the multilayered text of the old testament in hebrew

[anti_nietzsche]

Hello again,

since recently I am trying to get to know the bible in its original language. My mentor explained to me how this original language is really multilayered because a single word can have multiple meanings. For example, like the word "sound" can mean a noise or something healthy, the hebrew knows much more and very different meanings for a single word.

For example, Sarah was at first known as "sarai", which means, "one who directs". Later she was known as Sarah, and that means, "one who inspires". In this way God shows how leadership has to be, there should not be people who direct others but there should be people who inspire others. In like manner, most if not all of the hebrew scriptures have multiple meanings to them and the literal first-reading of these writings only convey the tip of the iceberg. As another example, after some experience with God Abraham goes to Gerah and stays there. Gerah now means to "chew to cud", and in the context of the story it means that the believer (the Abraham), frequently has to reinspect his thoughts, beliefs and experiences with God.

If you read scripture like that, there is no need to get hung up on the verses dealing with God's wrath or God's punishment, because that is only the surface of the text, if you go by different but similar sounding and written words, you can arrive at teachings and inspirations that are not there at first glance. You get to encounter the God of peace.

Jesus at places already gives light to this practice, for example in his encounter with the adulteress that the Jews wanted to stone. In this story Jesus makes clear that in fact only those who are sinless can judge, condemn and punish sinners, and frankly nobody is sinless except Jesus, and He does not condemn someone. This is how the law of God had to be seen, and as such it is not the death-bringing thing as which it was known among the Jews of that time, but instead it is a poetic work of art that goes much deeper than that and into a peaceful life with God.

I can give you more examples if you are interested in this. God bless you!

[marie glen]

..And some folks think surely Bible study must be boring.. :laughing7: Especially when reading from year to year for many years! What little do so few know! (Or I think few..)

The original language(s) reveal so much just on the surface! And then there's so many layers.. Lots of "treasure old and new"! I hope you will post some of your best finds! Mining for gold is not near so profitable! :goodpost:

[Lazarus Short]

Yes, the layer of dictionary meaning and grammar is only the top layer.

Another layer is Gematria, words as numbers, since Hebrew (and Greek) did not have separate symbols for numbers.

Another layer is the very ancient pictographic meanings of the letters, making combinations when made into words.  The YHVH = behold the nail, behold the hand = Jesus is one example.

Another is the mathematical substructure Ivan Panin discovered:  cycles within cycles, wheels within wheels.

There are other layers of coding which are being explored, and I'm not sure they even have a name for the coding (not ESL).

I suspect that there are seven levels of meaning in all.

[anti_nietzsche]

It's rather deep what you can find if you look for alternate words. For example, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, stripe for stripe can be translated as "point of view vs point of view", "matter vs matter", "friendship vs friendship". Moses was as peaceful as Jesus if you get that the literal meaning of his writings was usually just a surface story that contained the real story. The first books of Genesis contain a decision to live in peace and to learn everything you need for a good life with God. Remember that the written hebrew has no vowels, so one word can have many alternate meanings. I'm currently investigating the Eliah story in this way and it's amazing. And in the OT, there is little actual violence left that took place. The hebrews were tricksters and spirituals.

[marie glen]

    :Chinscratch: hmmm, very interesting!

"And in the OT, there is little actual violence left that took place. The hebrews were tricksters and spirituals."

..that's very interesting.. wouldn't mind knowing more.. it kind of reminds me of what i sort of think about the history of the Old Testament.. literal.. but also just the "surface" story but what caused it is the undercurrents of human and spiritual affairs and doings.. all based on God's law of reaping what is sown.. {so that God's judgment, even wrath, is also the natural results and consequences of ones own doings, both individual and collective.. :dontknow: :smile:

[anti_nietzsche]

Hi Marie,

I'm only starting out with this, so I am not very experienced in these things and can only give a few examples, and my mentor lady knows much more but her sites are in german so they won't be useful to you.

Basically, the first chapters of the book of Genesis deal with making a decision, together with friends and family and loved ones, ideally a whole society, to live in a wholesome and happy and good and wise way. The written hebrew words in Genesis nearly all have alternate meanings that come together to form a discourse on wisdom and the love of God and on how men can live well. It's almost like in a socratic dialogue, just with a jewish and more spiritual flavor.

The book of Ijob is equally cool. It's actually Moses' masterpiece when it comes to poetry and unlike the other books it deals with pain and sorrow and the problem of evil in greater depth, and the submeanings handle question of how to get out of such suffering and find peace.

My favourite though is the book of Judges. My little research into this book revealed to me that it is largely not about real war but instead about wars of trickery, debate, arguments between men and men, and so on. Anytime the Hebrews lost their free ways of life and their love for God and each other, hard men from afar came to rule them, or they had evil kings like Abimelech who exploited them. That also mirrors today's struggle to have a gentle and tolerant church that does not try to lord things over men. The struggle with the foreign deity Baal for example, made the Hebrews treat Yahweh like a Baal (which means, OWNER). They began thinking things like they are God's slaves and God wants to punish them easily, etc.

In antiquity, these layers of meaning were well known. Pope Gregory the Great wrote a 12 volume treatise on the book of Ijob alone, which the normal literal reading does not really justify (ie a reading that Ijob was a real man, that satan really brought God to treat him harshly, and so on). Moses simply chose to write a frame narrative that is as horrible in terms of suffering and pain as it can get, and in this narrative the real beef is hid that consists of points of view on things spiritual and earthly that one rarely considers.

Much depends on reading the texts in Hebrew. Yahweh, for example, is written YHWH in Hebrew, and that can also be spelled Yehovah or Yahwah, I am. The same word with different vowels from the dictionary can have multiple meanings. Baal-Hanna for example is not just a name (from 1 Chr 1:50), but also has a meaning, Master of Mercy. So it's not about a king but about the mastery of being merciful in a city, it needs this and when it dies and another King comes up who doesn't know mercy so well, the result is an outcry (city of Pagi).

The same can be done with the NT if you use an aramaic original text. In German it cannot be done that well, same in english. But the hebrew begs to use such wordplay and hiding meaning in other texts. 

[Shev]

Interesting thoughts. Could you show an alternate translation of a passage as an example at all?

Job is such a fascinating book, I agree. I do think Job existed though, a descendant of Esau, owing to the geneology given in the Septuagint:

And Job lived after his affliction a hundred and seventy years: and all the years he lived were two hundred and forty: and Job saw his sons and his sons' sons, the fourth generation. 17 And Job died, an old man and full of days: and it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.

This man is described in the Syriac book as living in the land of Ausis, on the borders of Idumea and Arabia: and his name before was Jobab;  and having taken an Arabian wife, he begot a son whose name was Ennon. And he himself was the son of his father Zare, one of the sons of Esau, and of his mother Bosorrha, so that he was the fifth from Abraam. And these were the kings who reigned in Edom, which country he also ruled over: first, Balac, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dennaba: but after Balac, Jobab, who is called Job, and after him Asom, who was governor out of the country of Thaeman: and after him Adad, the son of Barad, who destroyed Madiam in the plain of Moab; and the name of his city was Gethaim. And his friends who came to him were Eliphaz, of the children of Esau, king of the Thaemanites, Baldad sovereign the Sauchaeans, Sophar king of the Minaeans. (Job 42: 16-17)

[anti_nietzsche]

Hi Shev,

I could give you the psalm of Moses.

Lord, You Have Been Our Dwelling Place
1A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, a habitation Thou — Thou hast been, To us — in generation and generation,


That is a true-form sentence, meant as a key verse by which to stand when it comes to God. It is similar to sayings like God is merciful and abundant in kindness. This is what you have to keep in your mind when interpreting the bible positively. That God does not really want war and violence and bloodshed and instead has an a priori attitude of kindness towards all people. According to the bible God does not even really judge sinners. God understands more than we do.


2Before mountains were brought forth, And Thou dost form the earth and the world, Even from age unto age Thou [art] God.


Mountains can also mean huge people here, kings, nobles, mighty ones, great sages, etc. Moses was a great sage and he acknowledges that God came before him and that the wonders he witnessed were not from him. God formed the earth from which people were taken. And from "age unto age" means world to world, time to time. God remains being God.

3Thou turnest man unto a bruised thing, And sayest, Turn back, ye sons of men.

This is how humans often see themselves in life, that we are bruised things and yet we shall turn back from seeing us this way. In God we are brilliantly made. One example would be an alcoholic who is turned back from his inward picture of himself as wretched and can feel the divine spark in him again.

4For a thousand years in Thine eyes [are] as yesterday, For it passeth on, yea, a watch by night.


This does not mean that for God a thousand years are like a day, but that a day is like 1000 years for God. It is not that for God everything is on fast forward but instead in slow motion. God fills every second with himself as if it were a month. And it is like an intense night where we have sought God and felt the mystery of everything come to us.

5Thou hast inundated them, they are asleep, In the morning as grass he changeth.


God put6In the morning it flourisheth, and hath changed, At evening it is cut down, and hath withered.


God causes us to sleep over our sins because he desires so greatly to separate us from them. We are not left alone but in the morning our sins have wilted by God and we can rise afresh.

7For we were consumed in Thine anger, And in Thy fury we have been troubled.


God is angry against sin and consumes the old man, this troubles us for a night of weeping, in the morning comes the joy of new freedom.

8Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, Our hidden things at the light of Thy face,


God always works on our sins and their effects in the world that they become healed and do not destroy everyone. A poor person can be happy even when there are the exploitive sins of the rich. Our world is continually cleansed from sin and appears beautiful before us even when there has been evil in it.

9For all our days pined away in Thy wrath, We consumed our years as a meditation.

We can live quickly on Earth and do not have to watch our sins in slow motion kill us always. God forgives and gladly so, and can meditate on good things.


10Days of our years, in them [are] seventy years, And if, by reason of might, eighty years, Yet [is] their enlargement labour and vanity, For it hath been cut off hastily, and we fly away.

Encouragement to look forward to the heavenly life to which we will one day fly away. Our life here is the life of a seed of grain.


11Who knoweth the power of Thine anger? And according to Thy fear — Thy wrath?


Nobody knows the power of God's anger against them. It is an illusion if we think God is angry or hateful towards anyone. We are definetly not met with the God of fear like the ET believers believe in it. The respect of God is good and a beginning of wisdom, but it is only a start and we move into love and friendship with the Lord.

12To number our days aright let [us] know, And we bring the heart to wisdom.


We shall see that we live very long really and can afford to die. That is wisdom for the heart and liberates us from the fear of death.

13Turn back, O Jehovah, till when? And repent concerning Thy servants.


When God puts a thousand years of attention into a day, then it seems it would take long for him to turn back to us. Moses makes a wordplay that God thinks more of forgiving our sin than on us. The hebrews had a steady knowledge that God wants forgiveness, but they also sought God as the helper of their daily difficulties and labor.

14Satisfy us at morn [with] Thy kindness, And we sing and rejoice all our days.


We shall not only have the nightly watches of mysteries and problems but also daily kindness and joy of life. So that we can go to work at joy too, because even these things are not removed from God our helper.

15Cause us to rejoice according to the days Wherein Thou hast afflicted us, The years we have seen evil.


God watches one day like a thousand years and Moses wants us to rejoice about that a thousand years.

16Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, And Thine honour on their sons.


We shall want to interact with God and talk with him like Moses himself did, like a friend. That is the honor of God that He loves man and does not turn from this focus of his.

17And let the pleasantness of Jehovah our God be upon us, And the work of our hands establish on us, Yea, the work of our hands establish it!


We shall be met with the athmospheres of God, the moods he can bring about us and that he would not forget the daily labor of many people for which they need strengthening like the sabbath means it and the festive days, and that we can usually enjoy health and are not needing to depend on others TOO MUCH. While there is love for a neighbor there is joy in being independent so that we are not slaves to others and that help remains kindness and not giving up your independency of self respect.

I'll bring a translated passage a bit later. Thanks for reading, Shev!

[eaglesway]

Beaautiful meditatios on the goodness of God. His mercies never fail and are new every morning.

Weeping endures for the night. Joy comes in the morning.