The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alephbet
Chapter One



Chapter 1 - Hebrew Culture


Who were the Hebrews?

    The first person mentioned in the Bible as a "Hebrew" is Abraham.

"One who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew"2.

    Is Abraham the first Hebrew? The Hebrew word for "Hebrew" is /a.b.r.y.t/eevriyt3 and comes from the root word /a.b.r4 which means "to cross over". A Hebrew is "one who has crossed over". One of Abraham's ancestors was /a.b.r/ever5 which is written as Eber in English. The name Eber also comes from the same root word making it possible that Eber was also considered a "Hebrew". The Bible is the story of God and his covenant relationship (Hebraicly understood as crossing over from death to life) with an ancestral line beginning with Adam through his descendants Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's descendants who became the "nation of Israel" also known as "the Hebrews". It is possible that a Hebrew was one who had "crossed over" into a covenant relationship with God, which would have begun with Adam. When I refer to the "ancient Hebrews" in this book, I am referring to the ancestral line from Adam to the Nation of Israel.


The Origin of the Hebrew Language

    Was Hebrew just one of the many Semitic languages6 such as Canaanite, Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian, etc., that evolved out of a more ancient unknown language? Or, was Hebrew the original language of man?

    According to the Bible all people spoke one language7 until the construction of the Tower of Babel, in southern Mesopotamia8 which occurred sometime around 4000 BCE9. During the construction of the Tower, God confused the language of man10 and scattered the nations11.

    It is at this time that the Sumerians12 , speaking a non-Semitic language13 , appear in southern Mesopotamia. It is believed that the Sumerians are related to the people living between the Black and Caspian Seas14 , known as the Scythians, ancestors of Noah's son Japheth15.

    At approximately the same time the Sumerians appeared in Mesopotamia, another civilization emerges in the South, the Egyptians. The original language of the Egyptians is Hamitic16 , and is also unrelated to the Semitic languages17.

    During the time of the Sumerians and the Egyptians, the Semitic peoples lived in Sumeria and traveled west into the land of Canaan.

Figure 1
The descendants of Noah (Fig. 1)

    It would appear that after the Tower of Babel, the descendants of Japheth traveled north with their language, the descendants of Ham traveled southwest with their language and the Semites traveled west with their language (see figure 1).

"That is why it was called Babel - because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth" (B'reshiyt 11.9)

    What was the one language spoken prior to the Tower of Babel? When God created Adam he spoke to him18 indicating that God gave Adam a language and this language came from God himself, not through the evolution of grunts and groans of cave men. When we look at all the names of Adam's descendent we find that all the names from Adam to Noah and his children are Hebrew names, meaning that their name has a meaning in Hebrew such as Methuselah19 which in Hebrew means "his death brings" (The flood occurred the year that he died). It is not until we come to Noah's grandchildren that we find names that are of a language other then Hebrew, such as Nimrod20 who built Babylon/Sumer and possibly the Tower of Babel.

    According to the Biblical record of names, Adam and his descendants spoke Hebrew. Jewish tradition as well as some Christian Scholars, believed that Hebrew was the original language of man21.

The origin of the Hebrew Alephbet

Egyptian Pictographs
(Fig. 2)
Sumerian Pictographs
(Fig. 3)
Semitic Pictographs
(Fig. 4)

    The Egyptian (Figure 2), Sumerians (Figure 3), and Semites (Figure 4) originally wrote with a pictographic22 form of writing. Some believe that the Sumerians were the originator of writing, while others attribute it to the Egyptians. Both the Sumerians and Egyptians came into existence after the flood of Noah23.

Pre-flood Pictograph
(Fig. 5)

    Did writing originate after the flood? Pre-flood pictographic writings (figure 5) have been found in Mesopotamia24 proving a pre-Sumerian and pre-Egyptian origin of writing.

    If Hebrew was the language of the pre-flood man, and writing of pictographic letters existed at the same time, then Hebrew had a written script prior to the Sumerians and Egyptians.

    The first record of writing in the Bible is found in B'reshiyt 4.15;

"Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him."

    The Hebrew word for "mark" is /a.v.t/ote and is also the Hebrew word for a "letter".

    Did each pictograph represent a combination of sounds (a syllable or word) or a single sound (a letter)? Or both? Archeology has discovered that pre-flood writing as well as post-flood Semitic writing was written with hundreds of pictographs just as Sumerian and Egyptian writing. Since there are approximately 22 sounds in the Semitic language, each pictograph had to represent syllables or words. But it is likely that some of those pictographs also represented a single sound, a letter. For example the Hebrew word for house is /b.y.t/beyt, and may be written as (a Picture of a house) or as /b.t/beyt (using the pictures for sounds). This book will show how two pictographs combined together not only provide the sounds to a word, but also the definition of the word. For example, the means "house" and the means "mark", giving the definition of "the house of a mark" for the pictographic word . These pictographs not only contain the definition of the word, but also shows that the Hebrew vocabulary is taken directly from the alephbet proving a coexistence of the vocabulary and alephbet.

    Some attribute the development of the first true alephbet to the Phonecians. But some scholars believe that the phonecians actually adopted the alephbet from a prior Semitic culture25 . The actual origin of the alephbet can not be proven, but if the origin of the Hebrew language is from God, then the Hebrew alephbet must have also come from God. The phonecians, like many other semitic cultures, adopted the Hebrew alephbet for their own language.

Why study the ancient Hebrew language and culture?

    The Hebrew Bible was written by Hebrews between 1,500 and 500 BCE, whose culture and lifestyle were very different than our own.

    When we read the Bible as a 20th Century American, our culture and lifestyle often influence our interpretation of the words and phrases of the Bible. A word such as "rain" has only one meaning, such as "the coming down of water from the clouds in the sky", ones interpretation of the word rain will be influenced by ones culture. This is true even in our own culture where the word "rain" can be interpreted differently. If the local weather station forecasts an unexpected "rain" shower for tomorrow, different people will interpret the word "rain" different ways. To the bride and groom who are prepared for an outdoor wedding tomorrow, this word has a negative meaning, but to the farmer in the middle of a drought season, the same word has a positive meaning. To the ancient Hebrew nomads the word "rain" was usually equated with "life" since without it, their very existence would not be possible.

    Another example of how understanding the cultural setting is important when interpreting words is the English word dinner. To my grandparents and their generation, "dinner" (as the large meal) was eaten at noon since many lived on farms and a light "supper" was eaten in the evening. There are countless examples in our own English language of how word meanings change over time and according to the culture.

    Many times our cultural influence will give a different definition to words which was not intended by the Biblical authors. For example the Bible speaks of keeping and breaking the commands of God. The words "keep" and "break" are usually interpreted as "obedience" and "disobedience". But this is not the ancient Hebraic meanings of these words.

    The Hebrew word for "keep" is /sh.m.r/shamar which literally means "to guard, protect, and cherish" while the Hebrew word for "break" is /p.r.r/parar and literally means "to trample underfoot". The ancient Hebrew understanding of these words is not about obedience and disobedience of his commands, but ones attitude towards them. Will you cherish his commands or throw them on the ground and walk on them?

    A people's language is very related to their culture, without an understanding of the Hebrew culture we cannot fully understand their language. To cross this cultural bridge, we need to understand the ancient Hebrew culture, lifestyle and language.

How do we study the ancient Hebrew language and culture?

    Archeology uncovers ancient tools, household objects, texts and inscriptions of the ancient Hebrews and other related cultures. Anthropology studies the culture and lifestyle of the ancient people as well as modern day Bedouin nomads of the Near East whose culture and lifestyle have remained virtually the same since the days of Avraham. Linguistics study the ancient languages, including Hebrew, and other related languages which can shed light on Biblical words. The Bible, which was written by the ancient Hebrews, also teaches us much about the ancient Hebrews.

    When we combine and study the material provided by these fields of study, we open the door into their culture and lifestyle which will help us to better understand their words which they have recorded in the Tenack26 . The purpose of this book is to teach the relationship between the Hebrew language and the Hebrew culture, which will give us a deeper understanding of Biblical words.

    Many passages of the Tenack will also provide us with insights into the manners and customs of the ancient Hebrews such as B'reshiyt chapter 18 which depicts the nomadic lifestyle of tent dwellers, hospitality customs to strangers and family and household relationships.


Introduction
Chapter 2


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