Hebrew letters are different. I mean, if I asked you what the first letter of the alphabet was, you’d probably tell me “A”. And then if I asked you what that meant, you’d look at me a little strange. But the letters of the Hebrew alphabet not only stand for phonetic sounds, they also are symbols that mean something. For instance, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter alef. It actually has a silent sound; but it also means ox, which has the figurative meaning for strength. Lost yet?
OK, the Hebrew alphabet has had some major overhauls in the last several millenias. Most people are familiar with the general look of the modern Hebrew alphabet that looks something like this:
But this is not how the alef-bet (Hebrew alphabet) started. Before Ezra changed the alef-bet to a form similar to the modern look, the Hebrew alphabet looked more like hieroglyphics. And each picture, that made up a phonetic sound, also represented an idea in and of itself. The ancient alphabet, often called paleo-hebrew, went through a series of changes to produce what we know of now as modern Hebrew. This chart will illustrate the changes through time:
You can see in the chart that the early (paleo–) Hebrew for the letter alef was the picture of an ox head. This represented strength. Now look at the second letter, the letter beyt, or bet. When you look at this letter, picture looking down from a bird’s eye view at the floorplan of a tent. The “open” part is where the entrance to the tent would be. The ‘closed’ part on the right is where the women’s part of the tent was. We catch a glimpse of this in Gen 24:67—“And Isaac brought her [Rebekah] into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife…” This doesn’t mean that Abraham and Sarah had separate tents; it’s simply a reference to Sarah’s portion of Abraham’s tent.
The meaning of this letter beyt is tent, or house. So if you combine these two letters, alef (strength) and beyt (house), you get the Hebrew word AV, which means father. The father is the strong one of the house. Pretty neat, huh? You can see that combining the various meanings of the letters actually makes a description of the object named. Let’s look at another example.
The letter mem looks like waves. This letter means water. When you combine the alef with the mem, you get the word AM, which means mother, or more specifically strong water. The ancient Hebrews used to take the fat from the animals that they hunted and boil it. This boiled fat was then used as a glue to reinforce tent panels and the like. So when the ancients looked at the function of the mother in the home, they said she was the glue that held the home together. Now doesn’t that make sense!
Alright, so now let’s try our hand at a more complex combination—the word echad, or One. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One (echad).” So the root of this word is chad, which is spelled chet—dalet. Under the “early” column in the chart above, you will see that the symbol for chet is a tent wall. Remember, the ancient Hebrews were nomadic, living in tents. When they wanted to enlarge a tent, they simply tied branches in the style the chet symbol shows to make a wall panel. This panel was then covered with animal skins sown together to form a wall. So the figurative meaning of a wall is to separate. Now the symbol for the letter dalet looks like a stick with a box under it. This is actually a picture of a tent door. The doors on nomadic tents were flaps that hung down over the opening. You simply lifted the flap to enter the tent. So the letter dalet means door, and the figurative meaning for door is to unite. So whereas the wall separates; the door unites.
By taking the symbol for separating and combining it with the symbol for uniting, the Hebrew was demonstrating that one thing, or person, has a multiplicity of functions. Nothing is simply one; but rather all things are a composite unity. For instance, a man is not just a single entity; he’s a unity of body, mind and breath. He also didn’t just appear from nowhere, but has connections to parents, his spouse and children. Likewise, a tree isn’t a single entity, but rather the combination of roots, trunk, branches and leaves! It takes all of those to make a tree. But the roots of the tree have a different function than the leaves. And a man’s body has a different purpose than his mind.
We’re all made up of multiple functions, purposes and passions; but it’s the combination of these things that make us who we are. Well, Deuteronomy is saying the same thing about God. Adding the alef to the beginning of our combination, means that God is the Strong Separator/Uniter. The God of Israel is multi-faceted! Check out this verse from Isaiah:
“I form the light and create the darkness: I make peace and create evil [calamity]: I the Lord do all these things.” (Isa. 45:7)
In this passage, Adonai is revealing himself to the Medo-Persian King Cyrus. He was declaring that He and He alone was God; that there was none other (vss 5-6). Anything that happened in life, occurred because the sovereign hand of Adonai allowed it to occur. This is the declaration being made in Deuteronomy—“Hear O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is the Ultimate Cause.”
So often in life, we fret over situations that come at us. But if we understand that our Father is ultimately behind everything that we experience, we can begin to rest and be content in whatever happens to us, or wherever life takes us. Paul said that we are “predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the council of His own will: that we should be to the praise of His glory…” (Eph 1:11-12) This means that regardless of the situation that you find yourself in, God will work it out in a manner that will enable you to praise Him. He’s good like that!
I’ll leave you with one thought:
“…I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:11-13)
More fun next time! Shalom–
John
