Chaim Bentorah - Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon

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Copyright 2014 Chaim Bentorah.

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King James Version

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James
Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV
Classic Reference Bible, Copyright 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3961-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4907-3960-1 (e)

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Table of Contents

THIS BOOK IS A guide in how to do a Hebrew word study. However, in order to understand the ways and means of doing a Hebrew word study one needs to really understand not only the Hebrew language but the nature of the Semitic languages itself. As a teacher of the Biblical Hebrew language in a Bible College it was my job to maintain the highest academic standards for my students who were to be future pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers. This meant that I would follow a more traditional line of instruction which involved heavy memorization of Hebrew verbal forms and vocabulary.

However, God has now called me into a ministry outside the academic setting where I teach Christians of all backgrounds and educational experiences how to use the Hebrew language in their own personal Bible study. This means I am now teaching people who are not interested in a grade or earning a degree but only to be able to study the Bible in the original language. This meant that I needed to give people a tool which they could use in their personal study that they could use almost immediately without years of memorization and study. I have found that most people are really not interested in grammar so much as the study of a Hebrew word itself. Hence much of my time in teaching Hebrew is spent in really teaching them how to do a word study. Therefore, I have written this book for those who are not seeking to learn to speak Hebrew or to take a placement test but only for those who wish to study the Word of God and find a richer and deeper understanding by peering into the ancient Hebrew language and studying a particular word.

This book is the result of my many years of research to develop a Bible study tool where any Christian, regardless of his age, educational background, or culture will be able to study the Word of God in the original language and go beyond a simple search in Strongs Concordance, lexicon or their Bible Dictionary. This Bible study tool takes you beyond the lexicon and uses an ancient method of opening up each Hebrew word and reading its built in commentary . This commentary is discovered by combining the ancient, esoteric structure of each Hebrew letter and translating a particular Hebrew word, letter by letter.

Less than fifty years ago there were very few English translations of the Bible other than the King James Version. Most people grew up reading the King James Version of the Bible and never questioned its accuracy. Most would even shun the few other translations as just a perversion of the Authorized Version of the Bible. As we entered into the second half of the twentieth century there was a literal explosion of new and modern translations of the Bible which were coming into common use among evangelical Christians and churches. Suddenly Christians came to the realization that the Bible is a translated work from two ancient and dead languages, Greek and Hebrew and that there can be many variations as to how words and whole passages of the Bible could be rendered.

As a teacher of the Classical Hebrew the most common question I am asked concerns which translation of the Bible is the correct translation or the most accurate translation. As all our modern English translations have been translated by skilled linguist and language scholars, I can only reply that all of these translations are good. This is then followed with the question as to why there are so many different renderings.

This is a difficult question if we consider it from a Western mindset. Our culture is a very scientific and mathematical culture where two plus two must always equal four. Thus, in our Western mindset there can only be one true rendering for every word in the Bible or it just cannot be the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

This book is not intended to argue for the inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God. This will be accepted as a truth. What this book will attempt to do is point out that with regard to the Hebrew language as the original language of the Old Testament one word can have a wide range of meanings within the modern context of the English language.

Classical Hebrew died out during the captivity period around the sixth century BC and was only retained as a ceremonial language until the turn of the 20 th Century when it was revived for use as a national language in Israel. However, what is spoken in Israel today is a modern version of Hebrew containing a couple hundred thousand words as opposed to the Classical Hebrew which has only about seventy five hundred words. Many of the original meaning of these words have been lost and what we have are just our traditional understandings of these words as they have been passed down from generation to generation. Even with the traditional understanding of a word, to find a modern English word that best fits an ancient word can be difficult. For instance at the beginning of the 20 th Century we could have rendered the Hebrew word ashar as gay. That is gay in the sense of being happy and joyful. In the 21 st Century if we were to render ashar as gay we would not be thinking of ones emotional state but of ones sexual orientation.

This constant change and evolutionary nature of a language, even over a relatively short period of time, gives us a need for continual revisions of former English translations of the Bible as well as entirely new versions. Yet with so many modern English versions of the Bible to choose from, how can we be sure which one conveys the correct understand of a word or verse?

One purpose of this book is to address this question and present an argument that the Word of God was written in the ancient Hebrew language under the inspiration of God for a very specific purpose. The very nature of the ambiguity of an ancient dead language allows for a variety of renderings for one specific word. It is true that we must apply proper linguistical, exegetical, and grammatical rules regarding proper syntax as well as an understanding of a word in its proper context but also in the context of the culture and text itself. Thus, merely looking a word up in the back of Strongs Concordance or a Bible Dictionary will not give you the entire understanding. You must also study the context of the passage and the cultural environment from which the passage was written.