The Hebrews: The Name Others Called Them

Who the Hebrews Are, and When

The Hebrews are not a household but a people, marked in Scripture by the word עִבְרִי (Strong's H5680). The dossier behind this study places them in the era of Egypt and the wilderness, around 1706 BC to 1451 BC, a range set on Ussher's chronology (1650). The name is spread thin and wide: thirty-seven verses in twenty-five passages, first at Genesis 14:13 and last in the letter that carries the name as its title. Exodus holds the most occurrences, fourteen, followed by 1 Samuel with eight and Genesis with six, then Jeremiah, Deuteronomy, Jonah, Luke, Acts, 2 Corinthians, Philippians and Hebrews with one each. The reference work behind this entry, TIPNR, derives the name from Heber, but marks that derivation with a question mark. The question mark deserves to be left standing rather than quietly erased.

The Word in Egypt

The densest cluster of the name falls in Genesis and Exodus. In Genesis the word appears at 39:14, 39:17, 40:15, 41:12 and 43:32, and then it opens the book of Exodus with a royal command. "The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, and he said, 'When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live'" (Exodus 1:15-16). The name here is a label used by a throne deciding who may be born. Two midwives are named in the verse; the king is not.

One chapter later the same label is spoken over a floating basket. "She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, 'This is one of the Hebrews' children.' Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, 'Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?'" (Exodus 2:6-7). The word that had marked a child for death now marks him for rescue, and for a nurse from among his own.

The name recurs through Exodus at 1:19, 2:11, 2:13, 3:18, 5:3, 7:16, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. Then, past the departure, it turns up in law at Exodus 21:2 and Deuteronomy 15:12, and again in the prophets at Jeremiah 34:9 and 34:14. A word heard first in a foreign court ends up written into the statutes of the people themselves, in laws about servitude.

The Word in the Philistine Wars

In 1 Samuel the name is often what enemies say. "When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, 'What does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?' They understood that Yahweh's ark had come into the camp" (1 Samuel 4:6). Their alarm turns into a rallying cry: "Be strong and behave like men, O you Philistines, that you not be servants to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Strengthen yourselves like men, and fight!" (1 Samuel 4:9).

But the name is also used from inside. "Jonathan struck the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, 'Let the Hebrews hear!'" (1 Samuel 13:3). The word appears again at 1 Samuel 13:19, 14:11, 14:21 and 29:3, and once more in a confession at Jonah 1:9.

Where the Record Is Not Flattering

Scripture does not dress this people up. The enemy shout remembers a season of subjection, that the Hebrews "have been" servants to them (1 Samuel 4:9), and the text lets that memory stand. Then comes the trumpet call and its result: "Now some of the Hebrews had gone over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead; but as for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling" (1 Samuel 13:7). Summoned to hear, some crossed the river and left. Those who stayed shook. That is the honest picture the verse gives, and softening it would be a lie about the text.

What We Do Not Know

The dossier is candid about its gaps. Scripture does not name this figure's parents. No children are named. No tribe or people is given. And the time in which this person lived is not stated in the text; the years above come from a chronology laid over the era, not from a verse. Even the derivation from Heber, as noted, is offered with a question mark rather than a claim.

The Name in the New Testament

The word does not stop with the prophets. It stands in Luke 23:38, in Acts 6:1, in the boast about standing at 2 Corinthians 11:22 and Philippians 3:5, and at Hebrews 13:25, the closing verse of the letter whose very title is this name. Those five references are the whole of the line drawn here, and each one is worth opening rather than summarizing. A name once used to sort infants for death, and later used to name an enemy across a battle line, is still being spoken when the gospel goes out, and it is the name standing over a letter written to believers.