This Is The Longest Name In The Bible

According to Oxford Reference, the longest name and word in the Old Testament – and the Bible as a whole — comes in Isaiah 8. In the narrative, God commands the prophet to impregnate a woman and, when she gives birth to a son, name him "Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz." The phrase is a saying in Hebrew that means something akin to "swift are the spoils, speedy is the plunder," per BabyNames.com.

So how did a strapping baby boy wind up with a name that's actually a sentence about military conquest? Well, as it turns out, at the time, a military conquest of the prophet's nation — Judah — was a very real possibility, with an alliance between Damascus and Samaria making threats. Isaiah was convinced that a third nation, Assyria, would subdue them both, and it seems that God wanted to reiterate the same point using the birth of Isaiah's son and his name to illustrate it even further.

Though "Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz" is indeed a mouthful, it doesn't seem to have hindered the career of at least one American actor. As Britannica notes, Mahershala Ali was born Mahershalalhashbaz Ali Gilmore.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunCCk2lpcXBfqbWqv4yiqmasmJp6rbvNoJysrF2jrq6xjKKlZqyYmnqjtcGlnGg%3D