Hebrew word · H6410

פְּלַטְיָ֫הוּ

pelatyahu

Pelatiah

A personal name built from the verb palat, 'to escape, slip away, be rescued' (causative: 'to deliver'), plus -yahu, a short form of YHWH. It means 'Yahweh rescues' or 'Yahweh lets escape'. 6:8–9; 14:22, 'yet a remnant of escapees will be left in it').

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A man living at the time of Exile and Return, first mentioned at Ezk.11.1;

son of: Benaiah (H1141R)

§ Pelatiah = "Jehovah delivers"

1) son of Hananiah and grandson of Zerubbabel

2) a Simeonite in the days of king Hezekiah of Judah who was one of the captains of 500 men who defeated the Amalekites who had escaped

3) one of the heads of the people who sealed the covenant with Nehemiah

4) son of Benaiah and one of the princes of the people against whom Ezekiel was ordered to prophesy doom

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 Ezekiel 11:13

Range of meaning

A personal name built from the verb palat, 'to escape, slip away, be rescued' (causative: 'to deliver'), plus -yahu, a short form of YHWH. It means 'Yahweh rescues' or 'Yahweh lets escape'. Close relatives of the name include peleṭah and palit, the standard words for 'escaped survivors' or 'fugitives', and Ezekiel himself uses them (e.g. 6:8–9; 14:22, 'yet a remnant of escapees will be left in it').

Against the English

English readers just see a name. Hebrew hearers would have heard 'Yahweh-Rescues' or 'Escape-of-Yah', and probably the survivor words that sound like it.

How it drifted

Not a drift in meaning. It is a loss of wordplay, because names go untranslated.

Used elsewhere in the period

Other men called Pelatiah appear in 1 Chronicles 3:21; 4:42; Nehemiah 10:22. Names ending in -yahu that confess Yahweh's help were very common in late monarchic Judah, as seals and ostraca of the period show. The Pelatiah here appears only in Ezekiel 11:1 and 11:13, as one of the 'officials of the people' (sarei ha'am).

From the study of Ezekiel 11:1

Range of meaning

A personal name: pālaṭ ("escape, rescue") + -yāhû (YHWH). It means "YHWH has rescued" or "YHWH delivers". From the same root comes pᵉlêṭâ, "those who escape, a surviving remnant".

Against the English

English readers see a name and nothing more. Hebrew hearers would catch its meaning at once.

Used elsewhere in the period

Names built on plṭ with YHWH are common in Iron Age Judah and in Persian-era lists (1 Chr 3:21; 4:42; Neh 10:22). Ezekiel uses the root for survivors in 6:8–9, 7:16, 14:22 and 24:26–27.

Where it appears

1 Chronicles · 2

  1. 1 Chronicles 3:21 פְּלַטְיָ֣ה Pelatiah

    The descendants of Hananiah: Pelatiah, Jeshaiah, and the sons of Rephaiah, of Arnan, of Obadiah, and of Shecaniah.

  2. 1 Chronicles 4:42 וּפְלַטְיָ֡ה and Pelatiah

    And five hundred of these Simeonites led by Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, went to Mount Seir

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 10:22 פְּלַטְיָ֥ה Pelatiah

    Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah,

Ezekiel · 2

  1. Ezekiel 11:1 פְּלַטְיָ֥הוּ Pelatiah

    Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the LORD that faces east. And there at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, who were leaders of the people.

    Here: The man who drops dead in 11:13 as Ezekiel prophesies. Ezekiel then cries out about the "remnant". His name comes from the root used for "escape, survivors", so a man called "YHWH rescues" dies, and that is the irony.

  2. Ezekiel 11:13 וּפְלַטְיָ֥הוּ and Pelatiah

    Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord GOD, will You bring the remnant of Israel to a complete end?”

    Here: The name means 'Yahweh rescues' or 'Yahweh lets escape'. He was one of the two named leaders among the twenty-five officials at the temple's east gate (11:1). A man named 'Yahweh-Rescues' dropping dead is the ominous irony behind Ezekiel's cry.

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