Hebrew

Jordan and I have been taking Hebrew lessons for quite some time now. Sadly we are not as far as I would like, but at least we are working on a pretty regular basis. Recently I had the opportunity to hear an author come and speak about his research into the ancient Hebrew language, which has many differences from the modern Hebrew which is really of Aramaic origin. It was adopted by the Israelites during their captivity in Babylon. So, what predated this modern language? Pictures, much like Hieroglyphs. (from Jeff Benners book "Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible") "The Ancient Hebrew language is a concrete oriented language meaning that the meaning of Hebrew words are rooted in something that can be sensed by the five senses such as a tree which can be seen, sweet which can be tasted and noise which can be heard. Abstract concepts such as "praise" have no foundation in the concrete and are a product of ancient Greek philosophy." So, the word "praise" originates with a picture of a man with his hands raised looking at something spectacular and a shepherd staff that is used to move the flock toward a place. So, the original meaning of the man and a staff is the North Star, a bright light that is looked toward to guide one on the journey. So the word praise (the man with two staffs after it) in its original concrete meaning is a bright light that guides the journey and we praise God by looking at Him to guide us on our journey through life. Isn't that cool??? There is so much rich depth in the original pictures of the language and it opens up the bible in an incredible new way. So, what is my point you might be thinking? Nothing really. Other than I thought it was way cool and I wanted to add it to my blog. So, as I get time I will be swiping a teaching from Jeff Benners site Ancient Hebrew Research Center
and posting them on here for anyone who might enjoy these little amazing nuggets of truth. So I shared the one above today from Jeff's book, check back and I will try to post one a week.