Eliezer

What Does the Name Eliezer Mean?

Eliezer is a Hebrew masculine name meaning "My God is help" or "God is my help." It comes from the Hebrew אֱלִיעֶזֶר (Elīʿezer), formed from אֵל (ʾel, "God") with the first-person possessive suffix י (i), yielding אֱלִי (Eli, "my God"), and עֵזֶר (ʿezer, "help"). The name is thus a noun phrase: "My God is help." Because English idiom often prefers "God is my help," that rendering is also common. Exodus 18:4 links the name to this meaning when it explains why Moses named his son Eliezer: "The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh." Eliezer is not a form of the similar Hebrew name Eleazar ("God has helped"), though both begin with the element El.

Eliezer Name History & Origins

The name Eliezer is attested in the Hebrew Bible for several different figures. The best known is Eliezer of Damascus, described in Genesis 15:2 as Abraham's household steward and the servant who would inherit Abraham's estate if Abraham remained childless. Genesis 24 tells how Abraham's servant finds a wife for Isaac, but the chapter does not name him; identifying that servant as Eliezer is a traditional reading rather than a detail stated in the text. A second Eliezer is Moses and Zipporah's son, named in Exodus 18:4 with an explanation that echoes the name's meaning: "The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh." Other biblical bearers include a Benjaminite (1 Chronicles 7:8), a priest (1 Chronicles 15:24), a prophet who opposed Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahaziah (2 Chronicles 20:37), and a figure in the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:29).

In Jewish tradition, the name continued in use after the biblical period. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a leading rabbi of the early rabbinic period whose teachings are recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud, is one of the most prominent bearers of the name. In the Diaspora, Yiddish-speaking communities developed forms such as Leyzer and Leizer from Eliezer; these became familiar as independent given names. The Hebrew name also passed into Greek as Ελιεζερ (Eliezer) in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and appears in that form in the New Testament. In the modern period, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858 - 1922), the lexicographer and central figure in the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, bore the name, which remains in use in Israel and in Jewish communities elsewhere. It is also found in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries and in English-speaking Christian communities that read the Bible in translation.