What Is a "Ewe"? Who Is the "Shepherd"?

How the meaning of my own name has directed my life

When I was younger, I used to make lists. Lists of assonant words. Lists of cute boys. Lists of people who seemed gruff on the outside but housed hearts of softest flesh. A list I frequently updated was the list of names for my future children (I planned on at least six). The longest-running common denominator of such names was “classic white literature names.” For boys, I preferred Alexander, William, Edmund; for girls, Cassandra, Elizabeth, Kate. Yet as I dreamed up this list of names, I frequently considered how much I disliked my own.

Rachel Lynne.

My parents, particularly my mother, were saddened when I announced to them one day that I didn’t approve of their name choice for me. “Rachel” was a common name—I could have made you a whole list of the “Rachels” I'd met—and there was such a harsh sound contained in it: the sound of “ch.” It sounded like disapproval or dismissal. Furthermore, “Rachel” in the Bible isn't exactly known for being a savory character. And because the ending letter of my first name was the same as the beginning letter of my middle, my names sounded blurred when spoken together: “Rachellllllynne.”

I’d also always thought the meaning of my name, “ewe,” was kooky. A ewe (pronounced “yoo”) is a female sheep. While my friends had meanings like “peaceful meadow” or “gift from God” or “beloved,” I was named after an animal that chews its cud.

It wasn't until recent years that I began to notice how precious the image of “sheep and shepherd” is in the eyes of God. Some of my favorite passages of Scripture reference individuals as “sheep” or the collective as a “flock” (Psalm 23, Ezekiel 34:11-16, and Luke 12:32 are just a handful of examples of this powerful metaphor). And when I learned of various sheep facts sprinkled throughout Bible studies and podcasts—sheep obey the sound of their shepherd, sheep are often carried on their shepherd’s shoulders, sheep are easily distracted and need their shepherd’s guidance—I realized that the sheep/shepherd narrative is a thoroughly accurate one.

This got me thinking about the meanings of names. 

In Scripture, names at the very least, are directly linked to a person's essence in the Bible. Take, for example, God telling Hagar to name her son “Ishmael” (God will hear) because Ishmael was a response to Hagar's desperate situation in life (Genesis 16:11). Or consider God choosing the name “Solomon” (peace) for the new king because He intended Solomon’s reign to be a time of peaceful repose (1 Chronicles 22:9). Jesus’ own name means “the Lord is salvation," which encapsulates the purpose of His birth (Matthew 1:21).

Furthermore, when Biblical characters’ lives undergo an immense change, their name often does the same. When God and Jacob wrestle in the night and Jacob commands that God blesses him, God changes his name to “Israel,” which means, “God perseveres” or "God prevails” (Genesis 32:27-28). When Naomi loses her husband and is left in poverty, she changes her name to “Mara,” meaning “bitter” (Ruth 1:20). Names are correlated with life direction; Scripture speaks this again and again.

I do not believe it is anti-Scriptural to state that God seems to care what our names mean and that He historically chose His people's names based on the course of their lives. With the image of the trusting sheep and the adoring shepherd in mind, I now cherish my own name because it drips with the meaning of “I will follow only my Shepherd, Who loves me.” I embrace this metaphor because it is all I want to be.

Is “ewe” an indication of the course of my life? I hope so. I do believe, after all, that God picked this name for me.