The Messiah’s forerunner
by Mike Oettle
WOULDN’T you
also find it incredible that something that hadn’t happened in 400 years –
that’s longer ago for us than Van Riebeeck’s landing in Table Bay – was going
to happen in your lifetime, and not just in your sight but in your very own
family?
No wonder Zechariah[1] the priest, serving his turn in the Temple, was incredulous when the angel Gabriel told him that he and his barren wife Elisheba,[2] in their advanced state of years, were going to have a son called Yochanan. (He’d obviously forgotten that Sarah must have been more than twice her age when Isaac was born.)
But no, that’s not what hadn’t happened in 400 years: it was that this boy would grow up to be a prophet. Why, everybody knew that God hadn’t called anyone to be a prophet since Malachi.
And what’s more, this prophet would be a nazirite and a new Elijah, the forerunner of God’s Messiah. Every good Jew lived in the hope that he or she would see the
Anointed One set things to rights in the world.
But
Zechariah couldn’t take it in, and the Lord struck him dumb. Not just for a few
minutes, so that he couldn’t pronounce the words of blessing when he came out
from the altar of incense, but for a full nine months, plus a week.
When
Elisheba was six months pregnant she was visited in Judæa by her cousin Miriam,[3] who walked from Nazareth to tell her that she, too, was pregnant. And there was to be something special about Miriam’s baby, too, for when she entered the house, Elisheba’s child leapt for joy in the womb and Elisheba called Miriam “the mother of my Lord”.
In time, Zechariah’s son was born and, at his circumcision[4] everyone was surprised when both Elisheba and then Zechariah (writing on a
tablet) told them that the boy’s name would be not Zechariah, but Yochanan, as
the angel had instructed him. Then only was Zechariah’s tongue loosed to
praise the Lord – indeed, to prophesy.
The Church
celebrates the conception of John the Baptist, as we know Yochanan better, on
23 September, his feast as Baptist on 7 January, his birth on 24 June and his
death on 29 August.
Luke’s account of the prophet-to-be ends: “And the child continued to grow, and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.” (Luke 1:80) I’ll take up the story there in the next article.
But before I do, let’s have a look at the name his father gave him in obedience to the angel’s instructions. Yochanan means “Yahweh has favoured” or “Yahweh’s grace”. Its Greek form is Ioannes [IoanneV] (giving us the modern Greek names Yanni and Yannis), and in Latin it is Johannes.
This gives us German Johann (Yôhan) and Dutch (and Afrikaans) Johan (Yohan or Y’han), and Hannes or Hans. Jan is a form used not only in Netherlandic but in Czechia and Poland, too; in Hungary it is Janos. A common English nickname form is Jack (in Scotland, Jock) – some say it is a form of Jacob, but it may also derive from the Flemish nickname Janneken[5] (a diminutive), taken to England by mediæval Flemish weavers. A common English surname from this is Jenkins. In Swedish it is John (pronounced Yohn), in Russian Ivan, in French Jean (Zhañ), in Italian Giovanni (Djovanni) or Gianni, in (Castilian) Spanish Juan (Hwan), in Catalan Joan (Zhoan) and in Portuguese João (Zhoao, said nasally). The old Gaelic form Eoín (used in Ireland of both the Baptist and the Evangelist, but not as a common given name) gives us Welsh Evan or Ewan, and Scottish Iain or Ian; but the Irish given name Sean (Shaun or Shane) is borrowed from the English given name.
Feminine forms of the name abound – French gives us Jeanne and Jeannette, German/Dutch Johanna, Spanish Juana, Juanita and Nita, Italian Giovanna, Giovannina, Gianna, Giannina or just Gina, and English Joan, Jane, Janet, Jean, Joanna, Janine, Janis and others, while Jenny is sometimes a nickname for a Jane or Janet.[6]
Of the many different surnames derived from forms of
John, perhaps the least easily recognised is one of the English-speaking world’s
commonest: the Welsh name Jones. Others include Jennings and Hancock (little
Hane or Hans).
