Jabez

This article is about the given name and surname. For the unincorporated community, see Jabez, Kentucky.

Jabez or Jabes is a Biblical male given name from the Old Testament. It is of Hebrew origin. In Arabic and Persian it is transliterated as Yabis or Yabiz ( يَعْبِيصَ ). In 1 Chronicles, Jabez is a well-respected man (hinted to be an ancestor in the lineage of the kings' tribe of Judah, though none of his family is mentioned) whose prayer to God for blessing was answered (see 1 Chronicles 4:9-11). In Syriac and Arabic Versions, he father called his name ainei or "aina", MY EYE. In the Adam Clarke Commentary points out, that Jabez was also called “Othniel, the son of Kenaz. And he was called Jabez, because in his council he instituted a school of 31 disciples; they were called Tirathim, because in their hymns their voice was like trumpets; and Shimaathim, because in hearing they lifted up their faces, i.e., in prayer; and Suchathim, because they were overshadowed by the Spirit of prophecy. These Salmaei were the children of Zipporah, who were numbered among the Levites who came from the stock of Moses, the master of Israel, whose righteousness profited them more than chariots and horses” (Targum, quoted by Adam Clarke Commentary on I Chron.2:55).

The name Jabez is Hebrew (yabetz = יַעְבֵּץ) for "he makes sorrowful"; his mother stated "I gave birth to him in pain". Jabez was labelled with "sorrow" at birth, but his prayer against contracting sorrow nullified the label. His life contradicted his name.

Jabez's name is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:55, possibly as a place named after him. Jabez possibly could have been a Jewish scribe in his later years. He might have been influential and well respected as a scribe because the city named after him was where the families of scribes lived.

Jabez is also a surname.

Jabez may refer to:

Given name

People

• Jabez Balfour (1843–1916), British businessman, Liberal Party politician and fraudster
• Jabez A. Bostwick (1830–1892), American businessman who was a founding partner of Standard Oil
• Jabez Bowen, Jr. (1739–1815), a deputy governor of Rhode Island, militia colonel during the American Revolutionary War and Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Jabez Bryce (1935–2010), Anglican Archbishop of Polynesia and the first Pacific Islander to become an Anglican bishop
• Jabez Bunting (1779–1858), English Methodist
• Jabez Burns (1805–1876), English nonconformist divine and Christian philosophical writer
• Jabez Coon (1869–1935), member of the Australian House of Representatives
• Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry (1825–1903), lawyer, soldier, U.S. Congressman, college professor and administrator, diplomat, and Confederate officer
• Jabez Darnell (1884–1950), English footballer
• Jabez Delano Hammond (1778–1855), American physician, lawyer, author and politician
• Jabez Carter Hornblower (1744–1814), English pioneer of steam power
• Jabez W. Huntington (1788–1847), U.S. Representative and Senator from Connecticut
• Jabez Young Jackson (1790–1839), U.S. Representative from Georgia
• Jabez Leftwich (1765–1855), Representative from Virginia
• Jabez Bunting Snowball (1837–1907), Canadian politician and businessman, Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick
• J. Curry Street (1906–1989), American physicist, co-discover of muons
• Jabez G. Sutherland (1825–1902), Representative from Michigan and judge
• Jabez Upham (1764–1811), Representative from Massachusetts
• Jabez Vodrey (1795–1861), first English potter west of the Appalachian Mountains of North America
• Jabez Waterhouse (1821–1891), English-born Australian Methodist minister
• Jabez H. Wells (1853-1930), American politician and curler

Fictional characters

• Jabez Clegg, the eponymous character in Isabella Banks' 1876 novel "The Manchester Man" and its 1920 film adaptation
• Jabez North, the villain of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's first novel "The Trail of the Serpent"
• Jabez Stone, a principal character in the short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and its film adaptations
• Jabez Wilson, a principal character in the Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League"
• Jabez Potter is the miserly uncle in Alice B. Emerson's 'Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill' (1913), the first of a 30-book series. Emerson was the pen-name of Mildred Wirt Benson, who is perhaps better known as the author of the early 'Nancy Drew Mysteries'.

Surname

• Barzillai ben Baruch Jabez, Turkish Talmudist of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
• Joseph ben Hayyim Jabez (15th century-16th century), Spanish-Jewish theologian

See also

• The Prayer of Jabez, a book by Bruce Wilkinson in which he encouraged Christians to pray the way Jabez did