I would guess that many of us don’t remember reading or hearing about anyone named Eliezer in the Bible. The obscure name is actually the name for nine different people throughout the Bible. The one whose story is most mentioned is the man named Eliezer in Genesis, who was very important to Abraham’s household.
Crosswalk.com contributor Dolores Smyth writes in that names in the Bible could signify origin, purpose, or a person’s circumstances or characteristics. The names referencing God with the letters “EL” obviously honor God in some way. For example, “Daniel” means “God is my Judge,” and “Elijah” means “Yahweh is my God.”
Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that “Eliezer” means “God his help.” The name recognizes that throughout this man’s life, from his birth to death, God is his help. Every time someone says his name, they honor how God is sovereign, not just in this man’s life, but in every believer’s life.
Perhaps we aren’t very familiar with the name Eliezer because the first time we hear it, it concerns a man named Eliezer of Damascus, who Abraham reminded God would be his heir unless Abraham had any children.
Before this, we don’t know anything about Eliezer of Damascus, though some scholars believe he is the unnamed “chief servant” of Abraham mentioned later.
Why would Abraham be having a conversation about an heir who was not from Abraham’s own body? Because he was old and he and his wife Sarah were beyond child-bearing years. Abraham questioned how God could bless him with generations if Abraham had no sons (as if God needed to be reminded).
Abraham assumed his servant Eliezer would inherit all he had when he died. But God immediately corrected Abraham and told him that He and his wife Sarah would have a biological child.
“Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Abraham’s righteousness was one of the reasons he is listed in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith.” It took great faith to believe that God would keep his promise (one that would take years to fruition).
The next time we believe that Eliezer entered the story, Abraham was well advanced in years. It was long after the birth of Isaac and the death of Sarah. Abraham has a very important project he wants his “chief servant” (Genesis 24:2) to handle. Abraham was very concerned with finding just the right wife for his son Isaac from among Abraham’s relatives. That would require travel since God had called Abraham to leave his old country for a new place God showed him.
Abraham asked his chief servant to swear he would take on this mission. When Eliezer worried that the woman he found wouldn’t want to return with him, Abraham told him that God promised to give his offspring this land and would send an angel before him to find this wife.
Eliezer loaded camels with goods and prayed, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today and show kindness to my master Abraham.” (Genesis 24:12).
Interestingly, Eliezer doesn’t call Him “my God.” The Lord answered his prayer by leading him to Rebekah, a woman from Abraham’s brother Nahor’s family. She said she would return with him, and the family agreed that God had made this match. Isaac greeted them on the way back, and as soon as they arrived at the tents of Abraham, Isaac, and Rebekah were married. Eliezer praised God for all these things, though he still prayed to the “God of my master Abraham.”
Moses, his wife Zipporah, and two sons lived in Midian when God called Moses from Mount Sinai. God told Moses that He had heard the cries of His people in Egypt and wanted Moses to go and challenge Pharaoh in the power of God to release them from slavery. Moses, Zipporah, and the two sons left for Egypt, while Zipporah’s father, Jethro, stayed behind with the rest of his family.
Once the Israelites were freed and began their wilderness journey to the Promised Land, Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, went back to tell Jethro. The passage about Zipporah meeting her father explains what her sons’ names mean:
“One son was named Gershom, for Moses said, ‘I have become an alien in a foreign land’; and the other was named Eliezer for he said, “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.’” (Exodus 18:3-4)
They all returned to meet Moses in the desert, where Jethro provided excellent leadership advice to Moses. Were it not for his recommendation to delegate authority, Moses may have been much more overwhelmed in their journey.
There is another Eliezer that we read about very briefly in 2 Chronicles. He prophesied during the time of King Jehoshaphat, who “walked in the ways of his father David” (2 Chronicles 17:3), so the Lord was with him. In fact, “The fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah, so that they did not make war with Jehoshaphat” (2 Chronicles 17:10).
Jehoshaphat would pray to God for victory over enemies and then praise when God answered his prayers. He led others to celebrate God as well. One of the last battles mentioned in the life of Jehoshaphat occurred because the Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites came to make war.
“Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in front of the new courtyard and said:
‘O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand and no one can withstand You . . . O Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” (2 Chronicles 20: 5-13)
The enemies were defeated, God was praised, and surrounding enemies were even more afraid.
At the end of Jehoshaphat’s reign, we hear that he walked in the ways of his father and did what was right in God’s eyes. Except he didn’t remove the high places where idol worship took place. And he allied badly with the King of Israel to build a fleet of trading ships. It wouldn’t have been a bad relationship, except that this king was wicked in God’s eyes. So the prophet Eliezer prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Because you have made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made” (2 Chronicles 20:37).
Three very different “Eliezers,” but all seemed to live up to their name regarding God as their helper. The first Eliezer helped find a wife for Isaac like a needle in a haystack. The second Eliezer honored how God was more than a helper to his father, Moses. And the third was given the gift of prophecy by God to call out sin.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/leolintang
Mary Oelerich-Meyer is a Chicago-area freelance writer and copy editor who prayed for years for a way to write about and for the Lord. She spent 20 years writing for area healthcare organizations, interviewing doctors and clinical professionals and writing more than 1,500 articles in addition to marketing collateral materials. Important work, but not what she felt called to do. She is grateful for any opportunity to share the Lord in her writing and editing, believing that life is too short to write about anything else. Previously she served as Marketing Communications Director for a large healthcare system. She holds a B.A. in International Business and Marketing from Cornell College (the original Cornell!) When not researching or writing, she loves to spend time with her writer daughter, granddaughter, rescue doggie and husband (not always in that order).
This article is part of our People of Christianity catalog that features the stories, meaning, and significance of well-known people from the Bible and history. Here are some of the most popular articles for knowing important figures in Christianity:
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