Is "Christ" His Last Name? The Word Mashiyakh Means the Anointed One

Most people hear "Jesus Christ" and think "Christ" is His last name, like a family name. It is not a name at all. It is a title, and it was never even an English word. It was left untranslated so long that people forgot it means something. Here is what it means.

The word, in the oldest writing we have

Before English, and before the Square Script, it was written in the oldest letters we know of, the Paleo Script. Here it is in all three forms:

What the word actually means

Mashiyakh comes from the root mashakh, which means to anoint, to smear or pour oil on someone. In the scrolls, when a man was set apart for a great task, a king or a priest, oil was poured on his head to mark him as chosen for that role. The one who received that oil was the Mashiyakh, the Anointed One.

So Mashiyakh is a title with a job inside it: the one Yahuah anointed and set apart for a purpose. It is not a surname. It answers the question, chosen and set apart for what?

What "Christ" did to it

When the word was carried into Greek it became Christos, which also means anointed. That part is fine. The problem is English never translated it. It just carried "Christ" straight through, unchanged, until it sat next to "Jesus" like a second name.

So now people say "Christ" and hear a name, not a meaning. They miss that it is a title, that it means Anointed One, and that being anointed points back to the whole system of anointing that Yahuah laid out. A meaningful title became, in most people's ears, a blank word or a last name.

Read it in the scrolls

The title was used long before it was ever attached to one person, and reading it shows you it is a role.

Tahilim (Psalms) 2:2 says: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahuah and against His Mashiyakh." A chosen, anointed one.

In Shamu'al (Samuel) 16:13, the prophet takes the oil and anoints Dawid, "and the Ruakh of Yahuah came upon Dawid from that day forward." That is what anointing is, and why the Anointed One is called Mashiyakh.

The text even calls more than one man "mashiyakh," including kings and the set-apart priest, because it is a role Yahuah assigns. The word appears around 39 times in the Scrolls. Not once is it a last name. Every time, it is someone anointed and set apart by Yahuah.

How this connects to the Turah

Here is the thread. The whole idea of anointing comes straight out of the Turah. In Shamuth (Exodus) 30, Yahuah Himself gives the instructions for the set-apart anointing oil and commands that the priests and the set-apart things be anointed with it. So the role of Mashiyakh is defined by the Turah. Without the Turah, "Christ" is just a floating foreign word. With the Turah, Mashiyakh means the Anointed King and Priest that the instruction and the prophets were pointing to all along. Yahusha does not fit that title by accident. He fits the pattern the Turah drew. Take away the Turah and you lose the meaning of the very title you put on Him.

Let us be honest about what is proven

Proven: Mashiyakh comes from mashakh, to anoint with oil, and means the Anointed One, a set-apart role, not a name. It appears around 39 times in the Scrolls, used of kings and the anointed priest. The anointing itself is commanded in the Turah (Shamuth 30). Greek Christos also means anointed; English simply left it untranslated.

Not overclaimed: "Christ" is not a false translation of the Greek, since Christos does mean anointed. The damage is in leaving it untranslated so English readers lost the meaning and now treat a title like a surname.

Now sit with it

"Christ" is not His last name. It is a title that means the Anointed One, the King and Priest set apart by Yahuah, exactly as the Turah described. When you say it and hear nothing, that blankness is the point, the meaning was left behind in another language.

Go look at how the word is used. Then ask the question they never put to you:

If "Christ" simply means the Anointed One, anointed the way the Turah lays out, then how can anyone hold the title while throwing away the Turah that gives it meaning?

Words in this teaching (how to say them)