Hasupha in the Bible — Hidden Meaning & Symbolism

Hasupha (in A.V., Nehemiah 7:46, Hashupha), ha-su'-pha (Heb.)-- stripped; uncovered; revealed; naked; bared; debased, i.e., a sacred truth laid bare. He was of the Nethinim. His descendants returned from the Babylonian captivity (Ezra 2:43). Meta. The idea of service to God, stripped of its glory and true value; debased, as it were, by a sense of duty, with a belief in one's seemingly mortal, human inferiority, and with no true understanding of divine sonship. This makes one's service a sort of slavery, barren of the fruitfulness that belongs to true spiritual worship and to the service of a son to his Father and to his follow men. The beauty, the glory, and the exaltation of service come in the spirit of divine sonship, and not in the material thought of baseness, and unworthiness. When one knows that one is a son of God and heir with Jesus Christ to all that the Father is and has, one serves gladly and joyously, with a true sense of power and dominion over all things. This is real humility, and brings a wonderful fruitage of good. (The Nethinim were servants in the Temple; many of them were virtually slaves, and they did all the menial work. This fact, with the definitions of Hasupha, suggests the foregoing ideas concerning the significance of the name.)