SARIAH

Lehite PN

Wife of Lehi No. 1, ca. 600 BC (1 Nephi 2:5; 8:14)

SARIAH is the name of the wife of LEHI, the first prophet in the Book of Mormon, and would mean “Jehovah is (my) prince/ruler. A similar etymology, “princess of Jehovah,” was proposed years ago.”

This etymology has been born out recently. This feminine personal name SARIAH is attested, albeit in a partial restoration, in the Aramaic papyri of Elephantine, appearing in Papyrus #22. Although the language of the documents is Aramaic, the author observes that the names are in fact Hebrew. Line 4 of C-22 lists the personal name as śry[h br]t hwš‘ br ḥrmn, which may be vocalized as Saria[h bar]at Hoshea bar Harman and translated as “Sari[ah daugh]ter of Hoshea son of Harman.” As the brackets indicate, the author has reconstructed part of the text, supplying the final h of Sariah and the initial b and r of barat, but the spacing of the letters is reasonable, and the reconstructed text established by the author has been accepted as accurate. “The extant final t of barat assures us,” observes Jeffrey R. Chadwick “that the person was a daughter, not a son and, after the letters b-r are supplied, there is only room for one additional letter—the final h of Sariah.” Further, although SARIAH is not attested as a woman’s name in the Old Testament, it is mentioned nineteen times in its masculine form, Seraiah, שריה, in reference to nine persons. (PYH)

The name is composed common Hebrew (and Semitic) elements, and would mean Jehovah is (my) prince/ruler, which is the meaning of the masculine biblical personal name Seraiah. The first element of her name, sar, stems from the common Semitic root rr (the reduplicated r is not represented in most Semitic scripts), and is exemplified in Hebrew name Sar(ah), r(h), “prince(ness),” and in Akkadian by šarru, king. At the same time, it is not surprising to note that the ending of Sariahs is identical to the common Hebrew theophoric element of the shortened form for Jehovah. In fact, Jeremiah 36:26 preserves the full theophoric element of the biblical name Seraiah, śryhw. Because it declares both allegiance to and honor of Jehovah, Jehovah is (my) prince/ruler would be an appropriate name for the wife of a prophet of God. (SDR)

Cf. Biblical SARAI and SARAH (also named in the Book of Mormon)