With zayin comes a few surprises and our first real mystery. The form of the zayin during the first temple period was two horizontal strokes joined by a vertical stroke. We know the word zayin from the Mishna where it means armaments or trappings of … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 7, Zayin)
In the case of the letter he’ the object depicted in the earliest forms was clear but it was the meaning of the name that required explanation. With the next letter vav, we are back to a situation where it is not clear to a … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 6, Vav)
With bet and dalet, it was not easy for a modern day person to identify what was being depicted in the earliest forms of these letters but the meanings of the names of the letters were obvious and helped to identify the depicted objects. With … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 5, He’)
The earliest form of the fourth Hebrew letter dalet consisted of a rectangle or square with the top line longer than than the other sides. Again as with bet and gimel it is not easy for a modern day person to identify what is being … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 4, Dalet)
Previously we saw that the aleph came from a picture of the head of an ox (aleph) and bet from the floor plan of a house (bayit); where does the next letter gimel come from? People typically recognize that the root of the name is … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 3, Gimel)
Regarding the origin of aleph things were clear cut, we know aleph means ox and the early forms of aleph clearly depict an ox head. Where did the next letter bet come from? Here we begin to see that things are not so obvious. If … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 2, Bet)
Ever wondered how the letters of the Hebrew alphabet originated? To answer this we need to briefly look at how writing originated in general. Writing had its beginnings in drawing. Stone age man used paintings or drawings to illustrate events and as mnemonics for the … Continue reading Origins of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet (Part 1, Aleph)
As many might know, most cultures used patronyms “X son of Y” or “X daughter of Y” to identify people before the development of fixed surnames. Christian nations starting adopting fixed surnames in the late middle ages with the exception of Iceland which still uses … Continue reading Biblical Hebrew names from symbolic kinship formulae
Morphologically “elohim” it is the masculine plural of “el”. “El” literally means “power” or to use a more old fashioned word “might”. In Biblical Hebrew the literal use is found for example in Genesis 31:29 where Lavan says to Yaacov, “yesh l’el yadi” = “it … Continue reading The meaning of “Elohim”
Has anyone ever wondered why in Hebrew we have a prefix “ha-” for the word “the” but in Aramaic we have a suffix “-a” while the Arabs have yet another way to say “the” – they use a prefix “al-“? It was once thought that … Continue reading The Semitic Definite Articles
Ivri Anochi 