Month: June 2019

Hebrew Without Vowels or Accents

Lets look again at the Hebrew Bible without Vowels or Accents for Genesis 1: 1 to 5:

Samaritan Targum Interlinear Translation

In addition, let’s look at the interlinear translation of Genesis 1:2 to 5 on tanakh.info:

Facts About Hebrew

Now, we can add to our list of important facts about Hebrew  we learn from these verses:

8.   Sentences generally end with a colon, or a colon followed by the Hebrew letter pe פ which marks the end of a petuhah, like a paragraph in English.  The first paragraph in the Hebrew Bible includes Genesis 1: 1 to 5.

9.   Sentences other than the first one often begin with the letter waw ו (pronounced vav) that means ‘and’, showing its connection to the previous sentence.  There are claims that waw’s have been added and removed from the Hebrew Bible, so we can’t be completely confident whether a connection between sentences exists or not based solely on the presence or absence of waw ’s.  In this case, Gen 1: 2 to 5 all begin with a waw, possibly indicating their connection to Gen 1:1 and each other.

10.  Most Hebrew words are either verbs or from verbs.  For example, in Gen 1: 2 to 5 the noun ‘darkness’ חשך (Strong’s 2822) is from the verb ‘darkened’ חשך (Strong’s 2821), the preposition ‘over’ על (Strong’s 5921) is from the verb  ‘to go up’ על (Strong’s 5920), ‘the noun ‘light’ אור (Strong’s 216) is from the verb ‘be light’ אוֹר (Strong’s 215), the preposition ‘between’ בין  (Strong’s 996) is from the verb ‘to discern’ בין (Strong’s 995), the noun ‘evening’ ערב (Strong’s 6153) is from the verb ‘to grow dark’ ערב (Strong’s 6150), the noun ‘morning’ בקר (Strong’s 1242) is from the verb ‘to seek’ בקר  (Strong’s 1239), the adjective ‘first’ אחד (Strong’s 259) is from the verb ‘united, alike’ אחד (Strong’s 258).  In these cases, the noun, preposition, or adjective is a verb except for the vowel points which were added by scribes to the original text.

The original Hebrew text is robust, containing in one word both a literal and a figurative meaning at the same time.  The meaning of the noun darkness is literal – darkness, obscurity, but the verb darkness reveals the figurative meaning – misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness.  Similarly, light אור literally means light, but figuratively it means luminary in every sense including happiness, and I would add righteous – the opposite of wicked. 

John 1:5 supports a figurative meaning, personifying darkness, in stating that darkness “did not comprehend” the light.  Understanding the dual nature of the text reveals the broader meaning of the Genesis creation account.

11.  In Hebrew, like in English, prepositions precede a noun or pronoun, expressing a relationship to another word or element in the clause.  In this case, the preposition ‘over, on’ על occurs in two places; between ‘darkness’ and ‘the face of the deep’, and between “spirit of gods moved’ and ‘the face of the waters’, expressing where ‘darkness’ was and where the ‘spirit of gods moved’.

12.  Hebrew adjectives function similar to English ones, modifying nouns and pronouns.  Although ‘formless’ and ‘void’ are considered to be nouns in Strong’s Concordance, I consider them to be adjectives which modify (describe) the noun ‘earth’.  ‘Darkness’ and ‘light’ can be adjectives however they are functioning as nouns/verbs in these sentences.

13.  The Hebrew language appears to be built on a foundation of gender, but on close inspection we see that it is a construct of men designed to needlessly complicate the language, to disguise their true intent, which is elevation of masculine over feminine, supporting dominance of males over females.

• The system of assigning gender to all nouns, not just persons, but places and things, which require grammatical modifiers (adjectives, active and passive participles, pronouns, and pronominal suffixes) to match, has made learning the Hebrew language seem insurmountable for the layman. As a result, many will not attempt to learn the language, and those who do, will consult with ‘experts’ who support that gender is of critical importance to understanding Hebrew, when we can easily prove it is not.
• The designation ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ is arbitrary. Although gender can provide information about social gender, male and female, it seldom, if ever does so.  In the instances that gender is used in reference to things, objects and places, it is meaningless.  In the instances that gender purports to refer to male and/or female, it does so in a biased and erroneous manner with masculine taking precedence.  As a result, even though the Hebrew language appears to be gendered, the gender information it presents is,for the most part, irrelevant and/or incorrect.
• Let’s look at how the Hebrew language uses gender to portray gods and angels, which are clearly dual (male and female) entities, as masculine:
  • In Hebrew, gender classification of nouns is made based on suffixes.
  • Generally (there are exceptions which also raise concerns), nouns are feminine singular when they contain the suffix he ה or taw ת and feminine plural with the suffix taw tav וֹת, and words not designated feminine, are masculine by default. As a result, angel מלאך, and angels מלאכי are masculine, in spite of the fact that angels are dual, male and female.
  • Plural nouns suffixed with yod and final mem ים are masculine, or dual (masculine and feminine) with a dot vowel point under the yod יִם, keeping in mind that vowel points were added in the middle ages by scribes and are not part of the original, inspired text. The noun gods אֱלֹהִ֑ים  does not contain a dot vowel point under the yod, thus is classified by scribes as masculine, not dual, male and female, in keeping with the true nature of god(s).

Given the flaws inherent in Hebrew grammatical gender, I am going to take an unorthodox approach and ignore the gender rules until I find compelling evidence that they add some meaning to God’s word.

Constructing The Sentences

Now that we’re comfortable with the meaning of the words, let’s construct the sentences – subject, verb, object, like we did for verse 1 in the previous article:

Genesis 1:2 has two major clauses.  In the first clause, the subject is ‘the earth’, the verb היתה which means ‘be, become’ and is most often translated as ‘came, become’ is translated in this case as ‘was’, indicating that ‘the earth was’ created ‘formless/waste’ and ‘void/empty’.  The translation of ‘be’ as ‘was’ is not supported by the second part of the clause which uses the same verb ‘become’ and  ‘darkness/wickedness over face deep’.  This is a critical distinction, because ‘darkness/wickedness’ was not created, but ‘became’ so afterward, as confirmed by Ezekiel 28:12 to 15 which reveals that the anointed cherub who covers was in Eden and blameless in his ways from the day he was created until unrighteousness was found in him.  In the second clause, the subject is ‘the spirit of gods’, the verb ‘hovering’, and the object ‘over the face of the waters’. 

Genesis 1:3 has two major clauses.  In the first clause, the subject is ‘gods’, the verb ‘said’, and the object what they said “Let there be light”.  The object of the previous clause is in itself a sentence with the subject ‘light’, the verbs ‘be’  and ‘be’, and the object ‘light’.

Genesis 1:4 has two major clauses.  In the first clause, the subject is ‘gods’, the verb ‘saw’, the object ‘the light was good’ which is a sub clause with ‘light as the subject, ‘be’ as the verb, and ‘good’ as the object.  In the second clause, the subject is ‘gods’, the verb ‘separated’, and the object ‘ space between the light and between the darkness’.

Genesis 1:5 has two major clauses.  In the first clause, the subject is ‘gods’, the verb ‘called’ and the object ‘the light day’ and a sub clause with the verb ‘called’ and object ‘darkness night’.   In the second clause, the subject is the ‘first day’, the verb ‘be’, and the object ‘evening’, and a sub clause with the verb ‘be’, and object ‘morning’.

Literal And Figurative Translation

Finally, we can translate all five sentences of the first paragraph, including both literal and figurative meanings where appropriate, to capture the full meaning:

In beginning created gods the heavens and the earth. And the earth became formless/waste and void/empty and darkness/wickedness was over face/before the deep/abyss and spirit gods hovered over the face/before the waters.  And said gods “let there be light” and be light.  And saw gods the light that good and divided/separated gods space between the light/righteous and space between the darkness/wicked.  And called gods light, day, and darkness called night, and there be evening/growing darkness and be morning/inquiring/seeking, day one.

Genesis 1: 1 to 5 literal/figurative translation

Analysis

The tweaking we did to the translation of these verses reveals some remarkable things:

• God did not create the earth ‘formless and void’, nor did God create darkness/wickedness.  Satan, who was perfect when he was created, God’s anointed covering cherub, became wicked as confirmed in Ezek 28:12 to 15, which caused the earth to be waste and empty, meaning void of righteousness. 

• Satan was God’s firstborn, the pre-existing darkness in these verses, but when God created light and saw that it was good, God separated the light/righteous from the darkness/wicked.  Satan lost the title of firstborn and the power and privilege associated with it to the Messiah, who God appointed firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth Psalms 89:27.  Hence all the stories of ancient Israel where the firstborn failed to receive the title.

• The Genesis creation account is dual, both literal and figurative at the same time.  The literal ‘day’ and ‘night’ that occurs in our physical reality represents the presence of righteousness and wickedness, and the literal ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ are on the fringe, representing ‘growing darkness’ and ‘seeking’, or those changing from wickedness to righteousness and vise verse.

In my next article, I will look at Genesis 1: 6 to 8.

Studying scripture in the original Hebrew and Greek sounds like an impossible task, but scripture clearly states if we are born of the spirit and keep God’s commandments the Holy Spirit will be our guide John 14:21 to 26, 16:13 & 1 John 2:27.  Paul overcame Judaism through a revelation of Yahshua the Messiah, not from a man Gal 1: 11 – 13.  We can and must do the same.

Ancient Hebrew did not have vowels and accents, so let’s begin our study of Genesis using the Hebrew Bible without Vowel Points and accents, available on Jesus Spoke Aramaic.    Although the original text did not have spaces, it is very difficult to find the Hebrew text without spaces, and they should be more of a help than a hindrance until we gain more experience with the Hebrew alphabet, words, and sentences.

Hebrew Without Vowels or Accents

The text of Genesis 1: 1 – 5 appears as follows:

There are various free sources where we can view the Hebrew Bible in interlinear format – the Hebrew and English side by side.  My favorite resource is Biblehub.com which has a Hebrew Text Analysis for each verse, with word-by-word English translation and major Hebrew source texts. On Biblehub, Hebrew words link to Strong’s Concordance and Exhaustive Concordance, NASB Exhaustive Concordance, Brown-Driver-Briggs Dictionary providing robust drill down capability for most words.  Other resources include the parallel and interlinear text found on tanakh.info, and the word by word translation on shebanq.ancient-data.org.  It is prudent to use multiple sources to verify both the Hebrew and its translation into English.    

Samaritan Targum Interlinear Translation

Let’s take a look at the interlinear translation of Genesis 1:1 on tanakh.info, where the Hebrew text from the Samaritan Pentateuch and it’s English translation appear as follows:  

Facts About Hebrew

Looking at this sentence we can learn some important facts about Hebrew that we can build upon:

1. Hebrew reads from right to left, the opposite of English.
2. The first ‘word’  בראשית is actually a phrase, commonly translated as “In the beginning”. Concordances include minor words like ‘the’, ‘and’ with nouns and verbs, and Dictionaries describe the meaning of nouns and verbs with and without these additional characters in their analysis.
3. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.  You can create your own Hebrew Alphabet list and add information to help learn the Hebrew language as I have done, or you can use one of the many available for free on the internet.
4. There are three common, single letter words in Genesis 1:1 that we can easily recognize which will help boost our understanding of Hebrew and our confidence.  The first is beth ב that means ‘in’, which is the first word in the Hebrew Bible.  The second is waw ו that means ‘and’ or ‘but’, and the third is he ה that means ‘the’, both are found in the phrase הארץ ואת “and the earth”. 
5. Et את is the most common word in the Hebrew Bible, occurring over  11,000 times, over 25 times in Genesis 1, and 2 times in Genesis 1:1.  There is an et את between ‘God’ and ‘the heavens , and between ‘and’ and ‘the earth’ which according to Strong’s and NAS Exhaustive Concordances it is not translatable.   Brown Driver Briggs states that et is “the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite”.  In this verse, et indicates that both “the heavens” and “the earth” are direct objects of the verb “create”.
6. In ancient Hebrew, verbs did not represent whether they were past, present or future tense, but it is assumed based on the context of the sentence.  In Gen 1:1, because the sentence is describing an event that took place in the past, the verb ‘create’ is translated in the past tense, as ‘created’.
7. Most Bibles are not literal, word for word, translations.  Words have been added, removed and mistranslated to support theological views.   In the first word בראשית  there is no he ה, yet every English translation adds ‘the’ to the phrase “In beginning”.  Both ‘God’ אלהים and ‘the heavens’ השמים are plural, as indicated by the suffix ים, yet  ‘God’ is not translated as plural in any Bible version.  This manipulation of the text can and often does insert translator bias which may impact our understanding of God’s message.  I propose to accept what the Hebrew text is saying, word for word, and deal with the theological implications later.

Analysis

Genesis 1:1 contains four nouns – beginning, gods, heavens, and earth, and one verb – create.  It would be prudent to research words as we come across them in our study and create a Dictionary of words we have vetted, that we can build on moving forward.  When we’re comfortable that the translation of the words is accurate, we can construct the sentence. 

Hebrew sentences are constructed just like English – subject – verb – object.    The subject of this sentence is what ‘gods’ did ‘first’, the verb describes the action that took place, in this case ‘create’, and the object of creation are ‘the heavens and the earth’. 

In my next article, I will look at Genesis 1:2 to 5.