Zaph-Nath-Paaneah

ZAPH-NATH-PAANEAH

Genesis 41:45. 

Recently I had the privilege of giving two addresses on the earliest verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews, necessarily dwelling upon the glories of the SON! Our meditation was particularly given over to those seven-fold glories found there. On a subsequent Lords' Day morning, bowed in remembrance of HIM, I realised a correspondence, (I believed it to have been of the Spirit,) between three of those glories and the three-fold meaning of "Zaph-nath-paaneah. This was of course the name given by Pharaoh to Joseph, himself a lovely O.T. type of Christ. The first two meanings are in the Egyptian language.

Simply and briefly, Zaphnathpaaneah meant firstly, "The Reaveler of Secrets," answering to the SON as "being the exact expression of His (i.e. Gods') subsistence;" the One who "declared," that is literally, "told out" God! 

Secondly, it meant "Sustainer of Life," and the SON was the "upholder of all things, all worlds, the universe," and that by the "word of His power," whether in the manger, or asleep in the boat, or prostrate in the Gethsemane or nailed to the accursed tree at Golgotha!

Thirdly, in the Hebrew tongue it meant, "Saviour of the World! It is instructive to see how the Samaritans progressed in their appreciation of the Person of the SON; from The Christ through to the Saviour of the world. For "the Father sent the Son AS Saviour of the World!"

May these simple thoughts in relation to some of the glories of the SON, lead us on to glorify Him, as individual believers and in our corporate worship of Him.