The Importance of Studying Hebrew
by Dr. Daniel Botkin
Years ago, I read a quote from a Hebrew
poet. (I think it was Hayim Naliman Bialik.) The poet stated that reading
the Bible in any language other than the original Hebrew is like kissing a
beautiful woman with a veil between your face and hers. In other words,
reading a translation of the Bible is better than nothing, but it isn’t
nearly as wonderful as reading it in Hebrew, with the linguistic veil
removed.
Even anti-Semites like Martin Luther
have recognized the importance of Hebrew: “If I were younger I would want
to learn this language,” Luther wrote, “because no one can really
understand the Scriptures without it.” (Pinchas Lapide, Hebrew in the
Church, p. x) “Many Bible verses take on new meaning when you know
them in the original languages,” writes Richard Wurmbrand. “At least
pastors and priests should be required to know these. When people of
different nationalities love each other, they usually learn one another’s
language. Why do the children of G-d, especially those who
are cultured, not learn the original languages of the Bible?” (If
Prison Walls Could Speak, p.95)
Wurmbrand is right. If I were married to
a foreign woman, I would soon grow tired of communicating with her through
a third party, regardless of how well the third party could translate. I
would be very thankful for the translator for as long as he was needed,
but I think I would eventually become frustrated and maybe even a little
jealous. I wish she could understand my words as they come from me,
I would think. When she expresses delight at the words the translator
speaks to her it almost seams like she loves the translator instead of me.
I would get my wife enrolled in an English class as soon as possible.
Nehemiah knew the importance of
preserving the knowledge of Hebrew. When the Jewish exiles returned to
Jerusalem after seventy years of captivity in Babylon, Nehemiah made this
observation: "In those days also I saw Jews that had married wives of
Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spake half in the speech
of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the
language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and
smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by
G-d" (Neh. 13:23-25). Nehemiah was quite a zealot for the
Hebrew language. Maybe we should go into churches and try Nehemiah’s
method of encouraging G-d’s people to learn Hebrew.
There have also been zealots for the
Hebrew language in more recent history. The most notable was Eliezer Ben
Yehudah, the man responsible for reviving Hebrew as a spoken language and
establishing it as the official language of the modern state of Israel. A
couple hundred years before Ben Yehudah, there were many excellent
Christian Hebraisits such as Cotton Mather, William Bradford, and other
early American settlers. A Hebrew oration was delivered every year at
Harvard’s commencement until 1817. In the early years of our nation, when
anti-British sentiments were high, many colonists wanted to use some
language other than English as the national language for the newly-formed
United States of America. One of the languages seriously considered was
Hebrew. It makes a person wonder how the course of history, might have
been different if the resolution had been adopted.
What are some things that a Bible reader
misses by reading only a translation? For one thing, there are many plays
on words throughout the Bible. One of the first examples of a play on
words is in the story of the creation of Eve. Adam said, She shall be
called Woman [ishah] because she was taken out of Man [ish]
(Gen. 2:23). Adam had seen female animals, but this was the first
time he had seen a female ish. This newly-formed creature resembled
Adam, but it was obvious that she was female. So Adam added the feminine
suffix -ah to ish. Another possible explanation: When Adam
awoke from his sleep and saw the woman standing before him, perhaps he
thought it was another man, and said, “Ish?” and then as the woman came
into focus, “Ahhh!” (This explanation is not to be taken seriously of
course.)
Another play on words can be seen when
Adam names the woman “Eve”: And Adam called his wife’s name Eve [Chavah,
“living; life-giver”], because she was the mother of all living [chai]
(Gen. 3:20). Similar plays on words can be seen in the namings of Cain,
Seth, Noah, Isaac, and the twelve sons of Jacob, and, of course, at the
naming of the Messiah: "...thou shalt call His name Yeshua
[salvation]: for He shall save (yoshia) His people from their sins"
(Matt. 1.21, Hebrew translation).
Another feature in the Hebrew of the
Bible is the concept of word origins and the relationship of words to one
another. Sometimes this is similar to a play on words. Man (adam)
was created from the dust of the ground (adamah). In the
transliteration we can see that adam is taken out of adamah.
Contained in the word adam is dam, the Hebrew word for
“blood,” reminding us that the life of Adam is in his blood.
Here is an example of word origin: Why
was Abraham the first person to be called “a Hebrew” (ivri)? The
first place the word ivri/Hebrew occurs is in Gen. 14:13, where the
phrase “Abram the Hebrew” appears, with no explanation of what a “Hebrew”
is. Some people suggest Abram was called a Hebrew because he was a
descendant of Eber (Gen. 11:14), and this is a possibility. Another
possibility, though, is found in the meaning of the ayin-beit-resh (three
Hebrew letters) root of ivri. The word means “to cross over” (a
river or a street, e.g.). This is exactly what Abram did. He “crossed
over” in a figurative, spiritual sense when he abandoned polytheism and
embraced monotheism. The Jews who translated the Septuagint used the Greek
phrase Abram to perate, “Abram the passer”) in this verse. In other
places they used the Greek word Ebraios to translate ivri/Hebrew.
Knowing all this helps us to identity more closely with our father
Abraham. We are all “Hebrews” in a figurative sense if we have “crossed
over” from the kingdom of sin and darkness into the kingdom of
righteousness and light. Like our father Abraham, we are all “passers” as
we pass through this world, looking for “a city which hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is G-d” (Heb. 11:10).
The poetry of the Prophets is another
area of Scripture that is greatly enhanced by some knowledge of Hebrew.
Anyone who has studied both foreign languages and poetry knows that poetry
loses some of its impact when it is translated into another language. This
is true of pose, too, but even more so with poetry. And many of the
Prophets’ writings are written in poetic form. Here are a few examples
that I ran across while studying Isaiah in Hebrew:
… He [Yahweh] looked for judgment (
mishpat), but behold oppression (mispach) , for righteonsness (tsedakah)
, but behold a cry (tse’akah) (5:7)
… For it is a day of trouble (mehumah)
, and of treading down ( mevusah) and of perplexity (mevuchah)
(22:5)
… Fear (pachad) , and the pit (pachat),
and the snare (pach) are upon thee (24:17).
… precept must be upon precept, precept
upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a
little
tsav la-tsav, tsav la-tsav
kav la-kav, kav la-kav
ze’ir sham, ze’ir sham (28:10)
Another feature of Hebrew is the use of
acrostics. Several Psalms (and Lamentations and the “virtuous woman”
passage of Proverbs 31) are written in such a way that the first verse
begins with the letter aleph, the second with the letter beit,
the third with the letter gimel, and so on. Psalm 119 has groups of
eight verses for each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
A knowledge of Hebrew also allows a
reader to see different levels of meaning in the Scriptures. When Isaiah
says of the wicked dead that “their worm shall not die, neither shall
their fire be quenched,” the word translated “their fire” is isham,
a word formed by combining “fire” (esh) and the possessive “their”
suffix, -m. This is how possessives are formed in Biblical Hebrew,
so “their fire” is an accurate translation. But the word … can just as
accurately be read as asham (“guilt”) is not removed. Their guilt
provides the fuel for their fire.
Learning Hebrew idioms can help a reader
to better understand the Bible. An idiom is a combination of words that
has a meaning which cannot be understood by simply knowing the meaning of
each individual word. In English we have hundreds of idioms, such as
“That’s a horse of a different color” or “That really hit the spot!” These
statements have nothing to do with horses and colors or hitting and spots.
Students learning a foreign language must learn idioms as complete units,
one at a time. It’s not enough to just know the definitions of the
individual words. My seven years’ experience teaching English to foreign
students has made me very aware of the importance of learning idioms. If
students try to understand an idiom by looking up the definitions of the
individual words, they will not get an accurate understanding of what the
writer or speaker is trying to communicate. This is as true of Hebrew as
it is of English. A Strong’s concordance is fine for understanding
individual words, but it will not be of much help if you are dealing with
an idiom.
One example of a Hebrew idiom is
baruch ha-ba, translated literally as “blessed is he that comes”. In
Hebrew this idiom simply means “welcome”. When I lived in Israel, the road
leading up to Jerusalem had shrubbery trimmed in the shape of Hebrew
letters, proclaiming baruchim ha-baim liyrushalayim, “Welcome to
Jerusalem.” When the Messiah lamented over Jerusalem He said, “Ye shall
not see Me henceforth, til ye say, “Blessed is he that comes in the
name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:39). In other words, He will not return until
Jerusalem welcomes Him as their Messiah.
Perhaps the most
important benefit of studying Hebrew is the benefit of having the mind
renewed. The student of Hebrew begins to develop Hebraic thought patterns,
and a Hebrew-based Biblical world view gradually replaces the Greek-based
non-Biblical world view that most Western people have. Marvin Wilson
discusses “The Contour of Hebrew Thought” in his book Our Father
Abraham. Of course the mind can be renewed quite a bit by extensive
reading of the Old Testament in a literal word-for-word translation such
as the King James Version,(1) where the
Hebraic word order and sentence structure are retained to some extent.
So, how does a person learn Hebrew? The
best way, of course, is to go to Israel and spend a few months in an
ulpan, where students attend intensive Hebrew language classes full
time. This is how I learned. During my two years in Israel, I spent a
total of ten months in ulpan, attending classes five hours a day, five
days a week.
If someone is serious about studying
Hebrew, I strongly recommend going to Israel and enrolling in full-time
language classes there. After about three months in ulpan, I was able to
read and understand some of the simpler texts of the Bible, in spite of
the differences between modern and Biblical Hebrew. I later studied
Biblical Hebrew independently, and taught a class. I have retained my
knowledge of the language by further independent study and by teaching
Hebrew to others.
Not everyone can go to Israel long
enough to study Hebrew, of course. Some large cities (in the New York
area, especially) offer courses, as do some colleges and universities.
There are many “teach yourself” courses with tapes, videos, and computer
programs. These are better than nothing, but cannot compare to learning in
a classroom setting. The person who can learn a foreign language without
the help of a real live flesh and blood teacher is a very rare individual.
Perhaps in the future our congregation
here in Peoria will be blessed with our own facilities and be able to
offer short-term, full-time intensive classes here in Illinois. I would
love to see us obtain property with enough space for classrooms and
live-in dormitories to house students who want to come here and study for
a month, two months, three months, whatever. Please pray with us about
this possibility.
_______________
1. We personally prefer the Complete Jewish
Bible as a better translation of the English Bible, as it
retains the original Hebrew/Jewish forms of thought from the original
language. Our personal opinion is that the King James is an extremely poor
translation. — RLS [return]
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This article appeared in Messianic
Home magazine, Spring 1999,
and is reproduced here with their kind permission.
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