Bible Geek Word Nerd - Creator

God the Creator

29 January 2022

Earlier we posted about beginnings…and we focused on the Hebrew word RESHITH (רֵאשִׁ֖ית) which means “beginning” or “chief”. It is derived from the word ROSH (רֹאשׁ) which means “head”. That word, of course, is used for everything from that anatomical structure that holds your brain to the first part of the year. ROSH HA-SHANAH (רֹאשׁ הַשָׁנָה) means “head of the year”.

 

Keeping with this theme of beginnings, let’s look today at another word that makes its debut in Genesis’s first sentence: BARA (בָּרָא). It is the verb used for “to create”, which is its primary definition. It can also be translated as “cut down” (Ezekiel 23:47). The Hebrew Bible features it more than 50 times, from Genesis to Ecclesiastes, most often as “create” and almost exclusively a verb attributed to G-d Himself alone.

 

“Remember your CREATOR in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’…” Ecclesiastes 12:1

 

“For this is what the LORD says—He who CREATED the heavens, he is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not CREATE it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited — He says: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’” Isaiah

 

When the Scriptures refer to human activity in making, the word BARA is never used; Hebrew has other words to describe that. We can make (ASAH). We can build (BANAH). We can erect (QUM). We (and the Avengers) can assemble (QAHAL or ASAPH). We can repair (BADAQ) and renew (CHADASH). But only the Living G-d can create (BARA) in an “ex nihilo” way.

 

#Beginnings

Bible Geek Word Nerd - nerdy on words

 27 January 2022

I am no expert on Biblical languages (Biblical languages respond: “You can say that again…but say please say it in English because your Hebrew and Greek are awful.”). English is my first language, and I have a smattering of Spanish (enough to fool a native speaker for perhaps two lines of a dialog. But Hebrew and Greek? Um… I did not begin anything resembling study until very late in life. As of now, there are many, many, many, MANY things about grammar, parsing tags, prefixes and suffixes, verb tenses, and even just root words that I do not know and probably will never learn. 

 

I would not thrive as a translator (see above about parsing tags et al.), even if I had gotten an early start. It is arduous work. I respect them for their expertise and diligence, whether they labor for the NRSV, NIV, NLT, KJV, NKJV, NASB, HCSB, or any of the other alphabet soup (or should I write ALEPH BETH?) options available to readers of the English language (crikey, there is an abundance of English versions available to us). I wouldn’t say I like every translation equally, though, and some of that disaffection is what led me to begin studying the original languages.

 

True story: I love words. I love definitions and shades of meaning and hints and connotations. I love to explore the ranges of meanings in words of all shapes and sizes. This is particularly true of the words G-d has inspired in His Holy Writ. This little Facebook page is really just an excuse to spout off my wonder at the complexity and beauty of the words in the Text (mostly Hebrew because there are many more words in the Hebrew Bible than in the New Testament).

 

This is not my first post to this page, but today is a new beginning. Candidly, it is a new beginning every day, and His mercies are new every morning, as the prophet tells us. So on this new beginning day – January 27th, Holocaust Memorial Day – we will reflect on the very first words in the Hebrew Bible, which are centered around RESHITH (רֵאשִׁ֖ית), which means “a beginning”.

 

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ

 

“BA-RESHITH BARA ELOHIM ETH HA-SHAMAYIM WA-ETH HA-ARETS”

In English, they are some of the most beautiful words in the entire length of the Text: “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth…”

 

Everything rests on this fundamental Truth. All starts with G-d, without whom nothing could begin. He is the uncaused first cause. The first mover. The Big Banger of the Big Bang. And future posts are resting on that presupposition: I write as a true believer that G-d began this whole revolving mystery of our world and our universe. And I write and read in wonder at that High Truth.

 

Will I continue making mistakes and getting messy (hat tip to Valerie Frizzle)? Undoubtedly. Is my theology or doctrine on firm footing? Maybe, but sometimes not. Will I be stealing ideas from smarter, more educated, more competent people than I? Maybe (a-hem, Bible Project, Ray Vander Laan, Jerusalem Perspective, Marvin Wilson, NT Wright, EP Sanders, Lois Tverberg, Ann Spangler, Craig Evans, David Stern, David Flusser, and too many others to name – all of whom comprise the shoulders on which I stand and the brains from which I will steal). Am I occasionally rude and often sarcastic? Yes, for sure. But maybe this will be fun. And maybe everyone will learn a thing or two. Care to join me in the Rabbit Hole?

Bible Geek Word Nerd - the Shoah

 18 January 2022

The Hebrew word today is a particularly important one for January 2022. Eighty years ago, on the 20th of January, Nazi leaders, comprising both government and SS ghouls, met at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan for the Final Solution to the Reich’s “Jewish question”. Cold-blooded reptilian efficiency, like all of Nazi plans, the conference took all of 90 minutes to decide how to continue what they were already doing with ruthless dispatch. More than six million Jews were murdered, along with 11 million Roma, Slavs, Serbs, and others deemed unfit to live in the brave new world envisioned by the Nazis.

 

The Hebrew word is “SHO” (שׁוֹא), from which we get “SHOAH”. The word is found many times in the Hebrew Bible, in various forms, from the Book of Job, to the Psalms, to the Prophets. Like most Hebrew words, it has a range of meanings in English: desolation, destroy, destruction, storm, devastation, and wasteness. A selection of its uses in the NIV translation:

 

Psalm 35: “May ruin (SHO) overtake them by surprise”

Proverbs 3: “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin (SHO) that overtakes the wicked”

Isaiah 47: “Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe (SHO) you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.”

 

Zephaniah 1:15: “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble (SHO) and ruin (SHO), a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness”

There are many ways to honor the fallen from World War 2. We Americans commemorate Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, and VE & VJ Days. Given that some 20 million were exterminated by the Nazis in Death Camps and other pogroms, including more than 6 million Jews, perhaps a “SHOAH Day” would be worth bringing to our consciousness: January 20th.

 

If you are a DC local, you can take in the world premiere of Fauquier Community Theatre’s production of Harry Kantrovich's “Shoah”, from January 21 to February 6. Go to FCTstage.org for more information. For further edification, navigate out to: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://www.haaretz.com/.../.premium-shoah-how-a-biblical...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090015/

Bible Geek Word Nerd - Avenger

 23 November 2021

Eliyahu David Kay, a South African immigrant to Israel, was murdered by a Hamas terrorist in Jerusalem on 21 November. As mourners sat shiva, many repeated an Hebrew phrase:

 

“May G-d avenge his blood”

שאלוהים ינקום את דמו

 

The phrase derives from Deuteronomy 32:43, “Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; He will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.” 

 

The Hebrew verb at the heart of this phrase is NAQAM (נָקַם) which means “to avenge or to take vengeance”. It is used in Genesis when G-d promises to avenge Cain sevenfold. It is found in the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet when he pleads with G-d to take vengeance on his persecutors. Interestingly, its prohibition is found in Leviticus 19, when G-d tells His people that they are not to take vengeance on or bear a grudge (NATAR נָטַר ) their fellow Israelites, but rather they are to love their neighbors (REA רֵעַ ) as themselves.

 

NAQAM is about more than retribution and even more than justice in a forensic sense. That is, the word is not about paying someone back for a wrong that has been done. Rather, it is more to do with Justice in the existential sense, which is less about punishment and more about restoration.

 

This is what the concept is challenging for us. We want to set things right. We want the guilty to pay. And indeed, we have legal systems in place to make the guilt pay. But sometimes, they do not. Sometimes, they escape punishment and there seems to be no justice and no peace. 

 

And then we may pray, “May G-d avenge their blood.” Because only the Holder of Absolute and Perfect moral Judgment (MISHPAT) is able to truly NAQAM.

Bible Geek Word Nerd - to Fulfill

16 September 2021

(the second post)

LEQAYEM (לְקַיֵּם֮) means "to fullfill" (see Esther 9:21). It is derived from the primitive Hebrew root QUM (קוּם) which means "to stand or arise". The reason to focus on this unusual (used only five times in this form in the Hebrew Bible) is its meaning and its use in historic rabbinic Judaism of the Second Temple period. From “The Yeshiva World”

 

The Gemorah in several places (see Gittin 35a, Rashi Kesuvos 69b) discusses the notion of “Mitzvah lekayem divrei hamais” which literally means, “it is a Mitzvah to fulfill the words of the deceased.” The concept is codified in Shulchan Aruch (CM 252:2) as well. (Yeshiva World, July 2016)

 

In rabbinic Judaism, this verb had much to do with the notion of living out properly (or FULFILLING) the Torah.

 

"If the Sanhedrin gives a decision to abolish (uproot, la’akor) a law, by saying for instance, that the Torah does not include the laws of Sabbath or idolatry, the members of the court are free from a sin offering if they obey them; but if the Sanhedrin abolishes (la’akor) only one part of a law but fulfills (lekayem) the other part, they are liable. " (MISHNAH, Harayot 1:3)

 

The phrase “to fulfill the Torah” means to carry it out – to do what it says. For an instance of this, one rabbi criticizes another’s interpretation of the Torah, which caused him to violate what the instruction really intends (although it might be tempting to laugh at this as Hebrew trash talk, it is a common charge amongst teachers as they wrestled with the Text

"If this is how you act, you have never in your whole life fulfilled the requirement of dwelling in a sukkah!" (MISHNAH, Sukkoth 2:7)

 

Or for another example, where the implication of LEQAYEM is “to obey”:

"Whoever fulfills the Torah when poor will in the end fulfill it in wealth. And whoever treats the Torah as nothing when he is wealthy in the end will treat it as nothing in poverty." (MISHNAH Pirke Avot 4:9)

 

By the time of Jesus, the phrase “fulfill the Torah” meant to live it out properly. A rabbi who was respected was one who “fulfilled the Torah.”

 

Jesus said, “I came to fulfill the Law” (Matthew 5:17).

What, pray tell, does He mean with respect to Torah? Are Andrew Farley and Andy Stanley and Marcion correct about "ending" the Law?

Bible Geek Word Nerd - the innaugural post - RUACH

14 September 2021

The word for today is RUACH ( רוּחַ), Like a lot of Hebrew words, it does double duty, meaning several potential things depending on context.

 

First, it means "wind".

 

Second, it means "spirit".

 

It also means "breath" (as in "breath of life"). Although another Hebrew word is used in Genesis 2 -- NESHAMAH (נְשָׁמָה) from the verb NASHAM (נָשַׁם), which means "to pant", RUACH is used in Genesis 6 when G-D told Noah He intended to destroy all who had the RUACH of life in them.

 

RUACH is used almost 400 times in the Hebrew Bible.

 

Want an interesting thought experiment? Jesus undoubtedly spoke Hebrew, based on the emerging evidence today (He probably spoke Aramaic and Greek, too).

 

Read the account from the Gospel of John of Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus. Substitute "RUACH" for both wind and spirit, and you get a sense of the playful wordplay used by a skilled rabbinic teacher.

Bible Geek Word Nerd - Peacemaker

1 November 2021

One of Jesus' most famous sets of sayings takes place during St. Matthew's record of the Sermon on the Mount. We are (during this season of division across our Body Politic) brought back to Jesus' extolling of the virtues of being a PEACEMAKER ("Blessed are the peacemakers..." or "cheesemakers" as the Monty Pythons misheard it).

 

The Greek word Matthew uses (EIRENOPOIOI / εἰρηνοποιοί) is a portmanteau of two other words:

EIRÉNÉ / εἰρήνη means "peace, quietness, rest, undisturbed"

POIEÓ / ποιέω means "to make, to do, to manufacture"

 

Jesus, who almost certainly was not speaking Greek to his Jewish audience, probably would have used a very common Hebrew expression: "OSEH SHALOM", which means "doer or maker of peace". Drawn for the Book of Job, it was said daily phrase in the concluding blessing of the Amidah (or Standing) Prayer of ancient Judaism.

 

"May He Who makes peace (OSEH SHALOM) in His high places make peace (YA'ASEH SHALOM) for us, and for all Israel. And say ye, Amen."

 

In both the Job verse and the prayer, God Himself is the peacemaker. When mankind takes on a peacemaking role, they are like their Father in heaven (AVINU SHABASHAMAYIM) and are thus children of God.