Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon

© Copyright 2014 Chaim Bentorah.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

King James Version

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James

Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV

Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3961-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3960-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Trafford rev. 06/24/2014

21816.png www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: 812 355 4082

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Chapter I THE HISTORY OF THE HEBREW ALPHABET

The History of Language

The Nature of Language

WRITING SYSTEMS

THE HEBREW WRITING SYSTEM

Chapter II THE MEANINGS BEHIND THE HEBREW LETTERS

Two Views on the Meanings of Hebrew Letters

The Nature of the Esoteric Structure of the Hebrew Alphabet

Letters and Their Meanings

The Letter’s Name

Where the Letter Makes its First Appearance

The Letter’s Geometrical Shape

The Letters Numerical Value

The Value of Knowing and Using the Meanings Behind Hebrew Letters

The Three Keys to Translation from a Semitic Language

Meaning of Each Hebrew Letter

Aleph

Beth

Gimmel

Daleth

Hei

Vav

Zayin

Cheth

Teth

Yod

Kap

Lamed

Mem

Nun

Samek

Ayin

Pei

Sade

Qop

Resh

Shin

Taw

Chapter III THE GEMETRIA

What is the Gematria

Examples of Gematria Use

Is The Gematria and Letter Meanings an Acceptable Practice

Chapter IV WORD PLAYS

What Is A Word Play

Esoteric Word Play

Chapter V THE THREE NECESSARY CONTEXTS IN TRANSLATING FROM SEMITIC LANGUAGES

The Approach

Implementation

Preparation for Study

Beginning Your Word Study

The Technical Understanding of a Hebrew Word

The Esoteric Approach

The Emotional and Revelatory Context

Chapter VI WORD STUDIES USING THE ESTORIC STRUCTURE OF THE HEBREW ALPHABET

Esoteric Meanings Behind Hebrew Letters

Cup – Kavas 

Difficult Path - linethiboth 

Fire – ‘esh 

Beyond The Looking Glass

Understanding – Byin , Entrance – Patach and Word – Debar 

Put or Give – Nathan 

Patience – ‘orek 

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK IS A guide in how to do a Hebrew word study. However, in order to understand the ways and means of doing a Hebrew word study one needs to really understand not only the Hebrew language but the nature of the Semitic languages itself. As a teacher of the Biblical Hebrew language in a Bible College it was my job to maintain the highest academic standards for my students who were to be future pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers. This meant that I would follow a more traditional line of instruction which involved heavy memorization of Hebrew verbal forms and vocabulary.

However, God has now called me into a ministry outside the academic setting where I teach Christians of all backgrounds and educational experiences how to use the Hebrew language in their own personal Bible study. This means I am now teaching people who are not interested in a grade or earning a degree but only to be able to study the Bible in the original language. This meant that I needed to give people a tool which they could use in their personal study that they could use almost immediately without years of memorization and study. I have found that most people are really not interested in grammar so much as the study of a Hebrew word itself. Hence much of my time in teaching Hebrew is spent in really teaching them how to do a word study. Therefore, I have written this book for those who are not seeking to learn to speak Hebrew or to take a placement test but only for those who wish to study the Word of God and find a richer and deeper understanding by peering into the ancient Hebrew language and studying a particular word.

This book is the result of my many years of research to develop a Bible study tool where any Christian, regardless of his age, educational background, or culture will be able to study the Word of God in the original language and go beyond a simple search in Strong’s Concordance, lexicon or their Bible Dictionary. This Bible study tool takes you beyond the lexicon and uses an ancient method of opening up each Hebrew word and reading its built in commentary. This commentary is discovered by combining the ancient, esoteric structure of each Hebrew letter and translating a particular Hebrew word, letter by letter.

Less than fifty years ago there were very few English translations of the Bible other than the King James Version. Most people grew up reading the King James Version of the Bible and never questioned its accuracy. Most would even shun the few other translations as just a perversion of the Authorized Version of the Bible. As we entered into the second half of the twentieth century there was a literal explosion of new and modern translations of the Bible which were coming into common use among evangelical Christians and churches. Suddenly Christians came to the realization that the Bible is a translated work from two ancient and dead languages, Greek and Hebrew and that there can be many variations as to how words and whole passages of the Bible could be rendered.

As a teacher of the Classical Hebrew the most common question I am asked concerns which translation of the Bible is the correct translation or the most accurate translation. As all our modern English translations have been translated by skilled linguist and language scholars, I can only reply that all of these translations are good. This is then followed with the question as to why there are so many different renderings.

This is a difficult question if we consider it from a Western mindset. Our culture is a very scientific and mathematical culture where two plus two must always equal four. Thus, in our Western mindset there can only be one true rendering for every word in the Bible or it just cannot be the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

This book is not intended to argue for the inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God. This will be accepted as a truth. What this book will attempt to do is point out that with regard to the Hebrew language as the original language of the Old Testament one word can have a wide range of meanings within the modern context of the English language.

Classical Hebrew died out during the captivity period around the sixth century BC and was only retained as a ceremonial language until the turn of the 20th Century when it was revived for use as a national language in Israel. However, what is spoken in Israel today is a modern version of Hebrew containing a couple hundred thousand words as opposed to the Classical Hebrew which has only about seventy five hundred words. Many of the original meaning of these words have been lost and what we have are just our traditional understandings of these words as they have been passed down from generation to generation. Even with the traditional understanding of a word, to find a modern English word that best fits an ancient word can be difficult. For instance at the beginning of the 20th Century we could have rendered the Hebrew word ashar as gay. That is gay in the sense of being happy and joyful. In the 21st Century if we were to render ashar as gay we would not be thinking of one’s emotional state but of one’s sexual orientation.

This constant change and evolutionary nature of a language, even over a relatively short period of time, gives us a need for continual revisions of former English translations of the Bible as well as entirely new versions. Yet with so many modern English versions of the Bible to choose from, how can we be sure which one conveys the correct understand of a word or verse?

One purpose of this book is to address this question and present an argument that the Word of God was written in the ancient Hebrew language under the inspiration of God for a very specific purpose. The very nature of the ambiguity of an ancient dead language allows for a variety of renderings for one specific word. It is true that we must apply proper linguistical, exegetical, and grammatical rules regarding proper syntax as well as an understanding of a word in its proper context but also in the context of the culture and text itself. Thus, merely looking a word up in the back of Strong’s Concordance or a Bible Dictionary will not give you the entire understanding. You must also study the context of the passage and the cultural environment from which the passage was written.

This has been done with all our modern translations and yet you will still find many variations of renderings and some which are even of a conflicting or contradictory nature. There is an old Rabbinical tale of a man who asked his rabbi a question. The rabbi gave a very learned answer and the man excitedly declared, You’re right. Another rabbi overhearing the conversation gave an entirely different and contradictory answer. The man responded, You’re right. A third rabbi looked at the man and said, He’s right and he’s right, they both cannot be right. The man looked at the third rabbi and said, You’re right. The point of the story is that in our culture we cannot accept two different answers as right, especially if they are a seeming contradiction. Yet, in the Semitic mindset, that is really no problem. The ancient Semitic mindset was not as complicated and exacting as our Western scientific and mathematical thought process.

I have written a book based upon the ancient Talmudic belief that there are seventy faces of Torah.¹ In other words every verse in the Bible can have seventy shades of meaning and yet one meaning. When I was teaching an advanced Hebrew class in Bible college every year for the thirteen years I taught that class we would spend the first two months translating Proverbs 3:5-6. Every year there would be at least one student who would shed new light on this passage of Scripture that I had never considered. Generally this came from one of my international students who represented many different cultural backgrounds and experiences. Such experiences and cultural input into a translation did not produce a wrong or a mistranslation but one which gave deeper insight into the message God was presenting in the passage. The Bible is a well that will never run dry. Every verse, ever word and even every letter is inspired by God to teach something about His relationship with us and our relationship with Him.

This book will present a means of doing a Hebrew word study where anyone, regardless of their educational background, cultural experience or level of spiritual maturity can study the Word of God in the original Hebrew. It is the purpose of this book to show that God has put a commentary into each word in the Hebrew so that He can speak to each person on an individual basis. I will show how anyone who so desires can open up this commentary without years of Hebraic studies and not only enter into a deeper understanding of Scripture but an understanding of a personal application that the Spirit of God will provide. You will learn how to move beyond just looking up a word in a Bible Dictionary or your lexicon and actually begin translating not only word for word but letter by letter using the ancient rabbinical esoteric meanings behind each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.

CHAPTER I

THE HISTORY OF THE

HEBREW ALPHABET

The History of Language

WE CANNOT SPEAK WITH certainty as to how languages developed. Recent linguists do concluded that all of the languages on earth come from one universal language.² As to the exact nature of this language, that is consider unknown. Among Orthodox Jews and a rising school of thought known as Edenics, it is believe that God hotwired man’s brain at creation to be fluid in a language which was Semitic in its nature and was most likely Hebrew.

As one who believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God, I would have to accept the fact that the whole world spoke one language up to the time of Babel when God confused the language of man and cause men to speak different languages.³ This being the case, then the question is what was this one language before the time of the Tower of Babel? Traditionally it was believed to be Hebrew or a pre-Hebrew language. This belief was so revered that even in colonial American the first doctoral dissertation at Harvard College was entitled, Hebrew as The Mother Tongue.⁴

There seems to be some linguistical validity to this idea that the first language of mankind was at least Semitic in origin. For instance the word LAD (boy) is yalad 33555.png . Both in Hebrew, in Aramaic yld 33557.png is the word for infant and in Arabic the word for child is walid, each is built upon the Semitic root word spelled Lamed, Daleth 33559.png (L-D). The science of Edenics now has over 23,000 such coincidences.⁵ The science of Edenics works with a Proto-Semitic vocabulary where each root letter has the genes for the wide diversity of the world’s words.⁶

Edenics then moves from the Semitic languages to other world languages to show these coincidences such as the Hebrew word for way or path which is derek 33581.png which is spelled Daleth 33583.png Resh 33585.png Kap 33587.png (DRK). In Russian it is the word doroga which uses the consonants DRG. The G or Gimmel 33589.png can shift to a harder C as it passes through various dialects to sound like a Kap 33591.png (K). Thus a slight shift in sound produces a different sounding word, yet it is still based in its original word. ⁷ As I personally study the Semitic languages myself I will often attempt to trace a Hebrew word to its Semitic origins. I will usually trace the triliteral root word using the first two letters. For instance there are seven different words that can be rendered as evil. The first two letters of the triliteral root are the same. The third letter tells you what type of evil you are dealing with. For instance ra’ah 33593.png (Resh-Ayin-Hei) is an evil that is a consuming passion. Ra’av (Resh-Ayin-Beth) 33596.png is an evil for famine or hunger, Ra’al 33598.png (Resh-Ayin-Lamed) is an evil that causes one to tremble or shake in fear.⁸ Many are familiar with the Egyptian word ra which refers to the Egyptian sun God. This god was not considered to be benevolent and hence you have the idea of evil.

Yet, even if we conclude that the original language before the tower of Babel was Semitic in nature and indeed Hebrew, this opens the door to some greater questions, some that are mystical in nature.

The Nature of Language

Genesis 1:3 tells us And God said: ‘Let there be light.⁹ This creates an interesting question because we learn that God is a spirit.¹⁰ In the Greek the word spirit is pneuma which has the idea of wind or breath.¹¹ In the Aramaic Bible (Peshitta) the word that is used is rucha.¹² This is identical to the Hebrew word ruch which is generally rendered as spirit, wind, cool air, mind or disposition.¹³ In other words a spirit has no corporal being, it is something you can feel, but cannot really see. It has no form. Thus God as a Spirit would have no physical form such as lungs, a tongue or vocal cords which are necessary to form speech. So how it that God was able to speak light into being? The answer may lie in the Hebrew word used for said which is ‘amar. There are two words in Hebrew commonly used for speaking, ‘amar and debar. Debar means to speak but in its Semitic root it has the idea of making a connection.¹⁴ Amar also means to speak, but this is a speaking which is just making a declaration, an announcement. Amar does not actually have to be a vocalization, it could be just a thought.¹⁵ Thus, God just simply imagined or thought about light and there was light. He just imagined and thought about grass and there was grass.¹⁶

Still to even think we must formulated some sort of vocabulary, do we not? Animals do not think in any language. They feel things. They feel impending atmospheric and geological changes in the earth in their physical bodies. They are in tune with all the physical elements of the earth, its electrical and magnetic fields. Birds will fly intuitively straight to their winter homes thousands of miles away. Migrating whales do much the same. Salmon return to their breeding grounds to lay their eggs.¹⁷ Animals have a language, but it is not a language of words, it is the language of the creation, it is a language of the mind, emotions and feelings. If you have a pet dog you may think he understands every word you say, but he is really watching your eyes, your body movements and listening to the tone of our voice. He can tell if you are upset or happy. If you are upset with him it does not matter whether the words coming out of your mouth say, Bad, nasty, terrible dog, or Beautiful, wonderful, dear dog. No matter what words you use your pet will lower his heard and whine in despair. It is not your words he hears but your heart that he feels. So too is the language of God, it is not the words we use, the language we speak to Him in, but it is the words of our heart. These are not phonical sounds filled with vowels and consonants formed from our physical vocal cords, carried by air passing through our lungs and forming certain sounds with our tongue and lips, but they are expressions of our heart.

Scientist will tell us that thought is electrical energy. An electroencephalography (EEG) is regularly used. An EEG is a test that measures and records the electrical activity of the brain. A computer records the brain’s activities on a screen as wavy lines. Certain condition, such as seizures can be seen by the changes in the normal pattern of the brain’s activity. ¹⁸ Researchers today at Samsung’s Emerging Technology Lab are testing tablets that can be controlled by your brain by using a cap that resembles a ski hat studded with monitoring electrodes. The computer uses a binary code of 1 and 0. It is a language in itself, but it is not words, nor does a computer understand words, it only understands, on and off. Electrical impulse and no