difficulty that Joshua has already been called by his new name at Exo_17:9, and in every other place where he has been mentioned. In fact he is only once elsewhere called Hoshea, and that in a place (Deu_32:44) where we should certainly not have expected it. There are two ways of explaining the difficulty, such as it is. We may suppose that the change of name was really made at this time, as the narrative seems (on the face of it) to assert; and then the previous mentions of Joshua by his subsequent and more familiar name will be cases of that anticipation which is so common in Scripture. (cf., e.g., Mat_9:9 Mar_2:14) Or we may suppose, what is perhaps more in harmony with the course of Joshua"s life, that the change bad been already made at the time of the victory over Amalek. In that case the Vav consec. in arqiYiw (and... called) must be referred to the order of thought, not of time, and a sufficient reason must be shown for the interpolation of the statement in this particular place. Such a reason may fairly be found in the probable fact that the names of the spies were copied out of the tribal registers, and that Joshua still appeared under his original name in those registers. As to the significance of the change, it is not easy to estimate it aright. On the one hand, the sacred syllable entered into so many of the Jewish names that it could not have seemed a very marked change; on the other hand, the fact that our Saviour received the same name because he was our Saviour throws a halo of glory about it which we cannot ignore. In the Divine providence Hoshea became Joshua because he was destined to be the temporal saviour of his people, and to lead them into their promised rest.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jehoshua - Oshea notes a desire of salvation, signifying, Save we pray thee; but Jehoshua, or Joshua, includes a promise of salvation, He will save. So this was a prophecy of his succession to Moses in the government, and of the success of his arms. Josh. is the same name with Jesus, of whom Joshua was a type. He was the saviour of God's people from the powers of Canaan, Christ from the powers of hell.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Jehoshua

i.e. Saviour, or Deliverer.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ויקרא משה להושע וגו׳ AND MOSES CALLED HOSHEA [THE SON OF NUN JEHOSHUA] — By giving him this name יהושע which is a compound of יה and הושע “God may save”, he in effect prayed for him: “May God save you from the evil counsel of the spies” (Sotah 34b).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.