Yeshua (also spelled Yehoshua, Jeshua) is a Hebrew name built from two parts: a shortened form of the divine name Yahweh and a form of the verb yasha, to save or to deliver. Put together, Yeshua means something close to Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh saves. When the New Testament was written in Greek, Yeshua was rendered Iesous, and from the Greek through Latin and Old English the name reached us as Jesus. So the name Jesus is not a different name from Yeshua; it is the same name carried across languages. The meaning travels with it: the one who bears the name is the one in whom Yahweh saves.
That is why the angel’s announcement in Matthew is so carefully worded. The child is not given a name that merely sounds religious. He is given a name that states a fact about God and about himself.
What does Yeshua actually mean in Hebrew?
Hebrew names are often short sentences. Elijah means Yahweh is God. Jehoshaphat means Yahweh has judged. Joshua, the successor of Moses, is the same name as Yeshua, and Easton’s Bible Dictionary glosses it as Jehovah is his help, or Jehovah the Saviour (see Numbers 13:16, where he is called Jehoshua).
The first half of Yeshua is the divine name. In the Hebrew Scriptures the name is written with four consonants, YHWH, and is usually called the Tetragrammaton. Jewish readers by the Second Temple period were already reading it aloud as Adonai (Lord) rather than pronouncing it. The English form Jehovah arose much later, in the Middle Ages, by combining the consonants YHWH with the vowel points of Adonai. Yahweh is the scholarly reconstruction of how the name was likely spoken. Both are attempts to render the same four letters.
The second half of Yeshua comes from yasha, to save. The same root sits behind Hosanna (save now) and behind the name Isaiah (Yahweh is salvation). So Yeshua is a confession in miniature: salvation belongs to Yahweh, and this person is the place where it arrives.
Why does the New Testament call him Jesus rather than Yeshua?
The New Testament was written in Greek, and Greek had no letter for the sh sound and no convenient way to reproduce the Hebrew name exactly. Yeshua became Iesous. When the gospel reached Latin-speaking and then English-speaking readers, Iesous became Iesus and finally Jesus.
This is not a corruption. It is what happens to every name that crosses a language boundary. Yochanan becomes John; Miriam becomes Mary; Sha’ul becomes Paul. The meaning is not lost in translation, because the New Testament itself explains it. Matthew records the angel’s words to Joseph:
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. — Matthew 1:21 (BSB)
The name and the mission are one sentence. He is called Yahweh saves because he saves.
Does the name Yeshua contain the divine name Yahweh?
Yes. That is the point of the name. The first element, Ye- or Yah-, is the shortened form of YHWH that appears in dozens of Hebrew names: Jehoshaphat, Jehoiakim, Jehu (Jehovah is he), Jeshaiah (deliverance of Jehovah), Jehohanan (Jehovah-granted). Yeshua belongs to that family of names.
Some readers find this startling, and it is worth pausing over. The angel did not choose a neutral name. He chose a name that places the saving action of Yahweh inside the identity of the child. When Jesus says, I have come in My Father’s name (John 5:43), the statement is not a figure of speech. His own name is the Father’s name plus the word save.
This is also why the New Testament can apply Old Testament Yahweh-texts to Jesus without embarrassment. In Philippians 2, Paul takes language that Isaiah reserves for Yahweh and gives it to the risen Lord:
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Philippians 2:9-11 (BSB)
The name above all names is not a new name invented at the resurrection. It is the name he already bore, now publicly vindicated.
Is Joshua in the Old Testament the same name as Jesus?
Yes. Joshua son of Nun is called Jehoshua in Numbers 13:16, and the Greek Old Testament renders his name Iesous — the same word the New Testament uses for Jesus. This is why the King James and American Standard Versions read Jesus in two New Testament verses about Joshua:
Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, that God thrust out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; — Acts 7:45 (ASV)
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. — Hebrews 4:8 (BSB)
The overlap is more than a coincidence. Joshua led Israel into the promised land; Jesus leads his people into a greater rest. Easton’s dictionary notes that Joshua has long been regarded as a type of Christ: in the shared name, in the bringing of the people into possession of the land, and in the way Joshua succeeded Moses as the gospel succeeds the law.
What does this mean for how we use the names today?
Some Christians prefer to pray to Yeshua rather than Jesus, believing the Hebrew form carries more weight. Others use Yahweh instead of LORD when reading the Old Testament. Neither practice is commanded, and neither is forbidden. What matters is that the person named is known and trusted, not which language the syllables come from.
The New Testament itself uses the Greek form throughout, and the apostles preached in Greek to Greek speakers without asking them to switch languages. The name’s power is not in its phonetics. It is in the one who bears it.
What the name does give us is a compact summary of the gospel. Every time we say Jesus, we are saying, in effect, Yahweh saves. The divine name and the saving act are welded together in a single word. That is why Peter could say there is salvation in no one else (Acts 4:12), and why Paul could say that confessing Jesus as Lord is what the tongue does when the heart has been captured by grace.
If you want to go further, read Exodus 3:14-15 slowly, where God gives his name to Moses, and then read Matthew 1:21 alongside it. Then read Philippians 2:5-11 as a whole. Pray through the name of Jesus, not as a formula but as a confession. And bring your questions to a local church where the Scriptures are opened and the name of Christ is honoured — that is where names and meanings turn into worship.
From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same Jehovah’s name is to be praised. — Psalm 113:3 (ASV)
Questions readers ask
Does the name Yeshua literally mean ‘Yahweh is salvation’?
Yes, that is the standard reading. The first element is a shortened form of the divine name YHWH, and the second comes from the Hebrew verb yasha, to save. The name is a short sentence: Yahweh saves. Matthew 1:21 explains the name in exactly those terms.
Should Christians call him Yeshua instead of Jesus?
Either is fine. Yeshua is the Hebrew form; Jesus is the form the name took as it passed through Greek, Latin and English. The New Testament itself uses the Greek form Iesous throughout, so there is no biblical requirement to use one over the other. What matters is trusting the person the name belongs to.
Is Yahweh the same name as Jehovah?
Both refer to the same four Hebrew consonants, YHWH. Jehovah is a later English form produced by combining those consonants with the vowel points of Adonai. Yahweh is the scholarly reconstruction of the original pronunciation. The name itself, not the pronunciation, is what Scripture exalts.
Why is Joshua sometimes translated ‘Jesus’ in the King James Version?
Because Joshua and Jesus are the same name in Hebrew and in Greek. The Greek Old Testament calls Joshua Iesous, so older English translations sometimes carry that over directly, as in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8. Modern versions usually print Joshua to avoid confusion, but the underlying name is identical.
Lexicon answers from the Bible and public-domain reference works. It is a study aid and is not affiliated with any organisation.