I bought a book about 20 years ago that taught how to read and write and understand the ancient Hebrew alphabet. I wanted to learn this so I could better understand the OT. I’ve never used it but it still sits on my book shelf. I’ve made sure I brought it with me and I knew where it was every time I’ve moved. As a matter of fact, it’s no more than 10 feet away from where I sit now. This video has inspired me to finally pick that book up and use it.
@trcmf Do it. Start! My first encounter with Hebrew was several years ago in a biblical lecture of Old Testament, and recently a sudden light inside has driven me, out of nowhere, to seek and learn the letters and to seriously start studying the Old Testament. One thought inside my mind said to me that it's going to be too complicated and stop before starting, and right after this thought, another thought came into my heart and assured me I am watched over and start doing it because help will be granted. Immediately my heart felt joy of the second thought. So....taking the courage to pray and start doing it! Godspeed to you!
Linguistically, the reason "את" doesn't have a direct translation is because it's a direct object marker, a linguistic feature we don't have in English. It would be like trying to translate our indefinite articles "a" and "an" into Hebrew; it's a grammatical feature they don't have, so it wouldn't have a direct translation.
That is not true given there are many places in the Tanakh where a direct object pointer should have been used and it is not or where it ought not be used and it is. The great scholars of the past were leaning to the et as having divine significance. It all changed when the southern kingdom living in Jerusalem killed the suffering servant of Isaiah 52
@@MrConsto It's just a direct object marker... (I speak Hebrew) זה לא משהו מיוחד, זה רק מייצג את האובייקט במשפט. יש לך דוגמאות של התנך שאמורות להראות את זה?
See Japanese: は “wa” is the topic marker が “ga” is a subject marker を “(w)o” is an object marker ^ none of which have direct translations in English but rather are incorporated into English grammar. Japanese also doesn’t have definite and indefinite articles like ‘the’ and ‘a/an’ - this information is gained from context. Example: 日 “ni” is Sun. 本 “hon” is Origin (in context). 日本 “nihon” is Japan “Land of the Raising Sun”. 語 “go” is Language (in context). 日本語 “nihongo” is Japanese “Language of the Land of the Raising Sun”. Another example: 木 “ki” is Tree. 森 “mori” is Woods/Forrest. Noticed how 本 is a 木 cut at its Origin? 本 in other context means Book or Books because 日本語 doesn’t have singular/plural nouns (except in specific instances such as definitely specifying a group entity, not a singular entity).
Isaiah 53:10 - the seed/descendants/progeny. Depending on translation but each is literal whether singular [descendant] [progeny] or [seed]. Do you buy seed or seeds to plant? Every specie reproduces its kind. The human specie is reproduced through male sperm its seed kind. The suffering servant is not jesus. It is Israel. They have literally lived to see their seed. There is more for you to know to be able to understand the Hebrew language to understand 53 in context. The preceding chapters help as Israel is identified as the servant. Shalom blessings. @@MrConsto
@@user_finland it isn't the only one to do that 😂😂. first of all hebrew was never really dead, it was a liturgical language like sanskrit, coptic and latin, and second of all many actually dead languages (like manx) have been revived. just another case of zionists thinking they're the centre of the world
As a native Hebrew speaker (it is my first language), I am always fascinated by how the language is views from outsider point of views. I have to say, the video was quite well done! Despite some pronounciation differences (which is understandable), you have a lot of grasp on the language. Despite being a Hebrew speaker, I am still a modern speaker and am not fluent in the biblical language. Even though we read and learn it, biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew are quite different in how they are wrriten, and even more so in how they are spoken. So although my knowledge isn't the best in this field, as I am not a religious person, I still have some small corrections: The word for 'thing', 'davar' (דבר), and the word for 'word' aren't the same word. The word for 'word' is actually 'Mila' (מילה). The actual connection is between the word 'thing' and the word 'speaking/speak', which has a root of D.V.R (ד.ב.ר). A root, or 'shoresh' (שורש) in hebrew, is the base letter structure for different verbs. There are ways to use those letters and put vows before, after and between them to create new words with a collective meaning, like for example, the difference between passive and active un English. The connection is still interesting, for god spoke and thus created. Another small thing, the Beten (בטן) is reffering to the stomach, more them to the womb. There is a different word for womb in hebrew, which is Rechem (רחם). And when it comes to 'Et'... It is hard to explain to a non hebrew speaker because it's meaning and use is so unconscious at this point for me. It's a word that connects an act to it's reciever, I think would be the best way to explain it. In English, you might translate it to an 'a' or a 'the' before a word, like 'god created the sky'. All in all, this was a very interesting, very well explained video! I hope my explanations are ok, I am still a teen and so lack some knowledge in the grammar area's of Hebrew, so bare that in mind and feel free to correct me😊
@@rtg8709 אני עדיין לא מבין אבל כיצד אפשר לפרש את "בראשית ברא אלוהים את" בתור האלף-בית, הרי אפילו בשפה תנכית אם המילה "את" הייתה מיוחסת לשם עצם כשלעצמו אז המשפט לא היה תקין יותר.
Well the word את (et) is actually a very common word in the Hebrew language, the reason why it's not translated in the bible because it is a function word that had no English parallel, what it basically means is quite hard to explain to a non Hebrew speaker but basically if you want to say that you're doing a certain action to someone then for example if I say that I love a specific person called Max Then in English I would simply say "I love max" but in Hebrew you'd say "Ani ohev et Max) Translating that sentence word for word To English it would be Ani = I ohev=love et=? Max So you can't just say Ani ohev max You must add that word et So in the example we have in the bible When it says that "god created the heavens and the earth then in Hebrew you have to add that word את in order to make that accurate grammatically speaking
have you understood what he meant when he said God created the Alphabet in the very first sentence? 'Cause to what i can see, we don't ignore the word, we may not translate the word but we translate the sense (which is part of translation, as word-for-word would get confusing). B:rešhit bara AElohim et HaŠhamajim w:et HaAraez i don't see where there is an Alphabet here? Why then just here, if - i just guess - et is one of the most frequent words in the old testament and i'm sure there are similiar usages here...
Let me explain as a native Hebrew speaker, "את" is a preposition with no direct English translation. In the Bible it is mainly used as a Definiteness , so the closest translation is the word "the", in modern Hebrew it can still be used for that, but it usually appears together with " ה"א הידיעה " (He of Definiteness). Today the word "את" usually appears as an inflection and its meaning is "with"
Three comments. 1. In biblical hebrew it sometimes means "with", as in "ויתהלך חנוך את האלקים" (Hanoch walked with G-d). 2. It usually appears the definite article heh, not just in modern Hebrew but in biblical Hebrew as well, and 3. Biblical exegetists find additonal meaning in its inclusion, treating it as not absolutely mandated by grammar, therefore included to hint that there is an additional case included not explicitly mentioned in the text. For example "כבד את אביך ואת אמך" (Honor your father and mother) uses the construct, thus implying that there is someone else not explicitly mentioned who should also be honored (taken to be older brother, for example).
@@tesilab994 So I will start with the third claim, first of all you wrote "עת" which means "time" and this is not true both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy it says "את" with א' so check your spelling. As I wrote, "את" is a word that indicates known and comes with the known God, but your father and your mother are already known words in Hebrew because they come with an inflection, like in English you don't say the -your father or the -your mother, so "את" comes alone without ה' (=the) I honestly can't understand the second claim, maybe it's a translation gap. Regarding the first claim, yes "את" without an inflection can be used to denote the word "with" , but this usually only happens with names in modern Hebrew because that's how it was used in the Bible. I didn't mention it because in the examples in the video he tried to prove that "את" is not translated
@@tzvi7989 also indicating accusative case then (someone else said this)? In German you would use a specifically changed article to indicate the direct object: for many words that might be "den"
One point: In the video, he says English nouns (or words generally) are random. That's no more or less true for Hebrew (or Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, any other language). All languages are simultaneously somewhat random sets of sounds for each word, yet also they have root meanings behind them which are carried over from earlier times, their ancestry in languages. House, in the example, goes back to a Germanic root word for a house, a building. Beth in Hebrew meaning a house or building also goes back to a Semitic language root. Take these further back, and some words are innovations at some point, and then develop meanings along the way, while others go very far back but may change meanings slightly or drastically over time. So In one sense, sure, they're random groups of sounds for a word, but in another, they typically go back for hundreds or even thousands of years. Occasionally, a new word becomes more popular for a given concept, so it takes over, or words may change meanings, split, or become rare and die out.
It is less true for Hebrew for the reason explained. It's not obvious in the "modern" (less than 2500 year old) square script, but the old letters look like the things they mean. (He flashes a chart up which shows them). So the written language, rather than being just phonetic (like Greek, etc) or just pictographic (like Chinese), is both. A naturalistic hypothesis might be that a group of rather intelligent slaves made up a secret language (a conlang) to exchange messages among themselves, using a few hieroglyphics as a starting point. So it looks intelligently designed because (like the banana) it was.
@@michaelmicek that's not really the case. The old Hebrew letters, called paleo-Hebrew, was borrowed from (and is nearly identical to) the Phoenician script. The letters look like the objects they were named after precisely because they were developed from a photographic script, viz. hieroglyphics. It's not a secret conlang (its simply a writing system, Hebrew and Canaanitic were languages long before the advent of writing), and it's not unique to Hebrew because the script wasnt even originally used for hebrew. Thus, the spelling of Hebrew words reveals no hidden meaning based on the letter shapes: hebrew words already meant what they did before writing came to record it, and the objects and shapes used to create the Phoenician script were completely arbitrary.
@@weirdlanguageguy Highly agree with you, as a native speaker, I felt that he barely any research. When he said about the supposed random creation of English words (which is wrong), I thought he would talk about how the Hebrew root system works. Well too bad that I expected he would actually do research. Instead he went on about the connection between the letter and how it looks. While yes, it's true, he then starts connect it to the words themselves which at that point has crossed line from just not based on research but based on speculation that slightly related to reality to complete pseudo science not backed up by anything. Proof of that is the wrong pronounciation and the wrong translations (for example, בטן means stomach but he translated it to womb somehow). And the part where he starts talking about את is where it's only random rambling, because את is the definite object marker and has no equivalent to English and because of it shouldn't be translated, and it got absouletly nothing to do with א to ת. Anyways, it feels like the video was either made out of speculations or out of unreliable sources (considering that in the video appears a rabbi who isn't neccesary an actual Hebrew speaker, I wouldn't be surprised why the video is so inaccurate)
@@ליאורו-ט3ו good to hear a native speaker confirm this! Esoteric pseudolinguistics has unfortunately been a mainstay in certain religious circles for centuries.
As a Hebrew speaker, I must say that the word את (et) is a utalitarian word - it denotes the object of the sentence (a few other words can do this depending on the verb, but it is the most neutral one, as it does not have any meaning outside of that, unlike the others). It is untranslated because it is not necessary in nost languages, as the object is understood through the order of the words in the sentence or by changing the pronounciation of the word. All that is not to say it is impossible that it does represent more, I'm not a biblical scholar, but the word את is so common (and necessary for the sentence to make sense: בראשית ברא אלוהים השמיים והארץ is a nonsensical sentence) I don't believe it has a deeper meaning in this occurrence.
This is not biblical scholarly, this is jewish mysticism, and makes less sense when you look at it more closely... Famous example, te hebrew verb לספר means both to tell a story and to cut hair (the initial lamed just means “to“). There is no explanation whatsoever as to why that is...
Actually, the example you gave might be grammatically correct and bare the same meaning as with "et". I say might because it is still debated among scholars if "et" is necessary. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, had a public stance against using "et", like he had nothing more urgent to deal with.
@@eladthehatter I mean, sure? Technically? But not really, and that is not a commonly used sentence structure in the Bible at all. But, again, I don't hold strong opinions about this, I think it's a nice idea and is enjoyable, even if I don't think it's true per say
3:44 "This language sometimes, man-" Truer words were never spoken Thank you for making this, this really is such a beautiful video and language. I debated with trying to learn Hebrew for a long while (since I'm an American with NO ties to Judaism or Hebrew), but I'm finally taking the plunge. After all, life is short and learning is fun, might as well make the most of our time here
you should learn Hebrew! as a native Hebrew speaker I can confirm this is a really cool language, for example this video and my opinion. in Hebrew there are many words that are some way connected but have a different meaning, so once you know one word and learn another you can see the resemblance between them. for example; "צדק" (tsedek) means right/justice, and "צדקה" (tsdaka) means charity. it has similar pronunciation and meaning because "tsdaka" is like saying "justice for ___". that's just something I've noticed (:
Naming something carries the meaning of having authority (dominion) over it. So by speaking it into being, this shows God’s dominion over all of creation ❤ I really like this introduction to the Hebrew language! Thank you, it’s inspired me to learn more.
That's also why people, after medieval times, started adding middle names tho their kids. The middle name was kinda of a secret , and nobody would tell their middle names to untrustworthy people because it meant they could be cursed by the person who knew their whole name. That's also why when you watch a movie about possession, the prist will command the demon to say it's name and submit to the will of the prist, a representative of God on earth.
During the video, i remembered how my teachers taught us the alphabet using these meanings. but, i forgot about them quickly, and never thought about them again. But you helped these memories resurface, and, with your explanation about words, which i haven't heard previously, helped me appreciate my native language in ways i didn't think about before. Thank you! I love your work!
As with 99% of English words being mispronounced by Americans I’m at the point where it’s an accent at this stage. Like with names of F1 drivers, or the famous “apartheid” that they pronounce as “ay-paart-hide” rather than “ah-parrt-hade”
I’m a Goy from Monterey California. I married a gorgeous girl from the Mountains of Kentucky (whose ancestors were Jewish). After 52 years I still have trouble understanding her accent. If it were up to Solomon he’d cut us half into. BTW, you are helping me understand the first chapter of John in the Christian Bible.
et is the direct object marker, which exists in many languages such as japanese (wo). In a sense it is translated every single time; its just that instead of translating it into a word, its translated into syntax.
@@whatno5090 It's introducing jewish mysticism, which has many plot holes. He explained “b“ means “in“ because the letter means “house“, but if the letter “l“ means royalty and “g“ means giving, why is “l“ the preposion of “to“ and not “g“? And it doesn't explain unrelated homonyms or basic root word. (the etymology of garden in hebrew js that it comes from the word “protect“, not that it's a combo of letters “give seed"...
The Aleph Tav את isn’t just a thing. The Aleph Tav את is very very important for us. Yahawahshi HaMashiach את is the ET את. Proper name meaning or just proper names period are very very important to know whom we are referring to, taking to or about. Respect for the name is the up most important. “If are MADE in HIS image then CALL US BY OUR NAME!” Ericka Badu
Chinese has similar connotations because it is based on pictures from reality. It’s perhaps the first writing technique to transcend dialects and languages.
Hieroglyphs are the same, tho, and where the Hebrew letters originated (hence the meaning of each letter). It's a bit like Japanese letters coming from Chinese characters (or hieroglyphs). It would have been interesting, if hieroglyphs had been kept in the West, too. Apparently they were considered too difficult (plus holy) for the average person, which is how "demotic" (people) scripts developed. A bit like Korean characters. So I'd say what's really special about China isn't so much that it came up with hieroglyphs (like the Egyptians or the Maya), but that apparently a large enough portion of the population learned to read them to make their continued use feasible. And have it spread across a wider area. And lo and behold, the nations that adopted Chinese characters are still among the most educated in the world. Personally, that amazes me even more. 🙂☝️
@@simonspethmann8086 It's been suggested that the western alphabet, i.e. Latin alphabet, especially with the English language allowed for so much abstraction that it caused or allowed for more innovation. Some say this is why the west is more inventive and innovative than the eastern cultures that use pictograms.
A few corrections: first, the letter don't have meaning. In Kabbalah - Jewish mysticism, the letters have meaning. In the language itself, and for most Jews and Hebrew speaker, the letters don't have meaning. Also, for 1:31, א does have a sound - a glottal stop. It's a sound you don't have in English. Another thing: את (et) is a preposition. It specifies what you are talking about and is a past of Hebrew grammar.
The word for "sex" is "min," spelled "mem, yud, nun sofit." That means "Water, work/deed, seed." You do the work/deed to get your seed in the water. That really fits!
I attended Biblical Hebrew classes for several years back in the 1990s and we were privileged to have for our teacher a Methodist lay preacher who had learnt Semitic languages from a Rabbi. When he felt that our brains were beginning to hurt, wrestling with the very different concepts of Hebrew grammar as compared with English during the class, he would get us to put down our books and give us a "Bible bit" - little gems and insights from his Rabbi teacher. Since that time I have been fascinated by the Hebrew language and the significance of the individual letters and have several books on the subject, some by Jews and others by Gentile Christians. There are so many wonderful insights to be discovered and I feel that I have only begun to scratch the surface! This video was a joy, and I hope it encourages people to dig deeper into this fascinating subject so that they can be blessed as I have been. Thank you so much! The letters are also very beautiful to look at. I have often incorporated them into my art as they lend themselves so well to calligraphy and embroidery. The Lord has given me so many insights into His character and His Word through a study of Hebrew, and I am so grateful for the privilege of having the opportunity to study, and also to share what I have learnt with others.
Could you recommend any books on this? I am learning Hebrew now (beginner) but would love to learn about the meaning of the Hebrew words as much as the letters..
@@Cos-mog Sorry for the delay in replying. The book we used in our class was "Biblical Hebrew Step" by Step by Menahem Mansoor. I think this book is now out of print but you may be able to source a copy. I believe there's a teacher's guide too but can't be sure about that. I attended the classes back in the early 1990s. There are probably many other books available now, and there must certainly be software or websites teaching Biblical Hebrew. We were very blessed with our teacher who was a real scholar, and who had rabbinical insights too - although one should always check these against Scripture and exercise discernment because you don't want to go down the Kabbalah rabbithole! A very interesting book in my library is "The Mystery of the Menorah and the Hebrew Alphabet" by J.R. Church, which is still in print and available from Amazon. He draws heavily from rabbinical sources, particularly "The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet" by Rabbi Michael L. Munk (also available on Amazon), which I also bought after reading J.R. Church's book. I have found the study of Biblical Hebrew and the Hebraic background of the Christian faith extremely helpful in my understanding of the Bible, and also absolutely fascinating.
@@ShoshiPlatypus thank you so much for your detailed reply! I am now looking for these books to complement my learning, deepen and enrich my understanding and appreciation of the Hebrew language and mystery 💙🙏🏻✨
@@Cos-mog You're welcome! If there is anything else I can help you with, or any further information, please don't hesitate to ask! Wishing you all the best with your studies.
What a beautiful thing. This really ties some loose ends for me. A professor of mine died and left us students his over 3000 books. I'm glad i took the little Tora he had. I want to read the original texts myself. Thank you!
Im so happy you all see the beauty of the holy language! As an Orthodox Jew, it really pleases me to find so many of you interested in these special letters
This feature exists in all ancient languages which are still read / written so it is not unique to Hebrew. Example Chinese and Sanskrit (ancient Indian language ) . This shows languages started with associating sounds with particular objects and they became kind of basic “root words” . Eventually we used combinations of these “root words” to describe other things. Later on people started using words from other languages for things which were new to them but known to natives. This caused us we lose consistency of root words as different languages had different root words.
Its basically how modern German is structured, excluding its phonetic alphabet. Its a bundle of small words stacked into almost sentences to form compound words which describe an object- obviously quite different than Hebrew and the languages you've mentioned here, but still has that modular characteristic of words being almost their own simple sentences withing sentences. It seems appears missing in most other languages today.
I am a Jew learning Hebrew and at first I was a bit puzzled as it was starting with 4 different A sounds, 2 V... Now I understand much better why. Thanks a whole lot! ❤❤❤
its fascinating to me how Quranic Arabic (and the ones spoken now too i believe) and Hebrew have similar pronouncing of some letters like aleph/alif, bet/ba, kaf/kaaf, lamed/laam, mem/meem, nun/nuun, Qof too...
@@MindlikeConstellations yeah, it's also cool that it relates to greek 'aleph -> alpha bet -> beta lamed -> lambda as for qof that turned into koppa but then it was dropped from the greek alphabet because they didn't have the [q] sound
This is brilliant. I can't express enough how meaningful this was to me. This bought me to tears in such a loving embrace with the Holy Spirit. Please keep publishing this format/subject.
Thankyou for simplifying Something I've tried explaining to others. More of these videos would be great. I love learning about the kabballah for the indepth discussion on words, too.
Hebrew speaker here, this isnt true at all. Lets go through it slowly. Aleph does have a pronouciation, you just need to add a nikud to it, but even without it the latter can add sound and change pronouciation. Aleph doesnt mean anything with god, for example the word ארון just means clouset despite starting with aleph. Beit doesnt mean house, for example the word בנתיים mean "as for now". Lamed isnt royalty, for example the word לא just means "no"... nothing royal about it... also בבל does not mean 2 royal houses it is just a name... if that is so than בלבל (meaning "cofused") just means 2 royal house too right? And what about the word "לבלב" that has a diffrent meaning than "בלבל"? (that means "pancreas") what a stupid thing to say... If אב is a connection to god or thing than אבל (meaning, "despide") is a ROYAL connection to god right? wat? where are you even getting this crap? Also דבר is not both "word" and "thing". דבר can be read diffrently depending on nikud as either "davar" (thing) or "daber" (a command to speak). the word for "word" is NOT דבר but rather מילה (wow words are royal apperantly! There is a lamed!) Also on 4:52 this isnt a nun, this is an ending nun. This is nun: נ, this is an ending nun: ן, its not the same. Also nun isnt a seed, for example the word נמאס means that you are sick and tried of something. Gimel isnt a gift, the freaking word for gift is מתנה and there is no gimel in it... also גדר for example just means a fence... now we get to את, this is an acuall word that is just missing from english and that is why it wasnt translated. just like some languages does not have the words "am, is, are". the rabbai is just explaining some cool hidden meaning in that word but that does not explain why it wasnt translated, its just a cool way to look at it. mem does not mean water, for example מרדים is an ajective that means that something makes you fall asleep. Basiclly, you can give like million diffrent meaning to every latter and it would look sort of fine, this is all made up and no hebrew speaker would ever know this kind of stuff and this isnt how we come up with new words. Its acually tought in high school in Israel how we come up with new words and there are 3 ways and non of them are with the stupid latter hidden meaning or some crap.
@@adryanlucas096 Grammer basically - verbs for example, are made of a root of commonly 3 letters, which you can fit into seven different verbs templates (we call them "buildings" in rough translation), each fit to a different context (or create another meaning entirely, for example - some templates create passive verbs while others create active ones). No to mention each "building" has variations depending on the tense, gender, and prounon used. Basically, two verbs can have the same basic root, but mean different things. In some quirky scenarios, you can have two _identical_ sounding words, but both have different tense, pronoun, and even an entire different meaning. And you can only tell which one is which with context. Languages are quirky basically.
@@adryanlucas096not to mention, a lot of latin words got "Hebrew'd"(?) in the last decades since its modernisation (if not straight up moved over with on changes). The whole revival let to a lot of new terms to be invented to fit to modern day. It's basic evolution of language. But to elaborate further- nouns get transferred in the most. Most stay in their original form, and are qoute unquote "unofficial". But, if a new word get so popular it earns a verb representation, then you know it is truely successed in intergrating into the hebrew lexicon. It's the grand prize basically.
As a non-religious person with interest in language and linguistics, this was fascinating to watch. I wish he would make more long form contents like this.
This sounds a lot more like an interpretation of it after the fact. A lot of these word I presume go back to protoforms which sounded much different, and the idea of letters resembling things was for sure more practical and happenstange than "deeply meaningful" at first. For example, the alef is not silent, and the original pronounciation was indeed not silent either. It is possible or plausible that these connections could have altered the words (if for example the word for garden was gam, not gan, and the interpretation changed the latter letter), though even this I have a hard time seeing as something common. As a historical linguist I think this is a fun "exercise" and a cool interpretation, but it isn't really how languages work scientifically. We rarely just "create" words like that, especially basic words such as father, garden, etc. In the case of father, it's quite clearly a Lullwort, a nursery word, containing simple consonants that children can easily make (compare any other language, usually showing something like bilabial plus a or vice versa). The kids didn't consider what alef would have signified or that a voiced bilabial plosive was written with a word that meant 'house' etc. I love your other content, but I think it's important to make it clear that this is an analysis made by Jewish scholars, most of which have probably historically been religious, and so would want for there to be a bigger meaning behind the letters used. I know it's a huge part of some Kabbalistic traditions, but religion and science isn't the same, and while it is fascinating that they can find meaning like that in the words, it is important to remember that that doesn't mean this is how words were "created". Also, the word for word and thing is the same in many languages. It is not too special, but the semantic background for this I can't begin to get into here as I am a historical linguist first and foremost. 'et is not translated because it is a grammatical marker signifying a direct object (aka the accusative case), if I am not mistaken, which doesn't have an equivalent in English. I am not a Hebrew scholar so that explanation may be insufficient or imprecise, however 😊 In any case, a grammatical marker is not translated except for in meaning, and I bet Jewish scholars just read alef-tau as something like "a-z", as in, "In the beginning, god create a-z". The concept of words = magic = creation etc., is also found far and wide, but that is not such a strange concept either, I think. It is found in Indo-European contexts and in Near-Eastern ones too, and I am not surprised if it also appears as far away as in Australia and the Americas, really. I know you say it is a poetic idea briefly around 7 min in, but I feel like that is very important to stress, as a lot of people have a lot of wrong ideas about historical linguistics and natural language development 🥲
Finally found someone making sense in the comments! This video is based on pure religious interpretation and has no basis in actual linguistics. Aleph does not signify god, its origin is from the word for "bull", with the letter evolving from the likeness of a bull with horns. Two minutes of research will show you that fact. I am a native Hebrew speaker and I agree that this interpretation is very pleasing, but it is pure nonsense.
About the letter Aleph, Jorge Luis Borges (argentinian writer) has a book and a short tale named "the aleph" where it explores infinite and actually is fantastic, I recommend it
a few corrections from a native hebrew speaker First of all i will start by saying that you are mistaken with how the letter system in hebrew works , each letter isnt a representetive of an idea or a word , altought there are some letters like vav ( ו) and lammedh (ל) wich are also root words ( lammed is also למד the root word for the word family of studying ) or objects like vav ( vav is the hebrew word for hook ) but hose are the only to noteble exmples in the entire hebrew alphabet. it seems like you mixed your ideas with the function of gematria which is assignation of numeric values to Hebrew letters and is used as the number system of hebrew / jewish cultre , ( for exmple the current jewish year is תשפ"ב / which is equal to 5782 in The decimal numeral system) 1:50 alof or אלוף is translated into the word champion , not just the leader of an army , for exemple if you win a international sport comptetion you will be called alof ( for exemple if you win a gold medal in swimming in the olympics you will be called alof ( champion ) haolam ( ha means the or of , olam means world ) be-sechia ( be is an a gramer word that usally links two things usally titles or places , sechia = swiming ) 1:52 Ahav / אהב means loved like in past tense , the word for love is ahava / אהבה 2:17 the word for house is prenaounced bayit = בית ( imagine it as a fusion of the words bait and bay ) 2:22 The hebrew word for womb is rechem (רחם) not beten (בטן), beten means the tummy area and usally refers to the gut area ( for exemple if you have a stomech ache you say you have כאב בטן - kehave beten ( beten = gut , intestensts , tummy ) (kehave = pain) 2:56 lamedh ( in hebrew למד) is the root word for the family of word refering to studying ( for exmple studying in hebrew is לימודים = limodim , To study = לילמוד /lilmodh , i studied = למדתי / lamadeti , etc) 3:27 Babel / בבל is a shortend version of the the root word bilbel / בלבל ( also bilbel / בלבל is a rare version of a root word called a square root becuase it has 4 letters when most root words have 3 letters but i digress) which is the root word for the word family of confusion ( for exemple , bilbol- בילבול means confusion , bilbel - בלבל means he / she /it they / are confused in past tence , mitbalbel - מתבלבל means confused in present tence , etc ) and is called so becusen in tower of babel god made everyone confused and speak diffrent lenguages ( in the og hebrew text of the bible its written has bilbel/ בלבל ( confused ) et / את ( this word doesnt have a direct translation in english, but its a link word used to link to things in a sentence ) sfatam / שפתם ( thier languges / lips ) 4:35 the Hebrew word for a word is milah / מילה the confusion probably came cause the word speaking in Hebrew is dibor / דיבור and the root word for that family is davar / דבר 4:50 there is a couple of mistakes in this part : first of all while the letter gimel ( ג) is the equivalent letter to g that is used in the English word gift It has nothing to do with the two Hebrew versions of the word , the more common one today is matana / מתנה Which comes from the root matan / מתן which is used for the act of giving without expecting something in return . The other version is Shai / שי Wich means the same thing as matana but is used usually when referring to God or acts of nature Second of all the latter nun / נ ( or the variation you used ן , Wich is only used in the end of a sentence ) has nothing to do with the word seed ( zera / זרע ) In Hebrew . Nun is usually used in the end of sea animals in both Hebrew and Aramaic names like dionon / דיונון / squid ( dio means ink and the nun is added in the end ) or tmanon/ תמנון / ,octopus ( tma is a short version of the word tamania which means 8 in Arabic and again the word nun Wich is the word for fish in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic ) and etc the correct letter is zayin ז / z in English 6:49 this list is inaccurate Ancient Hebrew letters dont look like that and many of the words linked to certuin letters dont match like , for exemple the hebrew letters usally linked to life are chet and yod or in hebrew the word חי wich means alive , not the letter nun . Also there are mistakes like : vav / ו means hook and not nail , chet / ח doesnt mean wall or seperation ( altough it is linked to the word room / חדר ) tet / ט doesnt mean snake or basket ( snake / נחש is linked to the letter nun / נ and basket / סל to the letter samech / ס etc , altough it has alot of things right too like its portrail of the letter hey / ה , resh / r , mem / מ , beit / ב , gimmel / ג to name a few examples
As a Jew and a Hebrew speaker, I didn't know that. I knew there was an idea why the Bible started with the letter Beit, but I didn't know everything else, and it's very interesting. זה היה די מצחיק לראות אותו מנסה להגיד מילים בעברית
This is so beautiful it made me cry!!!! I’m studying (informally) Hebrew for months now. This gives back the feeling of wonder to the language of God that I had at the beginning. In the past few days everything feels like a task. Now I am just in awe of how sovereign God is. Amma search for that song at the end now
I really love your videos, but I often notice mistakes in your translation of Hebrew words and in some of the information presented. to name a few: - Aleph isn't completely silent, and it is absolutely a consonant and has a pronunciation. - Beten (בטן) means belly or stomach, rechem (רחם) is womb. - Et (את) can't be translated because there is no grammatical need for it to exist in English (technically there is no *need* for it in Hebrew, it just makes sentences clearer, but still it has no meaning of its own, it's a direct object marker). edit: i see you've responded to someone else about et being taught by rabbi's to have an alternative meaning, that's really interesting, tho I wonder if thise rabbi's are native Hebrew speakers or not. that sounds like an explanation for a lack of a translation more than a biblical analysis
Beautiful video! I am learning Hebrew as an adult and you did such a good job communicating the poetry of the language and a sense of wonder. Thank you for that.
The aleph (at least historically) represents a glottal stop, and the name and symbol comes from Phoenician for ox. In modern Hebrew it might no longer be a consonant and only used to indicate a leading vowel or as a symbol to attach a vowel diacritic to. The idea that all the letters are meaningful in themselves, is some form of mysticism. If aleph has an association with god or the divine that's a more recent association not something that the creator of Hebrew words though of since the original symbol was clearly an ox and it's name meant ox.
My learning was that ayin is a glottal stop, whereas aleph was silent, taking the sound of the vowel - which to me sounds more like a vowel place holder (for a leading vowel).
@@cigmorfil4101 probably varies in the different languages and dialects that use alphabets/abjads descended from the Phoenician. But from what I read ʼaleph was a glottal stop (the stop sound in "uh-oh") and `ayin was a glottal fricative (sounds more like straining if your language doesn't have this sound) in Phoenician.
@@cigmorfil4101 That's modern Hebrew pronunciation. Ancient Hebrew used aleph for glottal stop and ayin for pharyngeal approximant, similar to modern Arabic ayn.
Thank you for a Great video. I learnt a lot and my primary language is Hebrew. I just recently(last 2 years) got into kabala and pardes(mostly Maimonides), so I'll just remind that in the Hebrew tradition nothing is really what it seems. And while you can use cabalistic ideas on letters, they will be left as they are. Unchanged. With no meaning and all of the meaning at the same time(and for the bible opening my favorite explanation is that "inside the start, god created the up and the down"
Glad to see you linked to the original video. Interesting stuff the Hebrew Language. The Word for Father is "Abba" or Alef Bet The Word for Son is "Ben" Bet Nun When you combine them Father and Son as one "Alef Bet Nun" you have "Stone" Jesus said "I and the Father are One" The Stone the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone. Stone=Father and Son as One
Thank you for honoring Hebrew so nicely in your unique way. THe study of gematria is fascinating as well - every letter also has a specific numerical value.
I'm half way through, and I have to point out that, somewhat ironically, another language whose words work by stacking meanings is German. Also English to some extent. Most of them, really. Thank you for enlightening me about the Hebrew alphabet tho, I will look more into it, I'm quite intrigued.
Regarding the second half of the video, et is just the Hebrew language's direct object marker. We translate it in English with syntax (because we don't have a direct object marker) by changing "In the beginning created God the Heavens and the Earth" to "...God created the Heavens and the Earth". The idea that it represents the aleph bet is just a kabbalistic theory.
@@4rtie So like a conspiracy theory. I watched all of it, and to be completely honest, the guy is a bit too smug for me to lend much credence to his words.
@@durere not really a conspiracy theory, just an interpretation that isn't nearly as certain as his confidence in presentation would lend you to believe.
@@4rtie Took it with a grain of salt anyway, if it were really so, it would shake the very foundation of how many people see the world, and I would find it hard to believe that it flew over so many heads so far. But I do like to entertain wild ideas.
@@durere in addition to this, the actual english translation of genesis 1:1 is "when God started/began to create the heavens and the earth" as opposed to in the beginning. The word "bereshit" is always mistranslated here. It does not mean in the beginning, it literally means at first. Grammatically speaking here it's also a dependent clause as it doesn't start with a verb. It starts with a prepositional adverb
This has been one of the most interesting videos I have ever seen on YT. I find languages very interesting and speak a few of them, but I never really came into contact with Hebrew. Connecting the world with the alphabet in this way is a beautiful and elegant way of looking at what is. Thanks, I am really intrigued now to learn more.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path. I've learned something recently. An anointed song doesn't depend on skill of your instrument. It depends on your prayer life.
Still you need to practise many many hours in order to express yourself musically. What you say sounds good poetically but everybody who has ever learned an instrument knows that a beginner could never play anything profound no matter what. Best example I can come up with is that we have 0 histories of a violin player who sounded good from the beginning as far as I know
What an interesting video! Worth noting that "et" is a super common object marker, but since English doesn't have differential object marking, it's impossible to translate. It's sort of like a preposition, if we said, "In the beginning, God created at/for/to the heavens and the earth." I'm not sure how widely accepted this rabbi's interpretation of it as "aleph through tah" is, but I think it's pretty cool!
Good info! Biblical Hebrew uses both. From a modern perspective it seems like בטן is used more for generally "abodomen/belly" and רחם specifically for the uterus, but I would need to look more into what the anatomical understanding was at the time.
Amazing video/tutorial. Instantly subbed. Eagerly waiting for yuh ta post more....For me , too much about GOD seems just right. Thank you for sharing. Peace.
For those interested in the meaning "את" have in spoken and written Hebrew today, "את" is a connection word like "of" or "to" in English, the meaning of "את" can be closely translated to "directly", so in Genesis 1:1 you can say "In the beginning God created directly the sky and the earth.". In English, the concept of "את" doesn't exist, but in Hebrew it makes sense, you use it when you want to talk about a direct instance of a thing, like "I want ice cream" will be translated to "אני רוצה גלידה" but "I want David's ice cream" will be translated to "אני רוצה את הגדליה של דוד", the "את" symbols that it's not a generic ice cream but a specific one, in this case, David's ice cream.
It literally says it's a definite direct object marker in the video haha and other languages like Japanese have one too. The reason for it in Hebrew is because it used to be written VSO instead of the majority SVO syntax it is written in today. If you have a sentence like ויאכל המלך הכריך how are you going to know which is the subject and which is the object on first glance if you know nothing about the syntax noun order in the sentence?
As a lover of your work and as a proud citizen of Ironland, I felt that I should explore more of your videos. And then I found this gem!! 😃I never knew how fascinating Hebrew was! I speak a bit of French, Spanish and Japanese. I think I need to explore more about this ancient tongue. Thank you!!
The argument this video poses is meaningless. As a native Hebrew speaker, this whole video is nonsense. For example, the word “את” has no translation to English since it is a grammatical quirk that English simply doesn’t have, the word has no meaning by itself just like the indefinite article “a” has no meaning by itself. Your claim that you can tell the meaning of a word just by looking at it is completely baseless. As with all human languages, Hebrew has evolved and changed over time, and new words have been created to accommodate new concepts and environments. Not a single person who knows a thing or two about linguistics and who’s mother tongue is Hebrew will take this video seriously. Not to mention that the Hebrew bible was not even written with the modern Hebrew alphabet but with the paleo Hebrew script, the alphabet we use today is merely a product of the Aramaic script and its adaption to the Hebrew language. I really hope you take this video down, it’s just spreading misinformation.
Hey, native Hebrew speaker here . I obviously know this story from childhood, and it indeed is cute and uplifting with lots of intriguing examples. However, most often it doesn't work, and you'll need lots of mental acrobatics to maintain it. Once you learn a bit about the development of Semitic languages it kind of falls apart entirely. Still a cool language though.
"a little learning is a dangerous thing" People, please don't just take this guy's word for stuff, ive seen many of his tik tok videos that are not very accurate.
I am a lover of foreign languages and I speak two, besides my native one. I have learned two more but I have forgotten both. As a lover of languages, I ache to be able to learn Hebrew, for three reasons; one is for ability itself, the other is because of my Hebrew ancestry, and the third, and more important one, to be able to read the Bible win Hebrew. I have the feeling I am never going to be smart enough to become proficient in a language that belongs to my people, the language spoken by our Eternal Father, through revelation to the Jews.
There is another word that the English language has no translation to and it’s ברא which in English means Created but in English it is only created from something which we all are creating from something and in the Hebrew word ברא it’s meant Created from nothing which no one can do but אלוהים God. Nice video. God Bless🙌💪🙌
Hebrew letters don't have any secret meaning, it's pseudolinguistics. This alphabet descended from a variety of Aramaic script, which descended from Phoenician (alongside Greek), which descended from Proto-Sinaitic script, and ultimately from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Of course, hieroglyphs had their meaning, but the descendant scripts were alphabets/abjads/abugidas, which means that the descendat letters had only phonetic value, and lost their original meanings. Hebrew script is one of these descendants, and is not that unique to find some hidden meanings behind the letters. The words of Hebrew language were not created by uniting "mystical meanings" of letters together because Hebrew language predates the Hebrew script, and the language itself is a part of a Semitic language family, which means that other languages in this family have etymologically related words. I am not blaming the creator of this video in discussing a pseudoscientific topic, as I can see, the creator knows more about the Bible studies than linguistics. Linguistics studies languages, and the way which was discussed in the video is not the way how languages work, according to actual scientific research.
You're right that it originally started with Egyptian hieroglyphs, but Dr.Douglas Petrovich figured out that the Proto-Sinaitic script was in fact Hebrew. He decoded carvings that had previously untranslated. So in fact, all other phonetic alphabets on earth descend from Hebrew. The Alphabet is a gift from God.
@Ken Jackson From 1000 BCE to 135 CE, a script called Paleo-Hebrew was used to record the original scripts of the Tanakh. Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form. The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora - such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel. Your words "The Alphabet is a gift from God" reveal your religious point of view, whereas my point of view is secular and scientific. The idea of the letters' creative power finds its greatest vehicle in the Sefer Yezirah, a mystical text of uncertain origin which describes a story of creation highly divergent from that in the Book of Genesis, largely through exposition on the powers of the letters of the alphabet. The supposed creative powers of the letters are also referenced in the Talmud and Zohar. Scholars usually do not agree with this. Moreover, I heard similar things about various other scripts: In Ynglism, a sect of Rodnovery, it is believed that Bukvitsa, a modified version of Cyrillic created by the sect, was used by "Slav-Aryans" since ancient times, each letter carries a mystical meaning, and "universe development code" is encoded within them. Here is also the example of something similar, but with Latin letters: englishcode.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/the-secret-meaning-of-english-letters-s/ Now, onto Douglas Petrovich: According to Mark A. Hassler's review of his book "The world's oldest script", Petrovich’s conclusions needle at multiple critical presuppositions sometimes found among disciples of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. Not everyone will agree with all of Petrovich’s interpretive decisions on a variety of fronts, such as the identification of the glyphs and letters, the direction of writing (e.g. sinistrograde versus dextrograde), and of course, the transcriptions, translations, and historical significance. To date, adversarial critiques of Petrovich’s work have come from Alan Millard, Christopher Rollston, and Thomas Schneider, to whom Petrovich has posted open responses on his Academia profile page (thebibleseminary.academia.edu/DouglasPetrovich). Did the author accomplish his goal? Time will tell. As Petrovich puts it, “Final judgment as to the accuracy of [my] findings should be reserved for three, four, or five decades after publication, not determined hastily” (p. xiii). The summary Petrovich gives of his work offers little that can support his assertions. He declares that he came to believe that Hebrew is the language ‘behind the proto-consonantal script … by weighing the options systematically and allowing the context of various inscriptions to determine which option is correct’, without further explanation. A glance at his Figure 6 shows how dubious his process is. In that text, Sinai 375a, the writing seems to run from the right edge of the stone around the top and down the left side, with some letters below the first few. Petrovich finds the biblical name Ahisamach by reading the first three letters from right to left, then the three below them. Other letters stand in a vertical column with a couple of hieroglyphs among them. The arrangement is odd! No words are cited to prove the texts are in Hebrew. In fact, Hebrew and Canaanite written in consonantal script may be indistinguishable.
@@xirdaish9082: _"No words are cited to prove the texts are in Hebrew."_ I've watched seven of Dr.Petrovich's lectures posted on TH-cam in which he describes these in detail. He says he obsessively rotated the 22 hieroglyphs though each of the 22 Hebrew letters in turn and attempted to fit every word in the oldest know Hebrew lexicons and came up with one mapping that made sense. Further, the writings made sense in light of the history written in the Bible. Thank you for some historical context. You're clearly a scholar and I'm not. Though you didn't mention the 19th century BC when the script was invented. Nor the 15th century BC when Moses used it to write the Pentateuch. *Xirdaish:* _"Your words 'The Alphabet is a gift from God' reveal your religious point of view, whereas my point of view is secular and scientific."_ What I mean by that is that with all great inventions in history, usually one person had the spark of the non-obvious idea that makes the invention possible. Later, when others see it, it may _seem_ obvious, but nobody else thought of it, so it wasn't. In this case, the timing is right that in may have been Joseph who had that spark. He knew both Egyptian and Hebrew. And God spoke to him in dreams. It's quite possible that God gave him that spark of an idea in a dream. In which case the very first idea of a phonetic alphabet was literally given as a gift from God. But even if it wasn't given in a dream and even if it wasn't Joseph, Dr.Petrovich gave evidence that some of the writing involved his sons, so one of _them_ likely had that initial spark of an idea from which all other phonetic alphabets on earth flowed. The significance of such a crucial gift flowing from God through the Hebrews shouldn't be missed. And in fact, disdain for the Bible or hatred of Jews may well be the motive to dismiss its true origin.
As a Hebrew speaker I feel like sometimes Hebrew studies go over the top and start imagining things that are not there… like, the word את appears so much in the Bible because it has a very important grammatical role in Hebrew, I don’t really know how to explain it in English but it’s just a word that from my understanding you could never use the language without, it’s so common because it’s so general, not because it has some hidden meaning. It’s like saying that A (the word) has some philosophical importance in English because it’s the first letter of the ABC, the importance is first grammatical and not necessarily philosophical. Idk, maybe I’m just not well versed enough, it’s a very old language and went through a lot of changes, but as someone who studied the Bible in Hebrew and as a grandson of Hebrew scholars (both secular and religious) and someone who’s surrounded by people who are very passionate about Hebrew I feel like Hebrew studies slip to mysticism way too quickly. It’s a super old language that was a spiritual life line for an entire people for about 2000 years and is super important to the 3 most common religions in the western world. Going through ancient time, the Middle Ages, the enlightenment and the modern era, some of the interpretations of the language and the texts feel like someone projecting their own world views and forgetting it used to be a normal language, used to discuss daily matters. It was definitely used in philosophical and religious contexts but that was not the basis of its existence. “Let’s go get water” “How much for eggs?” “I don’t like that man” “What’s for dinner?” The Bible is full of mundane imagery described in the same language with the same words as some of the most learned and speculated verses, and there’s no importance in the use of a word you’re literally horses to use by the dialect you’re speaking . Sometimes, not all the time, they’re just words, and just as our version of the Bible describes it with one word for hundreds of years it was described with other words, before the Bible was even canonized (it happened way later than most people think, around 100 BCE, until then what we call the Bible was a collection of stories passed through the generations constantly being rewritten and edited and which parts of it are considered “canon” some scholars thing wasn’t decided until the turn of the millennium). Not trying to “debunk” any argument about the philosophical and literary importance of Hebrew texts, just remind people that at the end of the day it’s a language and it’s first use is communication, it’s not some cypher from a sorcerers spell book, any higher meaning given to it was given by the people using it, not some mythic ethereal power. Sorry if I poo pooed all over the comment section, I love your videos.
I'm very agnostic, nearly a-religious entirely... and this is such a beautiful and compelling way of thinking. Heck, just hearing that "Adam" was the name of humanity nearly blew my mind, but the sure beauty of this language and how it itself weaves into the religion... Stunning.
It’s important to realize that Hebrew is just a bunch of words made from 3 letter roots, so it’s not like there’s a lot to play around with in terms of unique combinations for words. All of these theories are just trying to put meaning into randomness. No one designs languages, they happen
@@ShiyalaKohnyto me, that last claim sounds like you didnt understand languages. yes they happen. they evolve in a certain way. containing beauty and elegace, rhyme and rhythm. so, to my ear and to my mind, there is more than just randomness. and maybe I just misunderstood your remark. :) regarding the 3-radical system: if i understand correctly, it still leaves with some 10k unique combinations. more combinations than most people use words.
That clip at 5:54 of the eye opening is 100% taken from a Slow Mo Guys video where Gav films Dan’s eye opening and the pupil contracting in Slow Mo using a special lens
I bought a book about 20 years ago that taught how to read and write and understand the ancient Hebrew alphabet. I wanted to learn this so I could better understand the OT. I’ve never used it but it still sits on my book shelf. I’ve made sure I brought it with me and I knew where it was every time I’ve moved. As a matter of fact, it’s no more than 10 feet away from where I sit now.
This video has inspired me to finally pick that book up and use it.
@trcmf
Do it. Start!
My first encounter with Hebrew was several years ago in a biblical lecture of Old Testament, and recently a sudden light inside has driven me, out of nowhere, to seek and learn the letters and to seriously start studying the Old Testament.
One thought inside my mind said to me that it's going to be too complicated and stop before starting, and right after this thought, another thought came into my heart and assured me I am watched over and start doing it because help will be granted. Immediately my heart felt joy of the second thought.
So....taking the courage to pray and start doing it!
Godspeed to you!
Oh nice! Chabad.org has a great free resource too called Letters of Light that does a great job at making each letter memorable.
@@_magnify Greatly appreciated.
Thank you !
What is the title of this book?
@@mariajjenkins I too would like to know
Linguistically, the reason "את" doesn't have a direct translation is because it's a direct object marker, a linguistic feature we don't have in English. It would be like trying to translate our indefinite articles "a" and "an" into Hebrew; it's a grammatical feature they don't have, so it wouldn't have a direct translation.
That is not true given there are many places in the Tanakh where a direct object pointer should have been used and it is not or where it ought not be used and it is. The great scholars of the past were leaning to the et as having divine significance. It all changed when the southern kingdom living in Jerusalem killed the suffering servant of Isaiah 52
@@MrConsto It's just a direct object marker... (I speak Hebrew)
זה לא משהו מיוחד, זה רק מייצג את האובייקט במשפט. יש לך דוגמאות של התנך שאמורות להראות את זה?
See Japanese:
は “wa” is the topic marker
が “ga” is a subject marker
を “(w)o” is an object marker
^ none of which have direct translations in English but rather are incorporated into English grammar.
Japanese also doesn’t have definite and indefinite articles like ‘the’ and ‘a/an’ - this information is gained from context.
Example:
日 “ni” is Sun.
本 “hon” is Origin (in context).
日本 “nihon” is Japan “Land of the Raising Sun”.
語 “go” is Language (in context).
日本語 “nihongo” is Japanese “Language of the Land of the Raising Sun”.
Another example:
木 “ki” is Tree.
森 “mori” is Woods/Forrest.
Noticed how 本 is a 木 cut at its Origin?
本 in other context means Book or Books because 日本語 doesn’t have singular/plural nouns (except in specific instances such as definitely specifying a group entity, not a singular entity).
Isaiah 53:10 - the seed/descendants/progeny. Depending on translation but each is literal whether singular [descendant] [progeny] or [seed]. Do you buy seed or seeds to plant? Every specie reproduces its kind. The human specie is reproduced through male sperm its seed kind. The suffering servant is not jesus. It is Israel. They have literally lived to see their seed. There is more for you to know to be able to understand the Hebrew language to understand 53 in context. The preceding chapters help as Israel is identified as the servant. Shalom blessings. @@MrConsto
As a native Hebrew speaker I believe Hebrew is so fascinating, it’s the only language to die then get practically resurrected
no it isnt
@@dresdiSuccesfully revitalized
@@user_finland it isn't the only one to do that 😂😂. first of all hebrew was never really dead, it was a liturgical language like sanskrit, coptic and latin, and second of all many actually dead languages (like manx) have been revived. just another case of zionists thinking they're the centre of the world
@@dresdiim not saying youre wrong, but it would be more constructive to provide examples
@@dresdiYes it is...? Lol
As a native Hebrew speaker (it is my first language), I am always fascinated by how the language is views from outsider point of views. I have to say, the video was quite well done! Despite some pronounciation differences (which is understandable), you have a lot of grasp on the language. Despite being a Hebrew speaker, I am still a modern speaker and am not fluent in the biblical language. Even though we read and learn it, biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew are quite different in how they are wrriten, and even more so in how they are spoken. So although my knowledge isn't the best in this field, as I am not a religious person, I still have some small corrections:
The word for 'thing', 'davar' (דבר), and the word for 'word' aren't the same word. The word for 'word' is actually 'Mila' (מילה). The actual connection is between the word 'thing' and the word 'speaking/speak', which has a root of D.V.R (ד.ב.ר). A root, or 'shoresh' (שורש) in hebrew, is the base letter structure for different verbs. There are ways to use those letters and put vows before, after and between them to create new words with a collective meaning, like for example, the difference between passive and active un English. The connection is still interesting, for god spoke and thus created.
Another small thing, the Beten (בטן) is reffering to the stomach, more them to the womb. There is a different word for womb in hebrew, which is Rechem (רחם).
And when it comes to 'Et'... It is hard to explain to a non hebrew speaker because it's meaning and use is so unconscious at this point for me. It's a word that connects an act to it's reciever, I think would be the best way to explain it. In English, you might translate it to an 'a' or a 'the' before a word, like 'god created the sky'.
All in all, this was a very interesting, very well explained video! I hope my explanations are ok, I am still a teen and so lack some knowledge in the grammar area's of Hebrew, so bare that in mind and feel free to correct me😊
אחי עברית תנכית שונה, דבר יכול להיות גם מילה או משפט , למשל "דברי המלך", מילות המלך, וגם בטן יכול גם להיות מיוחס לרחם לדוגמא , "פרי בטנה".
@@rtg8709 תודה על התיקון😅 אני מניחה שדיברתי על המילים לפי המשמעות המודרנית הכי נפוצה שלהן.
@@rtg8709 אני עדיין לא מבין אבל כיצד אפשר לפרש את "בראשית ברא אלוהים את" בתור האלף-בית, הרי אפילו בשפה תנכית אם המילה "את" הייתה מיוחסת לשם עצם כשלעצמו אז המשפט לא היה תקין יותר.
A small correction for the small correction - Beten is belly, the word for stomach is Keiva (קיבה).
@@dennis1790זה מיסטיסיזם תנכי, התנך ידוע בזה שניתן לתת לו פרשנויות שמתנגשות אחת עם השנייה, זה הבסיס לתושב"ע.
Well the word את (et) is actually a very common word in the Hebrew language, the reason why it's not translated in the bible because it is a function word that had no English parallel, what it basically means is quite hard to explain to a non Hebrew speaker but basically if you want to say that you're doing a certain action to someone then for example if I say that I love a specific person called Max
Then in English I would simply say "I love max" but in Hebrew you'd say "Ani ohev et Max)
Translating that sentence word for word
To English it would be
Ani = I ohev=love et=? Max
So you can't just say
Ani ohev max
You must add that word et
So in the example we have in the bible
When it says that "god created the heavens and the earth then in Hebrew you have to add that word את in order to make that accurate grammatically speaking
Yes, it means specifically. Learned this in Ulpon. Never-the-less it has an alternate meaning here of aleph to tov.
have you understood what he meant when he said God created the Alphabet in the very first sentence? 'Cause to what i can see, we don't ignore the word, we may not translate the word but we translate the sense (which is part of translation, as word-for-word would get confusing).
B:rešhit bara AElohim et HaŠhamajim w:et HaAraez
i don't see where there is an Alphabet here? Why then just here, if - i just guess - et is one of the most frequent words in the old testament and i'm sure there are similiar usages here...
Yep, good explanation. In addition to the grammatical function you were describing here, many rabbis teach that את also serves a ceremonial function.
accusative case
🤦♂️
Right, saying that את (et) has a meaning is like saying Japanese は (wa)/が (ga) and Hawaiian 'o have meaning too.
You’re the Vsauce of language
Let me explain as a native Hebrew speaker, "את" is a preposition with no direct English translation. In the Bible it is mainly used as a Definiteness , so the closest translation is the word "the", in modern Hebrew it can still be used for that, but it usually appears together with " ה"א הידיעה " (He of Definiteness).
Today the word "את" usually appears as an inflection and its meaning is "with"
Three comments. 1. In biblical hebrew it sometimes means "with", as in "ויתהלך חנוך את האלקים" (Hanoch walked with G-d). 2. It usually appears the definite article heh, not just in modern Hebrew but in biblical Hebrew as well, and 3. Biblical exegetists find additonal meaning in its inclusion, treating it as not absolutely mandated by grammar, therefore included to hint that there is an additional case included not explicitly mentioned in the text. For example "כבד את אביך ואת אמך" (Honor your father and mother) uses the construct, thus implying that there is someone else not explicitly mentioned who should also be honored (taken to be older brother, for example).
@@tesilab994 So I will start with the third claim, first of all you wrote "עת" which means "time" and this is not true both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy it says "את" with א' so check your spelling. As I wrote, "את" is a word that indicates known and comes with the known God, but your father and your mother are already known words in Hebrew because they come with an inflection, like in English you don't say the -your father or the -your mother, so "את" comes alone without ה' (=the)
I honestly can't understand the second claim, maybe it's a translation gap.
Regarding the first claim, yes "את" without an inflection can be used to denote the word "with" , but this usually only happens with names in modern Hebrew because that's how it was used in the Bible. I didn't mention it because in the examples in the video he tried to prove that "את" is not translated
It's a definite direct object marker
@@tzvi7989 also indicating accusative case then (someone else said this)? In German you would use a specifically changed article to indicate the direct object: for many words that might be "den"
@@moonhunter9993 yeah but only in that way
As a Hebrew speaker even I didn’t know that!
One point: In the video, he says English nouns (or words generally) are random. That's no more or less true for Hebrew (or Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, any other language). All languages are simultaneously somewhat random sets of sounds for each word, yet also they have root meanings behind them which are carried over from earlier times, their ancestry in languages. House, in the example, goes back to a Germanic root word for a house, a building. Beth in Hebrew meaning a house or building also goes back to a Semitic language root. Take these further back, and some words are innovations at some point, and then develop meanings along the way, while others go very far back but may change meanings slightly or drastically over time. So In one sense, sure, they're random groups of sounds for a word, but in another, they typically go back for hundreds or even thousands of years. Occasionally, a new word becomes more popular for a given concept, so it takes over, or words may change meanings, split, or become rare and die out.
Exactly. The linguistics in this video are off, to say the least
It is less true for Hebrew for the reason explained.
It's not obvious in the "modern" (less than 2500 year old) square script, but the old letters look like the things they mean.
(He flashes a chart up which shows them).
So the written language, rather than being just phonetic (like Greek, etc) or just pictographic (like Chinese), is both.
A naturalistic hypothesis might be that a group of rather intelligent slaves made up a secret language (a conlang) to exchange messages among themselves, using a few hieroglyphics as a starting point.
So it looks intelligently designed because (like the banana) it was.
@@michaelmicek that's not really the case. The old Hebrew letters, called paleo-Hebrew, was borrowed from (and is nearly identical to) the Phoenician script. The letters look like the objects they were named after precisely because they were developed from a photographic script, viz. hieroglyphics. It's not a secret conlang (its simply a writing system, Hebrew and Canaanitic were languages long before the advent of writing), and it's not unique to Hebrew because the script wasnt even originally used for hebrew. Thus, the spelling of Hebrew words reveals no hidden meaning based on the letter shapes: hebrew words already meant what they did before writing came to record it, and the objects and shapes used to create the Phoenician script were completely arbitrary.
@@weirdlanguageguy Highly agree with you, as a native speaker, I felt that he barely any research. When he said about the supposed random creation of English words (which is wrong), I thought he would talk about how the Hebrew root system works. Well too bad that I expected he would actually do research.
Instead he went on about the connection between the letter and how it looks. While yes, it's true, he then starts connect it to the words themselves which at that point has crossed line from just not based on research but based on speculation that slightly related to reality to complete pseudo science not backed up by anything.
Proof of that is the wrong pronounciation and the wrong translations (for example, בטן means stomach but he translated it to womb somehow).
And the part where he starts talking about את is where it's only random rambling, because את is the definite object marker and has no equivalent to English and because of it shouldn't be translated, and it got absouletly nothing to do with א to ת.
Anyways, it feels like the video was either made out of speculations or out of unreliable sources (considering that in the video appears a rabbi who isn't neccesary an actual Hebrew speaker, I wouldn't be surprised why the video is so inaccurate)
@@ליאורו-ט3ו good to hear a native speaker confirm this! Esoteric pseudolinguistics has unfortunately been a mainstay in certain religious circles for centuries.
As a Hebrew speaker, I must say that the word את (et) is a utalitarian word - it denotes the object of the sentence (a few other words can do this depending on the verb, but it is the most neutral one, as it does not have any meaning outside of that, unlike the others). It is untranslated because it is not necessary in nost languages, as the object is understood through the order of the words in the sentence or by changing the pronounciation of the word. All that is not to say it is impossible that it does represent more, I'm not a biblical scholar, but the word את is so common (and necessary for the sentence to make sense: בראשית ברא אלוהים השמיים והארץ is a nonsensical sentence) I don't believe it has a deeper meaning in this occurrence.
This is not biblical scholarly, this is jewish mysticism, and makes less sense when you look at it more closely...
Famous example, te hebrew verb לספר means both to tell a story and to cut hair (the initial lamed just means “to“). There is no explanation whatsoever as to why that is...
@@adrianblake8876, you mean you haven’t found an explanation? Have you ever been in a barbershop or beauty salon?
@@seanvogel8067 the one which the barber gossips!? Heard about it, but it's like "the ear gives balance“, a folk etymology at best...
Actually, the example you gave might be grammatically correct and bare the same meaning as with "et". I say might because it is still debated among scholars if "et" is necessary. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, had a public stance against using "et", like he had nothing more urgent to deal with.
@@eladthehatter I mean, sure? Technically? But not really, and that is not a commonly used sentence structure in the Bible at all. But, again, I don't hold strong opinions about this, I think it's a nice idea and is enjoyable, even if I don't think it's true per say
3:44 "This language sometimes, man-"
Truer words were never spoken
Thank you for making this, this really is such a beautiful video and language. I debated with trying to learn Hebrew for a long while (since I'm an American with NO ties to Judaism or Hebrew), but I'm finally taking the plunge. After all, life is short and learning is fun, might as well make the most of our time here
Yaaaa, go for it!
Learn biblical Hebrew, not the constructed language invented by Zionists.
by learning a language that reads from right to left, you boost your IQ by at least ten points.. worth it
Boosting the iq by 001 🤣
you should learn Hebrew! as a native Hebrew speaker I can confirm this is a really cool language, for example this video and my opinion. in Hebrew there are many words that are some way connected but have a different meaning, so once you know one word and learn another you can see the resemblance between them. for example; "צדק" (tsedek) means right/justice, and "צדקה" (tsdaka) means charity. it has similar pronunciation and meaning because "tsdaka" is like saying "justice for ___". that's just something I've noticed (:
This is going to help me remember Hebrew letters so quickly!!
Naming something carries the meaning of having authority (dominion) over it. So by speaking it into being, this shows God’s dominion over all of creation ❤
I really like this introduction to the Hebrew language! Thank you, it’s inspired me to learn more.
That's also why people, after medieval times, started adding middle names tho their kids. The middle name was kinda of a secret , and nobody would tell their middle names to untrustworthy people because it meant they could be cursed by the person who knew their whole name.
That's also why when you watch a movie about possession, the prist will command the demon to say it's name and submit to the will of the prist, a representative of God on earth.
Hmm yes naming something is sort of an ownership thing. In this way you get to choose something about something else.
and it also shows our dominion over all living creatures, given God Himself told us to name them all.
And it just solidifies me that we imagined this authorship since we made language.
Is that why we don't know God's true name?
During the video, i remembered how my teachers taught us the alphabet using these meanings. but, i forgot about them quickly, and never thought about them again.
But you helped these memories resurface, and, with your explanation about words, which i haven't heard previously, helped me appreciate my native language in ways i didn't think about before.
Thank you! I love your work!
Alef🏕 beit🏘 gimel 🐫
Please make a million more videos. Absolutely astounded by both the information and the delivery. You are fantastic at this. I'll be watching.
th-cam.com/video/od-xkRDw6nk/w-d-xo.html
i’m a jew and i’m disappointed i never knew, hilarious watching you mispronounce our words tho, keep up the good work 👍
As with 99% of English words being mispronounced by Americans I’m at the point where it’s an accent at this stage.
Like with names of F1 drivers, or the famous “apartheid” that they pronounce as “ay-paart-hide” rather than “ah-parrt-hade”
@@TinyFord1 apartheid is a myth 🇮🇱💙🤍
I’m a Goy from Monterey California. I married a gorgeous girl from the Mountains of Kentucky (whose ancestors were Jewish). After 52 years I still have trouble understanding her accent. If it were up to Solomon he’d cut us half into. BTW, you are helping me understand the first chapter of John in the Christian Bible.
We dont call everyone goy@@DrBible-ThD-HarvardLaw
FREE PALESTINE RIGHT?
et is the direct object marker, which exists in many languages such as japanese (wo). In a sense it is translated every single time; its just that instead of translating it into a word, its translated into syntax.
Funny thing is it says so on the screen when he shows the table...
DirObjM (5:10 in blue)
@Adrian Blake he does but i still don't like the way the video is framed
@@whatno5090 It's introducing jewish mysticism, which has many plot holes. He explained “b“ means “in“ because the letter means “house“, but if the letter “l“ means royalty and “g“ means giving, why is “l“ the preposion of “to“ and not “g“?
And it doesn't explain unrelated homonyms or basic root word. (the etymology of garden in hebrew js that it comes from the word “protect“, not that it's a combo of letters “give seed"...
The Aleph Tav את isn’t just a thing. The Aleph Tav את is very very important for us. Yahawahshi HaMashiach את is the ET את. Proper name meaning or just proper names period are very very important to know whom we are referring to, taking to or about. Respect for the name is the up most important. “If are MADE in HIS image then CALL US BY OUR NAME!” Ericka Badu
@@adrianblake8876Good points.
as a native speaker I find this video interesting and educating, thank you (:
Chinese has similar connotations because it is based on pictures from reality. It’s perhaps the first writing technique to transcend dialects and languages.
Hieroglyphs are the same, tho, and where the Hebrew letters originated (hence the meaning of each letter). It's a bit like Japanese letters coming from Chinese characters (or hieroglyphs). It would have been interesting, if hieroglyphs had been kept in the West, too. Apparently they were considered too difficult (plus holy) for the average person, which is how "demotic" (people) scripts developed. A bit like Korean characters.
So I'd say what's really special about China isn't so much that it came up with hieroglyphs (like the Egyptians or the Maya), but that apparently a large enough portion of the population learned to read them to make their continued use feasible. And have it spread across a wider area. And lo and behold, the nations that adopted Chinese characters are still among the most educated in the world. Personally, that amazes me even more. 🙂☝️
@@simonspethmann8086 It's been suggested that the western alphabet, i.e. Latin alphabet, especially with the English language allowed for so much abstraction that it caused or allowed for more innovation. Some say this is why the west is more inventive and innovative than the eastern cultures that use pictograms.
@@jakeaurodSuggested by whom? As someone who knows both languages, that sounds ridiculous.
Korean doesn't have characters, it's a phonetic alphabet. Maybe they appear to the layman as characters, but they're not.@@simonspethmann8086
A few corrections: first, the letter don't have meaning. In Kabbalah - Jewish mysticism, the letters have meaning. In the language itself, and for most Jews and Hebrew speaker, the letters don't have meaning. Also, for 1:31, א does have a sound - a glottal stop. It's a sound you don't have in English. Another thing: את (et) is a preposition. It specifies what you are talking about and is a past of Hebrew grammar.
Unless it's numerical meanings, but that's an whole other topic.
english definitely uses glottal stops in its words but it has no symbol reserved for that, true
Reminds me of Japanese Kanji. 春秋 (Shinjuu) means “year/age”, and is made up of the kanji for “spring/prime/puberty” and “Autumn/season/time”
but then there's the ateji
"i like to eat longevity-administer"
Japanese Kanji are a subset of Chinese characters, the Chinese invented most of them
@@notwithouttext why are you everywhere lol
@@brighthades5968 intersection of videos you watch and videos i comment on has population of at least 3
only difference is each of those actually have meaning, whereas this is just looking too far into coincedences
The word for "sex" is "min," spelled "mem, yud, nun sofit." That means "Water, work/deed, seed." You do the work/deed to get your seed in the water. That really fits!
This was wonderfully edited! Great video fr
Best new channel I've come across
I attended Biblical Hebrew classes for several years back in the 1990s and we were privileged to have for our teacher a Methodist lay preacher who had learnt Semitic languages from a Rabbi. When he felt that our brains were beginning to hurt, wrestling with the very different concepts of Hebrew grammar as compared with English during the class, he would get us to put down our books and give us a "Bible bit" - little gems and insights from his Rabbi teacher. Since that time I have been fascinated by the Hebrew language and the significance of the individual letters and have several books on the subject, some by Jews and others by Gentile Christians. There are so many wonderful insights to be discovered and I feel that I have only begun to scratch the surface! This video was a joy, and I hope it encourages people to dig deeper into this fascinating subject so that they can be blessed as I have been. Thank you so much!
The letters are also very beautiful to look at. I have often incorporated them into my art as they lend themselves so well to calligraphy and embroidery.
The Lord has given me so many insights into His character and His Word through a study of Hebrew, and I am so grateful for the privilege of having the opportunity to study, and also to share what I have learnt with others.
Could you recommend any books on this? I am learning Hebrew now (beginner) but would love to learn about the meaning of the Hebrew words as much as the letters..
@@Cos-mog Sorry for the delay in replying. The book we used in our class was "Biblical Hebrew Step" by Step by Menahem Mansoor. I think this book is now out of print but you may be able to source a copy. I believe there's a teacher's guide too but can't be sure about that. I attended the classes back in the early 1990s. There are probably many other books available now, and there must certainly be software or websites teaching Biblical Hebrew. We were very blessed with our teacher who was a real scholar, and who had rabbinical insights too - although one should always check these against Scripture and exercise discernment because you don't want to go down the Kabbalah rabbithole! A very interesting book in my library is "The Mystery of the Menorah and the Hebrew Alphabet" by J.R. Church, which is still in print and available from Amazon. He draws heavily from rabbinical sources, particularly "The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet" by Rabbi Michael L. Munk (also available on Amazon), which I also bought after reading J.R. Church's book. I have found the study of Biblical Hebrew and the Hebraic background of the Christian faith extremely helpful in my understanding of the Bible, and also absolutely fascinating.
@@ShoshiPlatypus thank you so much for your detailed reply! I am now looking for these books to complement my learning, deepen and enrich my understanding and appreciation of the Hebrew language and mystery 💙🙏🏻✨
@@Cos-mog You're welcome! If there is anything else I can help you with, or any further information, please don't hesitate to ask! Wishing you all the best with your studies.
I found your channel through your shorts but this content is something I want more of. This was beautiful and awesome (literally inspired awe).
Very nice. This is so enlightening. Makes Hebrew more understandable and shows its mystical beauty. Thank you.
th-cam.com/video/od-xkRDw6nk/w-d-xo.html
You should do more long videos.
What a beautiful thing. This really ties some loose ends for me. A professor of mine died and left us students his over 3000 books. I'm glad i took the little Tora he had. I want to read the original texts myself. Thank you!
Please continue this series, I love your long form content so much!
I looooooooove it. Very easy to memorise and learn z awesome language of almighty Elohim.
Blessings and shalom.
Thank you
Im so happy you all see the beauty of the holy language! As an Orthodox Jew, it really pleases me to find so many of you interested in these special letters
This feature exists in all ancient languages which are still read / written so it is not unique to Hebrew. Example Chinese and Sanskrit (ancient Indian language ) . This shows languages started with associating sounds with particular objects and they became kind of basic “root words” . Eventually we used combinations of these “root words” to describe other things. Later on people started using words from other languages for things which were new to them but known to natives. This caused us we lose consistency of root words as different languages had different root words.
Its basically how modern German is structured, excluding its phonetic alphabet. Its a bundle of small words stacked into almost sentences to form compound words which describe an object- obviously quite different than Hebrew and the languages you've mentioned here, but still has that modular characteristic of words being almost their own simple sentences withing sentences. It seems appears missing in most other languages today.
I am a Jew learning Hebrew and at first I was a bit puzzled as it was starting with 4 different A sounds, 2 V...
Now I understand much better why.
Thanks a whole lot! ❤❤❤
its fascinating to me how Quranic Arabic (and the ones spoken now too i believe) and Hebrew have similar pronouncing of some letters like aleph/alif, bet/ba, kaf/kaaf, lamed/laam, mem/meem, nun/nuun, Qof too...
that's because they're both semitic languages
@@notwithouttext ikr, it's still cool
@@MindlikeConstellations yeah, it's also cool that it relates to greek
'aleph -> alpha
bet -> beta
lamed -> lambda
as for qof that turned into koppa but then it was dropped from the greek alphabet because they didn't have the [q] sound
@@notwithouttext poor koppa, rip...
@@MindlikeConstellations same with vav/waw -> wau -> digamma -> stigma, it disappeared
This is brilliant. I can't express enough how meaningful this was to me. This bought me to tears in such a loving embrace with the Holy Spirit. Please keep publishing this format/subject.
Thankyou for simplifying Something I've tried explaining to others. More of these videos would be great. I love learning about the kabballah for the indepth discussion on words, too.
Hey, thanks for the encouragement 🙏 Thinking about doing a series of 22 videos on each individual letter!
@@_magnify You should do it man.
Please!!!! We need more videos like this!!! I learned so much from your shorts on this topic.
Hebrew speaker here, this isnt true at all. Lets go through it slowly.
Aleph does have a pronouciation, you just need to add a nikud to it, but even without it the latter can add sound and change pronouciation.
Aleph doesnt mean anything with god, for example the word ארון just means clouset despite starting with aleph.
Beit doesnt mean house, for example the word בנתיים mean "as for now".
Lamed isnt royalty, for example the word לא just means "no"... nothing royal about it...
also בבל does not mean 2 royal houses it is just a name... if that is so than בלבל (meaning "cofused") just means 2 royal house too right? And what about the word "לבלב" that has a diffrent meaning than "בלבל"? (that means "pancreas") what a stupid thing to say...
If אב is a connection to god or thing than אבל (meaning, "despide") is a ROYAL connection to god right? wat? where are you even getting this crap?
Also דבר is not both "word" and "thing". דבר can be read diffrently depending on nikud as either "davar" (thing) or "daber" (a command to speak). the word for "word" is NOT דבר but rather מילה (wow words are royal apperantly! There is a lamed!)
Also on 4:52 this isnt a nun, this is an ending nun. This is nun: נ, this is an ending nun: ן, its not the same.
Also nun isnt a seed, for example the word נמאס means that you are sick and tried of something.
Gimel isnt a gift, the freaking word for gift is מתנה and there is no gimel in it... also גדר for example just means a fence...
now we get to את, this is an acuall word that is just missing from english and that is why it wasnt translated. just like some languages does not have the words "am, is, are". the rabbai is just explaining some cool hidden meaning in that word but that does not explain why it wasnt translated, its just a cool way to look at it.
mem does not mean water, for example מרדים is an ajective that means that something makes you fall asleep.
Basiclly, you can give like million diffrent meaning to every latter and it would look sort of fine, this is all made up and no hebrew speaker would ever know this kind of stuff and this isnt how we come up with new words. Its acually tought in high school in Israel how we come up with new words and there are 3 ways and non of them are with the stupid latter hidden meaning or some crap.
Wait there's rules on how you guys create words in Hebrew? That's cool! Could you tell them if it won't bother you
@@adryanlucas096 Grammer basically - verbs for example, are made of a root of commonly 3 letters, which you can fit into seven different verbs templates (we call them "buildings" in rough translation), each fit to a different context (or create another meaning entirely, for example - some templates create passive verbs while others create active ones). No to mention each "building" has variations depending on the tense, gender, and prounon used.
Basically, two verbs can have the same basic root, but mean different things. In some quirky scenarios, you can have two _identical_ sounding words, but both have different tense, pronoun, and even an entire different meaning. And you can only tell which one is which with context.
Languages are quirky basically.
@@adryanlucas096not to mention, a lot of latin words got "Hebrew'd"(?) in the last decades since its modernisation (if not straight up moved over with on changes). The whole revival let to a lot of new terms to be invented to fit to modern day. It's basic evolution of language.
But to elaborate further- nouns get transferred in the most. Most stay in their original form, and are qoute unquote "unofficial".
But, if a new word get so popular it earns a verb representation, then you know it is truely successed in intergrating into the hebrew lexicon. It's the grand prize basically.
As a non-religious person with interest in language and linguistics, this was fascinating to watch. I wish he would make more long form contents like this.
This sounds a lot more like an interpretation of it after the fact. A lot of these word I presume go back to protoforms which sounded much different, and the idea of letters resembling things was for sure more practical and happenstange than "deeply meaningful" at first. For example, the alef is not silent, and the original pronounciation was indeed not silent either. It is possible or plausible that these connections could have altered the words (if for example the word for garden was gam, not gan, and the interpretation changed the latter letter), though even this I have a hard time seeing as something common.
As a historical linguist I think this is a fun "exercise" and a cool interpretation, but it isn't really how languages work scientifically. We rarely just "create" words like that, especially basic words such as father, garden, etc. In the case of father, it's quite clearly a Lullwort, a nursery word, containing simple consonants that children can easily make (compare any other language, usually showing something like bilabial plus a or vice versa). The kids didn't consider what alef would have signified or that a voiced bilabial plosive was written with a word that meant 'house' etc. I love your other content, but I think it's important to make it clear that this is an analysis made by Jewish scholars, most of which have probably historically been religious, and so would want for there to be a bigger meaning behind the letters used. I know it's a huge part of some Kabbalistic traditions, but religion and science isn't the same, and while it is fascinating that they can find meaning like that in the words, it is important to remember that that doesn't mean this is how words were "created".
Also, the word for word and thing is the same in many languages. It is not too special, but the semantic background for this I can't begin to get into here as I am a historical linguist first and foremost.
'et is not translated because it is a grammatical marker signifying a direct object (aka the accusative case), if I am not mistaken, which doesn't have an equivalent in English. I am not a Hebrew scholar so that explanation may be insufficient or imprecise, however 😊 In any case, a grammatical marker is not translated except for in meaning, and I bet Jewish scholars just read alef-tau as something like "a-z", as in, "In the beginning, god create a-z".
The concept of words = magic = creation etc., is also found far and wide, but that is not such a strange concept either, I think. It is found in Indo-European contexts and in Near-Eastern ones too, and I am not surprised if it also appears as far away as in Australia and the Americas, really.
I know you say it is a poetic idea briefly around 7 min in, but I feel like that is very important to stress, as a lot of people have a lot of wrong ideas about historical linguistics and natural language development 🥲
Finally found someone making sense in the comments! This video is based on pure religious interpretation and has no basis in actual linguistics. Aleph does not signify god, its origin is from the word for "bull", with the letter evolving from the likeness of a bull with horns. Two minutes of research will show you that fact. I am a native Hebrew speaker and I agree that this interpretation is very pleasing, but it is pure nonsense.
I really hope you make more videos like this. I love your shorts, but it's nice to get so much more out of a topic
About the letter Aleph, Jorge Luis Borges (argentinian writer) has a book and a short tale named "the aleph" where it explores infinite and actually is fantastic, I recommend it
In mathematics aleph is used to represent cardinality with infinite sets that can be well ordered. I would recommend looking up aleph numbers.
a few corrections from a native hebrew speaker
First of all i will start by saying that you are mistaken with how the letter system in hebrew works , each letter isnt a representetive of an idea or a word , altought there are some letters like vav ( ו) and lammedh (ל) wich are also root words ( lammed is also למד the root word for the word family of studying ) or objects like vav ( vav is the hebrew word for hook ) but hose are the only to noteble exmples in the entire hebrew alphabet. it seems like you mixed your ideas with the function of gematria which is assignation of numeric values to Hebrew letters and is used as the number system of hebrew / jewish cultre , ( for exmple the current jewish year is תשפ"ב / which is equal to 5782 in The decimal numeral system)
1:50 alof or אלוף is translated into the word champion , not just the leader of an army , for exemple if you win a international sport comptetion you will be called alof ( for exemple if you win a gold medal in swimming in the olympics you will be called alof ( champion ) haolam ( ha means the or of , olam means world ) be-sechia ( be is an a gramer word that usally links two things usally titles or places , sechia = swiming )
1:52 Ahav / אהב means loved like in past tense , the word for love is ahava / אהבה
2:17 the word for house is prenaounced bayit = בית ( imagine it as a fusion of the words bait and bay )
2:22 The hebrew word for womb is rechem (רחם) not beten (בטן), beten means the tummy area and usally refers to the gut area ( for exemple if you have a stomech ache you say you have כאב בטן - kehave beten ( beten = gut , intestensts , tummy ) (kehave = pain)
2:56 lamedh ( in hebrew למד) is the root word for the family of word refering to studying ( for exmple studying in hebrew is לימודים = limodim ,
To study = לילמוד /lilmodh , i studied = למדתי / lamadeti , etc)
3:27 Babel / בבל is a shortend version of the the root word bilbel / בלבל ( also bilbel / בלבל is a rare version of a root word called a square root becuase it has 4 letters when most root words have 3 letters but i digress) which is the root word for the word family of confusion ( for exemple , bilbol- בילבול means confusion , bilbel - בלבל means he / she /it they / are confused in past tence , mitbalbel - מתבלבל means confused in present tence , etc ) and is called so becusen in tower of babel god made everyone confused and speak diffrent lenguages ( in the og hebrew text of the bible its written has bilbel/ בלבל ( confused ) et / את ( this word doesnt have a direct translation in english, but its a link word used to link to things in a sentence ) sfatam / שפתם ( thier languges / lips )
4:35 the Hebrew word for a word is milah / מילה the confusion probably came cause the word speaking in Hebrew is dibor / דיבור and the root word for that family is davar / דבר
4:50 there is a couple of mistakes in this part :
first of all while the letter gimel ( ג) is the equivalent letter to g that is used in the English word gift
It has nothing to do with the two Hebrew versions of the word , the more common one today is matana / מתנה Which comes from the root matan / מתן which is used for the act of giving without expecting something in return . The other version is Shai / שי Wich means the same thing as matana but is used usually when referring to God or acts of nature
Second of all the latter nun / נ ( or the variation you used ן , Wich is only used in the end of a sentence )
has nothing to do with the word seed ( zera / זרע ) In Hebrew . Nun is usually used in the end of sea animals in both Hebrew and Aramaic names like dionon / דיונון / squid ( dio means ink and the nun is added in the end ) or
tmanon/ תמנון / ,octopus ( tma is a short version of the word tamania which means 8 in Arabic and again the word nun Wich is the word for fish in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic ) and etc
the correct letter is zayin ז / z in English
6:49 this list is inaccurate
Ancient Hebrew letters dont look like that and many of the words linked to certuin letters dont match like , for exemple the hebrew letters usally linked to life are chet and yod or in hebrew the word חי wich means alive , not the letter nun . Also there are mistakes like : vav / ו means hook and not nail , chet / ח doesnt mean wall or seperation ( altough it is linked to the word room / חדר ) tet / ט doesnt mean snake or basket ( snake / נחש is linked to the letter nun / נ and basket / סל to the letter samech / ס etc , altough it has alot of things right too like its portrail of the letter hey / ה , resh / r , mem / מ , beit / ב , gimmel / ג to name a few examples
This is brilliant! So easy to grasp and wonderful to become enthralled in! Your tiktoks are always a joy to come across on my FYP!
Yay! Glad you found me here!
As a Jew and a Hebrew speaker, I didn't know that. I knew there was an idea why the Bible started with the letter Beit, but I didn't know everything else, and it's very interesting.
זה היה די מצחיק לראות אותו מנסה להגיד מילים בעברית
This is so beautiful it made me cry!!!! I’m studying (informally) Hebrew for months now. This gives back the feeling of wonder to the language of God that I had at the beginning. In the past few days everything feels like a task. Now I am just in awe of how sovereign God is. Amma search for that song at the end now
This is really spot-on and great. Solid Hebrew speaker here and this TH-camr really did his homework- slow clap.
As a native Hebrew speaker, I can say, mind blown (I may have learned about it as a 6 year old to some extent when I learned my aleph bet).
Hebrew letters are full of magic... Thank you for this interesting video!
Here from the tiktok wanting to learn more
Tik Tok and wanting to learn more doesn't even sound real in the same sentence 😂
If you are here from TikTok you will have to unlearn virtually everything.
Ah - that explains how he has so many subscribers with only 5 videos. Interesting stuff!
th-cam.com/video/od-xkRDw6nk/w-d-xo.html
@@PETERJOHN101 😂
Love your videos, appreciate the community in the comments. I'm mostly here for your longform content, but I like the shorts, too
I really love your videos, but I often notice mistakes in your translation of Hebrew words and in some of the information presented.
to name a few:
- Aleph isn't completely silent, and it is absolutely a consonant and has a pronunciation.
- Beten (בטן) means belly or stomach, rechem (רחם) is womb.
- Et (את) can't be translated because there is no grammatical need for it to exist in English (technically there is no *need* for it in Hebrew, it just makes sentences clearer, but still it has no meaning of its own, it's a direct object marker).
edit: i see you've responded to someone else about et being taught by rabbi's to have an alternative meaning, that's really interesting, tho I wonder if thise rabbi's are native Hebrew speakers or not. that sounds like an explanation for a lack of a translation more than a biblical analysis
כמובן שהם לא דוברים ילידיים, זה ברור מהמבטאות שלהם
This is the best channel on youtube. What a gem
Beautiful video! I am learning Hebrew as an adult and you did such a good job communicating the poetry of the language and a sense of wonder. Thank you for that.
What a GREAT video and content. Many curiosities I've never heard of, I'm in awe 🤯. Congratulations, mate. Your videos are simply amazing!
The aleph (at least historically) represents a glottal stop, and the name and symbol comes from Phoenician for ox. In modern Hebrew it might no longer be a consonant and only used to indicate a leading vowel or as a symbol to attach a vowel diacritic to.
The idea that all the letters are meaningful in themselves, is some form of mysticism. If aleph has an association with god or the divine that's a more recent association not something that the creator of Hebrew words though of since the original symbol was clearly an ox and it's name meant ox.
My learning was that ayin is a glottal stop, whereas aleph was silent, taking the sound of the vowel - which to me sounds more like a vowel place holder (for a leading vowel).
@@cigmorfil4101 probably varies in the different languages and dialects that use alphabets/abjads descended from the Phoenician. But from what I read ʼaleph was a glottal stop (the stop sound in "uh-oh") and `ayin was a glottal fricative (sounds more like straining if your language doesn't have this sound) in Phoenician.
@@cigmorfil4101 That's modern Hebrew pronunciation. Ancient Hebrew used aleph for glottal stop and ayin for pharyngeal approximant, similar to modern Arabic ayn.
This is currently my favourite video and my favourite chanel. It's been a while since something THIS interesting poped up. Thank you!
Thank you for a Great video.
I learnt a lot and my primary language is Hebrew.
I just recently(last 2 years) got into kabala and pardes(mostly Maimonides), so I'll just remind that in the Hebrew tradition nothing is really what it seems. And while you can use cabalistic ideas on letters, they will be left as they are. Unchanged. With no meaning and all of the meaning at the same time(and for the bible opening my favorite explanation is that "inside the start, god created the up and the down"
Great video! I’ve heard all of this from scattered other sources, but never put together so clearly. Thanks!
Glad to see you linked to the original video.
Interesting stuff the Hebrew Language.
The Word for Father is "Abba" or Alef Bet
The Word for Son is "Ben"
Bet Nun
When you combine them Father and Son as one "Alef Bet Nun" you have "Stone"
Jesus said "I and the Father are One"
The Stone the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone.
Stone=Father and Son as One
That's not how numerology works tho
This channel makes me very happy. God bless you, brother
This is pretty cool, reminds me Chinese characters, which is basically the Hebrew alphabet but x500 so you have SUPER DEEP meaning.
Thank you for honoring Hebrew so nicely in your unique way. THe study of gematria is fascinating as well - every letter also has a specific numerical value.
2:16 Correction; it's actually pronounced /ˈbæjɪθ/, not /ˈbejɛt/
I'm a huge fan of this channel, I've watched most of the shorts- please can we get more long for content, this is a fascinating channel!
I'm half way through, and I have to point out that, somewhat ironically, another language whose words work by stacking meanings is German. Also English to some extent. Most of them, really.
Thank you for enlightening me about the Hebrew alphabet tho, I will look more into it, I'm quite intrigued.
Regarding the second half of the video, et is just the Hebrew language's direct object marker. We translate it in English with syntax (because we don't have a direct object marker) by changing "In the beginning created God the Heavens and the Earth" to "...God created the Heavens and the Earth". The idea that it represents the aleph bet is just a kabbalistic theory.
@@4rtie So like a conspiracy theory.
I watched all of it, and to be completely honest, the guy is a bit too smug for me to lend much credence to his words.
@@durere not really a conspiracy theory, just an interpretation that isn't nearly as certain as his confidence in presentation would lend you to believe.
@@4rtie Took it with a grain of salt anyway, if it were really so, it would shake the very foundation of how many people see the world, and I would find it hard to believe that it flew over so many heads so far. But I do like to entertain wild ideas.
@@durere in addition to this, the actual english translation of genesis 1:1 is "when God started/began to create the heavens and the earth" as opposed to in the beginning. The word "bereshit" is always mistranslated here. It does not mean in the beginning, it literally means at first. Grammatically speaking here it's also a dependent clause as it doesn't start with a verb. It starts with a prepositional adverb
This has been one of the most interesting videos I have ever seen on YT. I find languages very interesting and speak a few of them, but I never really came into contact with Hebrew. Connecting the world with the alphabet in this way is a beautiful and elegant way of looking at what is. Thanks, I am really intrigued now to learn more.
We LOVE your content and your teaching method. PLEASE - PLEASE - teach us more Hebrew 🙏
I think this is probably the best video I've ever see on YT. Thank you!
I really enjoy your longer format videos. I think I'm getting closer to God's truth by studying the original language. You're making it fun.
God revealed the Torah and the Quran, don't do the mistake of ignoring the Quran just because it's usually associated with an "enemy" culture
Beautiful transitions! Well done!
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path. I've learned something recently. An anointed song doesn't depend on skill of your instrument. It depends on your prayer life.
Still you need to practise many many hours in order to express yourself musically. What you say sounds good poetically but everybody who has ever learned an instrument knows that a beginner could never play anything profound no matter what.
Best example I can come up with is that we have 0 histories of a violin player who sounded good from the beginning as far as I know
Absolutely.Amazing.True.
What an interesting video! Worth noting that "et" is a super common object marker, but since English doesn't have differential object marking, it's impossible to translate. It's sort of like a preposition, if we said, "In the beginning, God created at/for/to the heavens and the earth." I'm not sure how widely accepted this rabbi's interpretation of it as "aleph through tah" is, but I think it's pretty cool!
Beten is stomach or belly, womb in Hebrew is Rehem
רחם
Comes from the word "rahem" means to feel grace or mercy for someone.
Good info! Biblical Hebrew uses both. From a modern perspective it seems like בטן is used more for generally "abodomen/belly" and רחם specifically for the uterus, but I would need to look more into what the anatomical understanding was at the time.
@@_magnify
Its fascinating! Keep on the good work 🙂
This is one of my favorite channels. Cheers!
Amazing video/tutorial. Instantly subbed. Eagerly waiting for yuh ta post more....For me , too much about GOD seems just right. Thank you for sharing. Peace.
This is my new favourite youtube video, as a jew this is both really comforting and moving 😊
I also love that he uses clips from Torah any time 😂😂
For those interested in the meaning "את" have in spoken and written Hebrew today, "את" is a connection word like "of" or "to" in English, the meaning of "את" can be closely translated to "directly", so in Genesis 1:1 you can say "In the beginning God created directly the sky and the earth.". In English, the concept of "את" doesn't exist, but in Hebrew it makes sense, you use it when you want to talk about a direct instance of a thing, like "I want ice cream" will be translated to "אני רוצה גלידה" but "I want David's ice cream" will be translated to "אני רוצה את הגדליה של דוד", the "את" symbols that it's not a generic ice cream but a specific one, in this case, David's ice cream.
Makes sense since sky meets horizon.
It literally says it's a definite direct object marker in the video haha and other languages like Japanese have one too. The reason for it in Hebrew is because it used to be written VSO instead of the majority SVO syntax it is written in today. If you have a sentence like ויאכל המלך הכריך how are you going to know which is the subject and which is the object on first glance if you know nothing about the syntax noun order in the sentence?
(literally so the king the sandwich ate, because there's no marker for the direct definite object in that sentence)
And it seems to have become a grammatical feature of Hebrew early on during the first temple period
As a lover of your work and as a proud citizen of Ironland, I felt that I should explore more of your videos. And then I found this gem!! 😃I never knew how fascinating Hebrew was! I speak a bit of French, Spanish and Japanese. I think I need to explore more about this ancient tongue. Thank you!!
Truly thought provoking!
Oh my goodness. You have introduced me and others to a deeper perspective and meaning regarding God’s word he has given us. Thank you.
The argument this video poses is meaningless. As a native Hebrew speaker, this whole video is nonsense.
For example, the word “את” has no translation to English since it is a grammatical quirk that English simply doesn’t have, the word has no meaning by itself just like the indefinite article “a” has no meaning by itself.
Your claim that you can tell the meaning of a word just by looking at it is completely baseless. As with all human languages, Hebrew has evolved and changed over time, and new words have been created to accommodate new concepts and environments.
Not a single person who knows a thing or two about linguistics and who’s mother tongue is Hebrew will take this video seriously.
Not to mention that the Hebrew bible was not even written with the modern Hebrew alphabet but with the paleo Hebrew script, the alphabet we use today is merely a product of the Aramaic script and its adaption to the Hebrew language.
I really hope you take this video down, it’s just spreading misinformation.
very interesting..
my first crash course in Hebrew language studies.
an easy to comprehend presentation for a non-speaker 👌🏼
Hey, native Hebrew speaker here . I obviously know this story from childhood, and it indeed is cute and uplifting with lots of intriguing examples. However, most often it doesn't work, and you'll need lots of mental acrobatics to maintain it. Once you learn a bit about the development of Semitic languages it kind of falls apart entirely. Still a cool language though.
It s been a long time i didn t come across something meaningful and worthy
"a little learning is a dangerous thing"
People, please don't just take this guy's word for stuff, ive seen many of his tik tok videos that are not very accurate.
interesting. I am Israeli, a native Hebrew speaker. I have never heard of this concept.
ALEPH is not silent he is yelling all night
It is unless it has a nekudah which is what give it different sounds
As an Israeli, I never knew our language was so interesting in this way.
I am a lover of foreign languages and I speak two, besides my native one. I have learned two more but I have forgotten both. As a lover of languages, I ache to be able to learn Hebrew, for three reasons; one is for ability itself, the other is because of my Hebrew ancestry, and the third, and more important one, to be able to read the Bible win Hebrew. I have the feeling I am never going to be smart enough to become proficient in a language that belongs to my people, the language spoken by our Eternal Father, through revelation to the Jews.
Thank you for bringing this light to the modern world
There is another word that the English language has no translation to and it’s ברא which in English means Created but in English it is only created from something which we all are creating from something and in the Hebrew word ברא it’s meant Created from nothing which no one can do but אלוהים God.
Nice video.
God Bless🙌💪🙌
As in abracadabra: more or less "I will create according to His word". Not Hebrew, but Aramaic, its near relation.
@@chanaheszter168 Fascinating!
Please continue this! It's fascinating
Hebrew letters don't have any secret meaning, it's pseudolinguistics. This alphabet descended from a variety of Aramaic script, which descended from Phoenician (alongside Greek), which descended from Proto-Sinaitic script, and ultimately from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Of course, hieroglyphs had their meaning, but the descendant scripts were alphabets/abjads/abugidas, which means that the descendat letters had only phonetic value, and lost their original meanings.
Hebrew script is one of these descendants, and is not that unique to find some hidden meanings behind the letters.
The words of Hebrew language were not created by uniting "mystical meanings" of letters together because Hebrew language predates the Hebrew script, and the language itself is a part of a Semitic language family, which means that other languages in this family have etymologically related words.
I am not blaming the creator of this video in discussing a pseudoscientific topic, as I can see, the creator knows more about the Bible studies than linguistics. Linguistics studies languages, and the way which was discussed in the video is not the way how languages work, according to actual scientific research.
You're right that it originally started with Egyptian hieroglyphs, but Dr.Douglas Petrovich figured out that the Proto-Sinaitic script was in fact Hebrew. He decoded carvings that had previously untranslated. So in fact, all other phonetic alphabets on earth descend from Hebrew. The Alphabet is a gift from God.
@Ken Jackson
From 1000 BCE to 135 CE, a script called Paleo-Hebrew was used to record the original scripts of the Tanakh. Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script.
The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form.
The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora - such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel.
Your words "The Alphabet is a gift from God" reveal your religious point of view, whereas my point of view is secular and scientific.
The idea of the letters' creative power finds its greatest vehicle in the Sefer Yezirah, a mystical text of uncertain origin which describes a story of creation highly divergent from that in the Book of Genesis, largely through exposition on the powers of the letters of the alphabet. The supposed creative powers of the letters are also referenced in the Talmud and Zohar.
Scholars usually do not agree with this.
Moreover, I heard similar things about various other scripts:
In Ynglism, a sect of Rodnovery, it is believed that Bukvitsa, a modified version of Cyrillic created by the sect, was used by "Slav-Aryans" since ancient times, each letter carries a mystical meaning, and "universe development code" is encoded within them.
Here is also the example of something similar, but with Latin letters: englishcode.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/the-secret-meaning-of-english-letters-s/
Now, onto Douglas Petrovich:
According to Mark A. Hassler's review of his book "The world's oldest script", Petrovich’s conclusions needle at multiple critical presuppositions sometimes
found among disciples of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies.
Not everyone will agree with all of Petrovich’s interpretive decisions on a variety of fronts, such as the identification of the glyphs and letters, the direction of writing (e.g. sinistrograde versus dextrograde), and of course, the transcriptions, translations, and historical significance. To date, adversarial critiques of Petrovich’s work have come from Alan Millard, Christopher Rollston, and Thomas Schneider, to whom Petrovich has posted open responses on his Academia profile page (thebibleseminary.academia.edu/DouglasPetrovich). Did the author accomplish his goal? Time will tell. As Petrovich puts it, “Final judgment as to the accuracy of [my] findings should be reserved for three, four, or five decades after publication, not determined hastily” (p. xiii).
The summary Petrovich gives of his work offers little that can support his assertions. He declares that he came to believe that Hebrew is the language ‘behind the proto-consonantal script … by weighing the options systematically and allowing the context of various inscriptions to determine which option is correct’, without further explanation.
A glance at his Figure 6 shows how dubious his process is. In that text, Sinai 375a, the writing seems to run from the right edge of the stone around the top and down the left side, with some letters below the first few. Petrovich finds the biblical name Ahisamach by reading the first three letters from right to left, then the three below them. Other letters stand in a vertical column with a couple of hieroglyphs among them. The arrangement is odd! No words are cited to prove the texts are in Hebrew. In fact, Hebrew and Canaanite written in consonantal script may be indistinguishable.
@@xirdaish9082: _"No words are cited to prove the texts are in Hebrew."_
I've watched seven of Dr.Petrovich's lectures posted on TH-cam in which he describes these in detail. He says he obsessively rotated the 22 hieroglyphs though each of the 22 Hebrew letters in turn and attempted to fit every word in the oldest know Hebrew lexicons and came up with one mapping that made sense. Further, the writings made sense in light of the history written in the Bible.
Thank you for some historical context. You're clearly a scholar and I'm not. Though you didn't mention the 19th century BC when the script was invented. Nor the 15th century BC when Moses used it to write the Pentateuch.
*Xirdaish:* _"Your words 'The Alphabet is a gift from God' reveal your religious point of view, whereas my point of view is secular and scientific."_
What I mean by that is that with all great inventions in history, usually one person had the spark of the non-obvious idea that makes the invention possible. Later, when others see it, it may _seem_ obvious, but nobody else thought of it, so it wasn't.
In this case, the timing is right that in may have been Joseph who had that spark. He knew both Egyptian and Hebrew. And God spoke to him in dreams. It's quite possible that God gave him that spark of an idea in a dream. In which case the very first idea of a phonetic alphabet was literally given as a gift from God.
But even if it wasn't given in a dream and even if it wasn't Joseph, Dr.Petrovich gave evidence that some of the writing involved his sons, so one of _them_ likely had that initial spark of an idea from which all other phonetic alphabets on earth flowed.
The significance of such a crucial gift flowing from God through the Hebrews shouldn't be missed. And in fact, disdain for the Bible or hatred of Jews may well be the motive to dismiss its true origin.
As a Hebrew speaker I feel like sometimes Hebrew studies go over the top and start imagining things that are not there… like, the word את appears so much in the Bible because it has a very important grammatical role in Hebrew, I don’t really know how to explain it in English but it’s just a word that from my understanding you could never use the language without, it’s so common because it’s so general, not because it has some hidden meaning. It’s like saying that A (the word) has some philosophical importance in English because it’s the first letter of the ABC, the importance is first grammatical and not necessarily philosophical.
Idk, maybe I’m just not well versed enough, it’s a very old language and went through a lot of changes, but as someone who studied the Bible in Hebrew and as a grandson of Hebrew scholars (both secular and religious) and someone who’s surrounded by people who are very passionate about Hebrew I feel like Hebrew studies slip to mysticism way too quickly. It’s a super old language that was a spiritual life line for an entire people for about 2000 years and is super important to the 3 most common religions in the western world. Going through ancient time, the Middle Ages, the enlightenment and the modern era, some of the interpretations of the language and the texts feel like someone projecting their own world views and forgetting it used to be a normal language, used to discuss daily matters. It was definitely used in philosophical and religious contexts but that was not the basis of its existence.
“Let’s go get water”
“How much for eggs?”
“I don’t like that man”
“What’s for dinner?”
The Bible is full of mundane imagery described in the same language with the same words as some of the most learned and speculated verses, and there’s no importance in the use of a word you’re literally horses to use by the dialect you’re speaking .
Sometimes, not all the time, they’re just words, and just as our version of the Bible describes it with one word for hundreds of years it was described with other words, before the Bible was even canonized (it happened way later than most people think, around 100 BCE, until then what we call the Bible was a collection of stories passed through the generations constantly being rewritten and edited and which parts of it are considered “canon” some scholars thing wasn’t decided until the turn of the millennium).
Not trying to “debunk” any argument about the philosophical and literary importance of Hebrew texts, just remind people that at the end of the day it’s a language and it’s first use is communication, it’s not some cypher from a sorcerers spell book, any higher meaning given to it was given by the people using it, not some mythic ethereal power.
Sorry if I poo pooed all over the comment section, I love your videos.
As a Hebrew speaker this is definitely just not true, no idea where you got this from
I'm very agnostic, nearly a-religious entirely... and this is such a beautiful and compelling way of thinking. Heck, just hearing that "Adam" was the name of humanity nearly blew my mind, but the sure beauty of this language and how it itself weaves into the religion...
Stunning.
Came from r/badlinguistics where they explained all the things that are incorrect in this video. You should give it a look
Oh what an honor! Thanks for giving me a heads up. The poster made some good points and corrections, but I did post a short retort there. :)
It’s important to realize that Hebrew is just a bunch of words made from 3 letter roots, so it’s not like there’s a lot to play around with in terms of unique combinations for words. All of these theories are just trying to put meaning into randomness. No one designs languages, they happen
@@ShiyalaKohny yes im aware ive studied hebrew
@@ShiyalaKohnyto me, that last claim sounds like you didnt understand languages. yes they happen. they evolve in a certain way. containing beauty and elegace, rhyme and rhythm.
so, to my ear and to my mind, there is more than just randomness.
and maybe I just misunderstood your remark. :)
regarding the 3-radical system: if i understand correctly, it still leaves with some 10k unique combinations. more combinations than most people use words.
God I fucking despise redittors 😒
That clip at 5:54 of the eye opening is 100% taken from a Slow Mo Guys video where Gav films Dan’s eye opening and the pupil contracting in Slow Mo using a special lens