John Maven Maccabee
What’s in a name?
Charity and I believe that, based on the Word, names are extremely significant. Since the beginning of creation, and in the context of Jewish culture, you can see that names speak to the identity and destiny of a person.
Here are a few examples of names who have meanings that call out identity and destiny:
- “Yeshua” means “salvation from God”
- “Adam” means “man”, which is the name God gave to the first person he created, and “Havah” (Eve) means “life” because she is the mother of all living things
- God changed Jacob’s name to “Is’rael”, which means “triumphant with God” or “God rules”
- God changed Abram’s name to “Abraham”, which means “father of a multitude”
- “Isaac” means “he laughed/will laugh”
- “Samuel” means “God has heard”
- “Elijah” means “my God is ADONAI”
- Yeshua called “Simon” (meaning, “he has heard), “Kefa” (Peter), meaning “rock”
- “Iyyov” (Job) means “persecuted”
- “Esther” was called “Hadassah” which is a derivative of the Hebrew word for myrtle (i.e. righteousness, Zech 1:8)
- “David” means “beloved” or “friend”
- Moshe (Moses) means “to pull/to draw out [of water].”
These are just a few examples of how significant names are! You can put together why some of these patriarchs and faithful ones are named as they are. It shouldn’t be too hard if you know anything about their lives!
As we have mentioned before, we felt the fear of the LORD in regards to the name of our firstborn son. Outlined below are his names and why we felt there were none other for him.
4 times during Charity’s pregnancy, from the very week we found out Charity was pregnant (before we knew he was a boy) to the morning in the delivery room (2 hours before his birth), we received a prophetic word/prayer about our baby being like John the Immerser (or Baptist), preparing the way before the LORD by being a witness to Israel, and that many would rejoice at his birth! A 5th time we received a word about him being a “throne room baby” (i.e. John the Beloved, specifically Revelation 4:3 & 5).
All of these words were from people we love, trust, and know walk in intimacy with Jesus.
John (Yochanan) means “YHVH was gracious, showed favor”, and for Charity and I this has been a season of incredible favor with god and man!
One thing we felt before we knew his name was John was that he would “go out in the spirit and power of Elijah“, to “turn the hearts of the children back to their fathers, and the fathers back to their children” (Micah 4:5-6). We also prayed that our baby would we filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb (Luke 1)! We felt he was going to have a strong prophetic anointing and calling early on, which was confirmed when our little friend Naomi called him “Samuel” and two close friends felt he would be like “Isaiah” the prophet.
Another word we received 3 times was “shofar.” The shofar is symbolic for many things, some of which are celebration, arrival of a king, announcement, alertness, creation, revelation, in-gathering from exile, and resurrection! All of these apply to what we were feeling for our son, and many of these symbols are seen/fulfilled in the lives of John the Immerser and John the Beloved.
John the Baptist was considered a “tzaddik” (righteous one) even by King Herod (Mark 6:20). While Charity and I were sitting in the pediatricians office a month before John was born, I saw the LORD write a Hebrew letter, “tsadeh”, on the window. I went home and studied the letter, and came to find out that it is used interchangeably in Israel for naming a “tzaddik”, or righteous person! I saw the LORD write another letter after that one, but I will touch on it under “Maccabee.”
The timing was also extremely significant in the naming of John (and also Maccabee). John the Immerser proclaimed, “Look! God’s Lamb! The one who is taking on the sin of the world.” on at least 2 occasions. This is obvious Pesach (Passover) imagery! Our beloved John was born just a day before Passover began this year, during the time Yeshua was being examined and found without flaw, a perfect Lamb.
We pray that, like the John’s of faith before him, our John would be “overjoyed at the sound of the Bridegroom’s voice!”
In this case, “Maven” does not stand for the “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN”. Maven is a more recent transliteration of the Hebrew word “mevin”, meaning “one who understands.” It is closely related to the Hebrew word “binah”, meaning wisdom. A modern translation is “a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others.” Malcom Gladwell also talks about a maven as a social influencer in his book “The Tipping Point.”
From the moment we found out Charity was pregnant, we began to pray for and strongly sense the LORD filling our child with a spirit of wisdom and revelation! When I learned about the word maven (thanks @BraudKnows), I instantly felt it was significant in our son’s identity and destiny!
The word Zion kept coming up during the 9 months we were anticipating our little man’s birth. I first heard “like Mt. Zion” when I asked the LORD what he was saying during worship at Caleb Company in the first month of Charity’s pregnancy. Immediately after worship, our dear friend Steve Allen came to me and prophesied the three same words I had heard during worship regarding baby Henry!
In all, these are the 3 prophetic words we received regarding Zion & our son:
“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth!” (Psalm 50)
“May ADONAI bless you from Zion!” (Psalm 128)
“Those who trust in Adonai are like Mount Tziyon, which cannot be moved but remains forever.” (Psalm 125)
That day in the pediatrician’s office, I saw the LORD write a “yud” after the “tsadeh.” Zion, more accurately “Tziyon”, is a transliteration, but in Hebrew the word begins with a “tsadeh” followed by a “yud”!!!! I did not see any letters after those two, but in English they are translated to Z and I, the first two letters of ZION!
Even though we knew this was what the LORD was speaking, we did not feel like it was to be in John’s name. Not knowing why, we kept praying for clarity and discernment.
Another thing we still desired the LORD to confirm was that he was saying our son would walk in the “fear of the LORD“, with zeal and wisdom together.
Needless to say, we are beyond amazed at how we got John Maven’s middle name and excited to explain the details below!
Two years ago, while Charity and I were living in Kona, HI, we began to study the fear of the LORD and, as a result, to pray the “Song of Moses” in Exodus 15 every time we needed or experienced breakthrough at the hand of the LORD.
The setting for Exodus 15 amazing, especially in light of the timing when John was born!!! God has just delivered Israel from Egypt ON PASSOVER through signs and wonders, led them with a cloud and fire, split wide the Sea of Suf, and led them on dry ground, only to finish off the entire Egyptian army in the sea! WOW! What else can you do but cry out a song of Praise the the Most High! One particular line of the song has since been our family motto: “Who is like you, ADONAI, among the mighty!” (Exodus 15:11).
In Hebrew, this verse is transliterated as “Mi chamo cha ba’elim ADONAI!” Because there are vowels in the Hebrew “aleph-bet”, the acronym for this expression would be the first letter of each word, “mccb.” Fill in the vowels for an English translation and you get “Maccabee“. COME ON!
When Charity and I put this together a couple weeks ago it made sense why two of our best friends got the name “Maccabee” regarding our son!
But what about Zion? What about the fear of the LORD?
Maccabee as a word means “hammer” in Hebrew. It was a name that Judah ben Mattathias (a Jewish priest in the 2nd century BC) was called by shortly before the time of Yeshua when he led a rebel Jewish army against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who had invaded Jerusalem, sacrificed pigs to Zeus on the altar of God in the Temple, and forbade any Jewish religious practices or worship to the God of Israel that God himself had established for the Jewish people. Judah’s battle cry was said to be “Mi chamo cha ba’elim ADONAI!” when he and his army took back the Temple for the LORD and re-dedicated it just in time for Yeshua to be born and dedicated in it!
Where was the Temple located? Mt. Zion, where the LORD staked his name forever! (Psalm 132)
What did it take for Judah to reclaim Jerusalem & Mt. Zion? The fear of the Lord!
What does wisdom begin with? The fear of ADONAI! (Proverbs 9:10, Psalm 111:10)
One of the first stories we read to John Maven Maccabee was the story of Pinchas in Numbers 25. Pinchas killed a fellow Israelite because he feared the Lord and was “as zealous as” God! As a result, a plague was lifted from Israel and God made a covenant with Pinchas and his descendants forever!
John Maven Maccabee, we bless you with all these things! We bless you to be like Caleb, one who walks in a different spirit than the spirit of the age. We bless you to be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord all the days of your life! We bless you to find tasteless the things of this world, and that you would taste and see the the LORD is good even now! And we bless you to love well because you were first love by your Father in heaven.
We bless you man of wisdom, man of shalom, man of God.