Your Name is Jedidiah

“Your name is Jedidiah!” I remarked to an old Christian upon whom I had been asked to call. It was with a wish to encourage her that I made the remark, but I failed in my endeavour. Though she was well-versed in the Scriptures she did not grasp my meaning. Subsequently indeed she said to the friend who had desired me to visit her, “That gentleman you sent to see me made a great mistake. He said my name was Jenny Dyer.” So I had missed my object completely.

Does my reader know the meaning of the name Jedidiah? To whom it was given? By whom it was given? Do you know that your name is Jedidiah?

It is a wonderful name to have in times of stress and storm and strain, and one in which we may well delight in hours when the enemy of our souls would seek to depress and disquiet and disconcert us. Alas! many of the children of God are unable to appropriate the name. False or defective teaching keeps them back from the enjoyment of their proper portion forbidding them to enter upon that which God desires them to know.

What then does the name signify?

If you will turn to 1 Chronicles 22:8, and another passage it will speedily be seen. David had called the son that was born to him, Solomon. That word means peaceable. It referred to the quiet which should mark his kingdom during his reign.

David had been a man of war, as the Lord said to him, “Thou hast shed blood abundantly and hast made great wars; thou shalt not build an house unto My name because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. Behold a son shall be born to thee who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days” (1 Chr. 22:-9).

But we find in 2 Samuel 12:25 an added fact, referred to in no other passage. There it is recorded: “And the Lord loved him. And He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah (Beloved of Jehovah) because of the Lord.”

That transaction is oftentimes overlooked, and indeed it appears to be doubtful whether Solomon ever took the name to himself, or gloried in its significance. But let us not condemn him too hastily. Are there not many Christians today who are “beloved of God” who scarcely enter into the benefit of the blessing bestowed upon them by God. They know that peace has been made for them by the blood of Christ’s Cross and are assured that they will have a home in heaven at the end. But of basking in the sunshine of the love of God to them they know nothing. They are in the house of blessing, but know little of the blessings of the house. They are more like the prodigal of Luke 15 would have been if he had been given a place “as one of the hired servants” than he was as sitting at the father’s table rejoicing in the father’s love.

“Beloved of the Lord.” How choice a portion this! At all times and in all circumstances to know that that love rests upon me, not because of what I am, but because of what God is. And to know that in His love God is making all things to work together for my good. And to know further that nothing present or to come can separate me from that love “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jude wrote to those “beloved in God the Father,” and in view of days of darkness and apostasy the exhortation was given, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” We do well to attend to the message, and to refuse all the efforts of the enemy to draw or drive us out of the warmth and gladness of that sunshine.

I.Fleming

Scattered Seed 412 (1918)