Last week, Jews the world over celebrated Purim Katan, a minor holiday observed in the month Adar I of a leap year, exactly one month before the regular Purim is observed in Adar II. To start getting into the Purim spirit, this essay explores the names of two heroes from the Scroll of Esther customarily read on Purim — Mordechai and Esther. What is interesting about these two characters is that both of them have multiple names, so their alternate names can be said to be “synonymous” with their more familiar names. This essay offers an onomastic exploration of these characters’ names and makes some interesting connections in doing so.
Throughout the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai (Mordecai) — the lead male hero of the story — is known by the name Mordechai. The Talmud (Chullin 139b) asks where we find an allusion to the name Mordechai in the Torah, before replying with a phrase describing one of the spices used as an ingredient in the Anointing Oil, pure myrrh (Ex. 30:23). In Hebrew, that phrase reads mar dror, but Targum Onkelos translates it into Aramaic as mira dachya, which is phonetically similar to the name Mordechai. The idea behind this connection is that a righteous person like Mordechai exudes good vibes and good deeds in the same way that sweet-smelling myrrh gives off a good fragrance.
Similarly, the Talmud (Megillah 10b) relates that the Amoraic sage Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachamani would begin his ruminations on the Scroll of Esther by citing the verse, “instead of the thorn-bush will arise a cypress-tree [brosh]... (Isa. 55:13). He plays on the word brosh as though it said b’rosh (“at the head”), and reinterprets it as an allusion to Mordechai, whose name alludes to mar dror, which is described by the Torah as besamim rosh (“the head of all spices/fragrances”). Amazingly, the Peirush HaRokeach (to Ex. 30:23) writes that the gematria of the word rosh (=501) equals that of the Hebrew phrase zehu Mordechai Ha'Tzadik ("this is Mordechai the righteous one"), thus further cementing the connection.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the Talmud did not mean any of this as an etymological insight into the name Mordechai, but rather as an exegetical allusion to the name in the Torah. What, then, is the actual etymology of the name Mordechai?
Many scholars have already noted the similarity between the name Mordechai and the Babylonian name Merodach, which appears elsewhere in the Bible. For example, the successor to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar was named Evil-Merodach (II Kings 28:27); and earlier, at the same time that Hezekiah was king of Judah, a fellow named Merodach-Baladan was the king of Babylonia (Isa. 39:1). Interestingly, Merodach-Baladan is known elsewhere as Berodach-Baladan (II Kings 20:12), probably due to the interchangeability of the letters MEM and BET.
Either way, the name Merodach appears one more time in the Bible: When Jeremiah foretold of the impeding destruction of Babylonia and the downfall of its idolatrous deities, Jeremiah said that the people will exclaim, “Bel is ashamed, Merodach is devastated; her idols are ashamed, her gods are devastated” (Jer. 50:2). In this passage, Jeremiah uses the name Merodach as an alternate name for the Babylonian god Bel (equivalent to the Canaanite Baal). Indeed, as archeologists have discovered, Merodach/Marduk was one the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon.
Just to clarify, I am not saying that Mordechai was named after the Babylonian deity Merodach/Marduk. Rather, the personal name Mordechai and variants, which were used in Babylonian/Persian society, were rooted in the name of that god. Once those names became popular and accepted, one can be said to bear such a name without being named directly after an idolatrous deity. This is very much like the way we use names like Mark or Veronica nowadays, without thinking about the names of the Roman deity Mars or the Greek deity Nike, from which those given names are derived.
*For the rest of the discussion about Mordechai's other names, visit us online at: http://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
