Hebrew word · H472

אֱלִישֶׁ֫בַע

'elisheva'

Elisheba

A compound name: ʾēlî 'my God' + shevaʿ. The second part is most often linked to shāvaʿ 'to swear an oath' (so 'My God is an oath' / 'My God swore'). Others connect it with sāvaʿ 'fullness, abundance', or with shevaʿ 'seven' (completeness).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A woman of the tribe of Judah living at the time of Egypt and Wilderness, only mentioned at Exo.6.23;

daughter of: Amminadab (H5992);

sister of: Nahshon (H5177); married to Aaron (H0175);

mother of: Nadab (H5070), Abihu (H0030), Eleazar (H0499) and Ithamar (H0385)

§ Elisheba = "my God has sworn" or "God is an oath"

Aaron's wife

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Exodus 6:23

Range of meaning

A compound name: ʾēlî 'my God' + shevaʿ. The second part is most often linked to shāvaʿ 'to swear an oath' (so 'My God is an oath' / 'My God swore'). Others connect it with sāvaʿ 'fullness, abundance', or with shevaʿ 'seven' (completeness).

Against the English

English simply transliterates the name. Readers rarely notice that it is the same name as 'Elizabeth', because the English forms come from Greek Elisabet and Latin Elisabeth.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint has Ελισαβεθ here. Luke 1:5 describes Zechariah's wife as 'of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabet', which is almost certainly a deliberate echo: a priest's wife descended from Aaron, bearing the name of Aaron's own wife. A similar name, Elishama ('My God has heard'), belongs to an Ephraimite chief (Num 1:10).

Where it appears

Exodus · 1

  1. Exodus 6:23 אֱלִישֶׁ֧בַע Elisheba

    And Aaron married Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

    Here: Aaron's wife, named here and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The name probably means 'My God is an oath' (or possibly 'My God is abundance'). In Greek it becomes Elisabet, the name of Elizabeth in Luke 1:5.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.