Ariel

Ariel is a name that surfaces in three distinct contexts in the UPDV. It identifies a man enlisted by Ezra to recruit Levites for the return from exile, it appears as a designation linked with Moab in the catalog of Benaiah's exploits, and it functions as a symbolic name for Jerusalem in Isaiah's oracle of siege and deliverance. The name carries connotations of "lion of God" and, in Isaiah, plays on the sense of an altar-hearth where sacrifices burn.

Ariel the Messenger Sent by Ezra

When Ezra discovered that no Levites had joined the company assembling at the river Ahava, he sent a delegation of leading men to Iddo at Casiphia to obtain them. Ariel is named among these emissaries: "Then I sent for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah, and for Elnathan, and for Jarib, and for Elnathan, and for Nathan, and for Zechariah, and for Meshullam, chief men; also for Joiarib, and for Elnathan, who were teachers" (Ezr 8:16). The verse classes Ariel among the "chief men" dispatched on this errand. The narrative surrounding the mission frames it within Ezra's broader fast and supplication for "a straight way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance" (Ezr 8:21), and concludes that "the hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambusher by the way" (Ezr 8:31).

Ariel of Moab in the Exploits of Benaiah

The roll of Benaiah's mighty deeds in the books of Samuel and Chronicles records an episode involving figures called by the name. The Samuel notice reads: "And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a man of valor of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, he slew the two [sons of] Ariel of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow" (2Sa 23:20). The Chronicler's parallel preserves the same exploit verbatim: "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a man of valor of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, he slew the two [sons of] Ariel of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow" (1Ch 11:22). The UPDV's bracketed [sons of] marks the editorial supply that resolves the construction as a reference to descendants of a Moabite figure named Ariel, paired in the same verse with Benaiah's lion-killing in the snow-filled pit.

Ariel as a Symbolic Name for Jerusalem

In Isaiah 29 the prophet addresses Jerusalem under the name Ariel. The opening cry sets the scene: "Ho Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add⁺ year to year; let the feasts come round" (Is 29:1). The doubled vocative pairs the city's symbolic name with its Davidic memory. The oracle then turns to siege: "then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; and she will be to me as Ariel" (Is 29:2). The closing repetition — "she will be to me as Ariel" — keeps the name's hearth-of-sacrifice resonance in the foreground, linking the city's distress to the imagery of an altar.

The reversal arrives later in the same oracle: "And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her stronghold, and that distress her, will be as a dream, a vision of the night" (Is 29:7). The besieging coalition is reduced to the insubstantial stuff of dream-vision, and the same chapter follows with a hungry man dreaming he eats and a thirsty man dreaming he drinks (Is 29:8) — the dream-imagery elaborating the futility of the assault on Ariel.