Introduction
The ancient Hebrew language is a dead language. When we say a dead language what we are saying is that the language is no longer in common use or spoken verbally. Latin is a dead language as it is not spoken in normal conversation, yet we use Latin words all the time in our legal system. In the Vatican they speak Latin and in fact their ATM is in Latin. Yet it is still a dead language.
If you were to sit in a Latin class in some school and as a class translate a poem from the Latin into English, you will find many variations of the poem. The basic idea would be the same in each translation, yet all would carry some variance in nuance and express a slight difference in its emotional context. For instance when confronted with the word stultus as the man is a stultus, one student may translate that the man is a fool, another may say he is a simpleton and yet another may say he is an oaf. Each would be right yet each would express something different. As a fool it is saying the man is one who is senseless and/or reckless who performs a task without giving it much thought. As a simpleton you would be saying the man is someone incapable of reasonable thought and as an oaf you would think of a clumsy simple minded person who wanders the streets in a drunken stupor. The class would then enter into a great debate as to which is the correct word to use. There would be a discussion on the context surrounding this statement. Are we talking of a distinguished statesmen who performs a senseless act like adultery? Then we would not call him a simpleton for he has proven intelligence, nor an oaf as he is not a street bum so from the context they would know to use the word fool.
So here we have this dead language, Latin, that is still in limited use and yet there is still debate over the interpretation of certain words. Even in modern English we have debates over words. I was listening to a call on a talk radio show during a presidential election. One of the callers called in infuriated over a candidates statement: “Country first.” He was livid declaring that the people who live in the cities have more problems than people who live in the country and he will not vote for a candidate who puts people who live in the country before those who live in the cities. The host had all he could do to keep from laughing as he tried to explain that the candidate was speaking about the entire country of the United States including cities.
Now let’s look at a language that has been dead for 2,500 years. Yes, I know Hebrew has been revived and is spoken in Israel today. It is based upon the ancient Hebrew and many words still contain the same meaning, but they have taken on many different nuances because of the changes of a modern society compared to an ancient society. Also the ancient Hebrew spoke during the time of David only had 7,500 written and/or recorded words. There were likely many words that never made it to a clay tablet or papyrus document. We only have a record of 7,500 basic root words so every word could contain multiple meanings. Not only that but the meaning of words can change over a period of time. Modern Hebrew has over one million words and is a mixture of Russian, English, Arabic and many other languages such that many linguists question if modern Hebrew is still even a Semitic language.
I have a Life Magazine from 1950 with a lead article titled, The Gay Secretary of State. If that were put into a 21st Century context the reader would glean an entirely different understanding about the Secretary of State. In 1950 the word gay would suggested a Secretary of State who loved to party, in the 21st Century, however, it would be a statement of the Secretary of State’s sexual preference. We have witnessed the change in this word in just one life time. What about a word written over 1,000 years ago. Well English did not exist, as we know it, 1,000 years ago. Yet, the Bible was written in the Hebrew language covering a period of more than 1,000 years. It is possible that a word spoken by Abraham might not mean the same thing to the people living in the day of Isaiah.
During the captivity period of the Jews in 587 BC the Hebrew language began to mix into the Akkadian language spoken by the Assyrians. They were later taken into captivity by the Babylonians when they conquered the Assyrians and then by the Persians when they conquered the Babylonians. By the time they returned to their homeland they were no longer speaking Hebrew but a mixture of these various languages known as Aramaic. Hebrew became a dead language only used ceremonially as Latin is used today in the Catholic church. Most Jews in America learn Hebrew as a child, many just enough Hebrew to get them through their bar mitzvah or to fulfill their religious duty and they leave knowing as much Hebrew as students who take Latin in high school. I have a friend who grew up in a Jewish orthodox home and attend Hebrew school for eight years as a child. He learned to speak and write Hebrew but after his bar mitzvah he drifted away and today he can barely read the legends in Jewish cemetery. To be sure there are many orthodox Jews who become very fluent in the ancient Hebrew language, not just modern Hebrew but the ancient Hebrew. These are the ones I sought out to help me in my Hebraic studies. I have found from these serious students of the ancient classical Hebrew that a lexicon or Hebrew dictionary is not the final word on what a particular Hebrew word means. That is reality, the true meaning of an ancient Hebrew word has been lost and we can only guess at its true meaning. Indeed we can offer some pretty good guesses with our modern use of linguistical tools and tradition. Yet, many of our translations are a reflection of one’s own bias.
For instance there was a movie some time ago called Star Gate. The premises was that ancient extraterrestrial beings from outer space came to earth in ancient times and built a star gate or a device that creates a worm hole opening a portal to another planet. The movie depicts top linguists trying to decipher the language on the star gate to learn how to operate it. These were experts in Egyptology who saw no such extra-terrestrial origin. They translated a passage as a door way to heaven. This followed their belief that the ancients believed in an afterlife and sought doorways to take them to heaven when they died. In the movie a primary character was brought in who subscribed to the ancient alien theory and he looked at that passage, scratched out doorway to heaven and inserted stargate. Door way to heaven and stargate basically mean the same thing but the choice of words in English create an entirely different context.
This brings me to the subject of this book. Throughout the early history of the Jewish race faith in God was taught through oral tradition. Very few people could read or write. In fact only a select few had this ability. Thus teachers taught through memorization of the Torah. As today when you commit things to memory you use certain memory tricks. I was tutoring a teenager to prepare him to take a history exam that the state required one pass before they can graduate from high school. This student failed practically every exam in his history class and just could not pass a test no matter how hard he tried. I taught him some memory tricks like association. For instance, he had one name he had to remember which was Baruch. I asked him to think of something he could associate that with and his face lit up and he said: “Yeah, when I go into a bar I come out ugh.” When he took the test he passed with such a high score that the teacher accused him of cheating. I had to actually sit down with the teacher and explain how I prepared him for the exam before the teaching could admit that the student passed the exam honestly.
One memory trick used by the ancient Jewish teachers was to associate phonic sounds with certain aspects of our relationship with God and His relationship with us. There were 22 such phonic sounds each describing our Godly relationship. These 22 sounds corresponded to the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. To be sure there is much debate, as with most historical facts, as to the origin of the Square script or Assyrian script. That is the script that is used in Hebrew today and found in your Hebrew Bible. It is the script used in this book and is the script you find prior to this chapter. This is named the Assyrian script because it was developed in Assyria during the captivity period.
One Jewish school of thought teaches that the present Square script actually existed at the beginning of time and was the script used on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain. Due to the sin of the nation God removed this sacred script but restored it during the time of captivity. More than likely the Square script came into being during the time of captivity. Prior to this time, as I mentioned earlier, very few Jews could read or write. However, during their captivity their ability to conduct business and governmental affairs was recognized and utilized. Consequentially a large portion of the Jewish population became literate during the captivity period. As a result Jewish teachers began showing their students letters as they gave their phonic meaning. Thus, the Aleph was a symbol of God. The only problem was that Hebrew borrowed its alphabet from the Canaanite script and the Aleph was a picture of an ox or bull’s head. The word for ox and bull is the same in Hebrew. This was the symbol of the pagan god Apis which was pictured with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Ezra the scribe knew he could not allow the teachings of God to be associated with such pagan symbols so he gathered his scribes together to create new alphabetic symbols. Unlike other languages which shared their alphabetic symbols with each other, these alphabetic symbols were not used by any other language other than Aramaic which became the language of the Jewish people by the first century. The symbols bore the meanings that were traditionally used by the teachers. For instance the Aleph changed from the head of a bull to a Yod Vav Yod ywy or awhich was an abbreviation for the name of God. The Beth b was shaped like a house as they described the Beth b as an expression of the home and heart where God resides. The Gimmel g was a picture of a man running to help another. The Gimmel g expressed lovingkindness.
It is my personal theory that God knew the Hebrew language would die but He created a built in commentary so we could do what we could not do with any other ancient dead language, even the Greek and Latin. We could take the meanings behind the Hebrew letters from the Hebrew words in its triliteral root. Every word in Hebrew is built on three letters. We could apply their various traditional meanings behind these Hebrew letters, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us to the particular meaning He desires us to explore and then use the combination of these three meanings to discover the ancient meaning behind a Hebrew word. In other words God is allowing us to peer back 2,500 years and to actually understand what a word in Hebrew meant to someone living in that day.
I know this whole idea is bold and it is not a proven theory but I like to have fun with it and I have found it spiritually edifying. I hesitate to share my conclusions with others as they are not proven so I earnestly encourage you not to take my conclusions as fact, but only a spiritual exercise to mediate on the Word of God and see if God is trying to reveal something a bit deeper than you would not ordinarily find in your Lexicon or dictionary.
I suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome and consequentially I do not see things the way others would see them. When I see Hebrew letters I do not see letters, but characters with personalities who dance around and sing songs to me and tell me stories. As I studied their meanings they began to teach me things and take me into depths of the Word of God that I never explored.
So I invite you into my Aspie world where the Hebrew Letters come alive with character and personality and to read some of these stories that my Hebrew letter friends have shared with me. I assure you that every conclusion I reach in no way contradicts our orthodox faith, in fact it most like is a reaffirmation of the truths we have been taught by our Christian teachers and pastors from childhood. I am only taking you there through a different and what I hope will be a more fun and entertaining route to these truths.
