Ancient Babylonian, Chinese, Sumerian, and Egyptian scripts wrote the word for God or or "deity" pictorally, using one or more characters, each of which provided a meaning associated with the concept of God/deity. For example, in ancient Egypt, hieroglyphics could be written either phonetically (each letter as a sound) or pictorally (each letter meant a word). The Egyptians' word for God/deity was NTR and could be written as a flagpole, perhaps denoting those outside their temples, as a perched hawk, bringing to mind the main gods Horus and Ra, or as a sitting man with a chin beard, thus resembling Egypt's image of male rulers.
Scholars say that Hebrew began or developed out of a pictoral script, where the letters had their own meanings. So the letter yod, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, means "hand" or "arm". According to the scholars, it was actually written like an arm __| in the ancient script of Hebrew. Later on, centuries after the writing of the Torah and Psalms, the script was changed to the Assyrian alphabet (AKA Ashurite script).
Some writers nowadays like Jeff Benner and Andre Roosma are proposing that these building blocks of the alphabet were also root elements sometimes to a degree in the Hebrew language itself. So for example a word including a yod might have a meaning related to the concept of a hand or arm.
Question #1 for this thread: What do you think of this claim about the letters sometimes reflecting root meanings in Hebrew words?
The hypothesis seems at least logical. There are numerous words in English composed of simpler roots. Chinese words are drawn with characters that in turn can be made of simpler characters. Babylonian cuneiform used writing by combining letters representing simple sounds. + drawn with two arrows on the left and one on top was the phonetic sound "an", and the symbol with the arrows could also be used to mean the whole word for deity.
One of the big problems I have with this theory though is that I don't know of hardly any accredited university scholars who teach this about Hebrew. Nor do I know of any Jews in previous centuries who used these meanings of the letters to make commentaries on the meanings of any Hebrew words. Do you?
That is not to say that Jewish tradition hasn't drawn any interpretations of the letters to find inner meanings in them. In fact, they have at times, like in the use of Gematria, which uses the numbers of letters to reach mystical conclusions.
Consider the use of acrostics in the TaNaKh. There are cases where passages have numerous words where the first letter of the words ties in to some other word in order to form an acronym. Wikipedia mentions:
The Hebrew for Christians website described how sometimes Jewish writers used letters to derive mystical meanings:
The Hebrew letter Hey/Heh is repeated twice in YHWH and the Hebrew 4 Christians website notices meanings that Jewish writers drew from the Heh symbol:
Another mystical idea that Jewish writers had about letters was the Digrammaton YH. The Hebrew for Christians site explains:
Besides, the name YHWH has central importance in Judaism and is called the Tetragrammaton. It was considered so holy that commonly a practice evolved to pronounce Adonai (Lord), instead of YHWH.
Wikipedia also notes that among the Greek Septuagint texts,
Judaism 101 explains what it sees as the normal linguistic meaning of YHWH:
Judaism 101 also gives an example showing the sanctity of the written name itself:
So this leads to Question #2:
Did anyone in the past drew conclusions or interpretations about the meaning of YHWH based on the meanings of the letters themselves, especially the pictoral meanings that they carried when the Torah and Psalms were written?
Here you can find a chart of the letters from the Early/Middle Hebrew period, along with their names and meanings:
Arm/hand (Yod), Behold (Heh), Nail/Hook (Waw).
Members of the "Church of Yahweh" made a claim about the name YHWH by rearranging the letters vertically like I have seen on another website:
Also, it doesn't really address the question I am asking about drawing meaning from that of the pictoral letters used to spell YHWH.
Scholars say that Hebrew began or developed out of a pictoral script, where the letters had their own meanings. So the letter yod, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, means "hand" or "arm". According to the scholars, it was actually written like an arm __| in the ancient script of Hebrew. Later on, centuries after the writing of the Torah and Psalms, the script was changed to the Assyrian alphabet (AKA Ashurite script).
Some writers nowadays like Jeff Benner and Andre Roosma are proposing that these building blocks of the alphabet were also root elements sometimes to a degree in the Hebrew language itself. So for example a word including a yod might have a meaning related to the concept of a hand or arm.
Question #1 for this thread: What do you think of this claim about the letters sometimes reflecting root meanings in Hebrew words?
The hypothesis seems at least logical. There are numerous words in English composed of simpler roots. Chinese words are drawn with characters that in turn can be made of simpler characters. Babylonian cuneiform used writing by combining letters representing simple sounds. + drawn with two arrows on the left and one on top was the phonetic sound "an", and the symbol with the arrows could also be used to mean the whole word for deity.
One of the big problems I have with this theory though is that I don't know of hardly any accredited university scholars who teach this about Hebrew. Nor do I know of any Jews in previous centuries who used these meanings of the letters to make commentaries on the meanings of any Hebrew words. Do you?
That is not to say that Jewish tradition hasn't drawn any interpretations of the letters to find inner meanings in them. In fact, they have at times, like in the use of Gematria, which uses the numbers of letters to reach mystical conclusions.
Consider the use of acrostics in the TaNaKh. There are cases where passages have numerous words where the first letter of the words ties in to some other word in order to form an acronym. Wikipedia mentions:
The Hebrew for Christians website described how sometimes Jewish writers used letters to derive mystical meanings:
The Hebrew letter Hey/Heh is repeated twice in YHWH and the Hebrew 4 Christians website notices meanings that Jewish writers drew from the Heh symbol:
According to the Jewish mystics, Hey represents the divine breath or revelation. On the fifth day, the LORD created ruach ("living creatures") and this corresponds to the letter Hey. Since the numerical value of Hey is five, this corresponds on a physical level to the five fingers, the five senses, and the five dimensions. On a spiritual level it corresponds to the five levels of soul:
"By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" (Psalm 33:6). In the Talmud (Menachot 29b) it is said that the "breath of His mouth" refers to the sound of the letter Hey - the outbreathing of Spirit.
- Nefesh - instincts
- Ruach - emotions
- Neshamah - mind
- Chayah - bridge to transcendence
- Yechidah - oneness
Esoteric Hebrew Names of God
Another mystical idea that Jewish writers had about letters was the Digrammaton YH. The Hebrew for Christians site explains:
Digrammata
"Digrammaton" means "two letters" and refers to a two-letter Name of God.
... the Name(yah). It is generally thought that Yah is a shortened form of YHVH. This Name of God occurs about 50 times in the Tanakh. In Psalm 68:4 [5, H] this Name is particularly stressed. The Name YAH is also found in the construct word "hallelu-YAH," which means "you [pl.] praise the LORD," as well as in many Biblical proper names (e.g., Eliyahu).
The Talmud states that God used the letter Hey to create the present world (olam hazeh) and Yod to create the world to come (olam habah). The sages derive this idea from the Name(yah) found in Isaiah 26:4:
How did they come up with this? Well, they consider b'yah in the text as meaning "with Yod-Hey" instead of referring to the Name Yah.
Esoteric Hebrew Names of God
Besides, the name YHWH has central importance in Judaism and is called the Tetragrammaton. It was considered so holy that commonly a practice evolved to pronounce Adonai (Lord), instead of YHWH.
Wikipedia also notes that among the Greek Septuagint texts,
Judaism 101 explains what it sees as the normal linguistic meaning of YHWH:
Judaism 101 also gives an example showing the sanctity of the written name itself:
So this leads to Question #2:
Did anyone in the past drew conclusions or interpretations about the meaning of YHWH based on the meanings of the letters themselves, especially the pictoral meanings that they carried when the Torah and Psalms were written?
Here you can find a chart of the letters from the Early/Middle Hebrew period, along with their names and meanings:
Based on the chart, the meaning of the letters is:
Arm/hand (Yod), Behold (Heh), Nail/Hook (Waw).
Members of the "Church of Yahweh" made a claim about the name YHWH by rearranging the letters vertically like I have seen on another website:
I do find it interesting that the letters appear to form a somewhat anthropomorphic shape when arranged vertically, but don't know what to make of that. This vertical arrangement is in the Ashurite script that the Hebrews starting using only long after the time of the writing of the Torah and Psalms.God did not spell His/Her REAL Name left-right, nor right-left, but top-bottom. Simply take the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton, and spell it vertically:
...God’s personal Name,, spelled vertically is a pictogram of a human being: head, arms, torso and legs, indicating God’s REAL Name...
The Real Secret ~ Ahyh & Libby Maxey
Also, it doesn't really address the question I am asking about drawing meaning from that of the pictoral letters used to spell YHWH.
