Ancient
Hebrew Research Center
Biblical
Hebrew E-Magazine
January, 2006 Issue #023
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Issue Index
Biblical Word of the Month – Prayer (3)
Name of the Month – John
Question of the Month – The mark?
Verse of the Month – Genesis 4:5
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Biblical Word of the Month – Prayer (3)
By: Kathy Nichols
(ShL) meaning to “draw out”. The new picture
we have in ShL is the which is a picture of
teeth meaning “to press, devour, eat and also double/two and is the “Sh” sound.
Shael is to draw out
something that is not known. This word
is used frequently in asking for God’s direction and counsel.
Joshua 9:14
“… And the men sampled some
of their food, but didn’t seek theadvice of Adonai.” “Seek the advice” is “shael”.
Is 30:2” ‘Woe to the rebellious children’, says
Adonai, “They make plans, but the plans are not mine; they develop alliances,
but not from My Spirit.. They go down to
The Father of
Zerubabel was Shealtiel which means “I have asked God”. No doubt he asked God many times for
restoration, then saw the fulfillment through his own son – what a blessing.
The “shuwl”
or edge of the robe worn by the priests when they ministered had pomegranates
and bells on them. Isaiah saw the
“shuwl” of God fill the temple. (Is 6).
In Mathew 14, Mark 5 and Luke 8 we read of people touching the “shuwl”
or hem of Jesus’ garment and being healed.
One woman particularly had faith for healing, and when she touched the
hem/shuwl of Jesus garment, was instantly healed. Jesus knew power had gone out of Him and so
he asked the crowd to the surprise of the disciples watching the people
pressing against Him. The woman came
forward. She had certainly been healed
by “drawing out” the power of God. Jesus
answered her prayer and commended her faith.
Many times we
may ask why some prayers take so long to answer. It is important that we trust and persevere
in prayer, even when there is seemingly no solutions and the answers to our
prayers are being “drawn out”. Like we
read earlier in Luke 18 “..
Is he delaying long over them? I tell you that he will judge in their favour,
and quickly! But when the Son of Man comes, will he find this trust on the
earth at all?” Our “quickly” and God’s “quickly” many times don’t
coincide because we like fast answers to prayers, especially when we are in a
tight or difficult place. We may
experience a lengthy delay before God answers some prayers. This can be because the overall purposes of
God are more important to Him than our individual prayers or needs. Of this we can be certain - God will bring
about His justice on His return. As
Jesus says in the book of Revelation “I will come quickly”. From our human point of view it doesn’t seem
quick at all, but God doesn’t lie and from his perspective the timing will be
perfect. The important thing is that we
trust in Him whether we receive immediate or delayed answers. We were pleased to receive a fast answer to
prayer last week. My fourteen year old
daughter told us two girls from her year which she knew had run away from home
and the parents were obviously very anxiously trying to find them with the help
of the Gardai (Police). Leanne and I
prayed about the situation then and there during the afternoon. By 11pm that night we heard that the parents
were on their way to collect the girls who were found safe and well outside
Solomon, the
son of David, the man who loved wisdom.
His name comes from shalam meaning peace and completeness. The root ShL “to draw out” enables us
understand Solomon’s name even more when we remember the Lord appeared to him
in a dream asking him what he wanted. (1
Kings 3). The word used for “ask” shael
is also from the ShL root. Solomon
pleased the Lord by asking for wisdom.
Wisdom was the means by which everything was created. Solomon by lifting his voice for wisdom and
seeking her foremost and above all else, was able to draw out the most precious
treasures of God’s greatness and apply them to governing the people in justice,
righteousness and with great prosperity and peace. (1 Kings 4:25) To prosper is
a drawing out of what is needed. He also
possessed great knowledge in understanding creation. All this in turn inspired the nations of the
earth to come to hear, seek and draw out the wisdom of the God of Israel for
themselves by coming to Solomon. (1 Kings 10:24)
Sources:
- The New Strongs Concordance
- The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet – Jeff
Benner
- The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon – Jeff Benner
- Food at
the time of the Bible – Miriam Feinberg Vamosh
- Complete Jewish Bible –
Translated by David H. Stern copyright 1998.
- www.blueletterbible.org
- www.ancient-hebrew.org
- www.mechon-mamre.org
- www.jerusalemperspective.org
Special thanks to my ongoing
Hebrew teacher Fr John Durkan and also Jeff Benner for his awesome research and
personal encouragement.
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Name of the Month - John
By: Kathy Nichols
This name
is a Form of ”YHVH” and "HhNN" meaning favour. Combined this
name means “The Lord favoured”. (Strongs 3110) and John was very much favoured
by God, and we will see why.
Luke 1:17
the birth of John the Baptist as told to Zacharius by the angel Gabriel “…and
he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the
hearts...”
Mathew 11:11 “Yes, I tell you that among those born of women
there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Immerser! Yet the one
who is least in the
However in
John 1:19 Priests and Levites asked John himself if he was Elijah, or “the
prophet”. He answers “no”.
So was John
unaware that he had come in the spirit and power of Elijah? Did his
father not tell him the prophecy he received from the angel Gabriel? It
would seem he was unaware, and that John saw himself solely as the voice in the
wilderness calling people to repentance. In the same passage John
then goes on to say he is not good enough even to untie the sandals of Jesus.
(John 1:24-28). Just as Jesus did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped at, John did not see equality with Elijah something to
be grasped at but humbled himself also like Jesus even to his death.
Math 3:4
John wore camel’s hair as clothing with a leather belt and ate locusts and wild
honey. Elijah also wore a girdle of leather (2 Kings 1:8).
John’s diet
consisted of locusts. The most frequently used word for locust is
"arbah" where the child root rabah means “abundance”, see AHLB 1439
(H). Honey very much represents the sweetness of the words of God (Psalm
119:103). Although John lived in the desert he must have truly “eaten the
words of God in abundance”. This diet gave him the preparation required
for God’s purposes and thus receiving great favour with God.
AHLB 2016 –
A young camel (barek) also has the same letters as firstfruit and is from the
same root meaning “choicest”. So what could the connection be? Possibly
that John received the Lord’s favour by being His choice for the role of
forerunner to Jesus. But was
the symbolism of John’s attire also that it represented the firstfruits of the
coming of the Spirit of Elijah? Jer 2:23 reads that the young camel
is swift, possibly like the feet of Elijah which ran faster than Ahab’s chariot
to Jezreel! 1 Kings 18:46. Gen 49:3 interestingly speaks of
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Question of the Month – The mark?
By: Jeff A. Benner
Q: What is the mark placed on the foreheads in Ezekiel 9:4?
A: The Hebrew
for the phrase in question reads "vehitvita tav al mitshhot
ha'anashim". The word vehitvita means "and make a mark". The
base word is the verb tavah meaning "to make a mark". The second word
"tav" is a noun meaning a mark and comes from the same root as the
previous verb tavah. The rest of the phrase "al mitshhot ha'anashim"
means "upon the foreheads of the men".
There
is two ways to interpret this phrase. The first is to translate this passage as
"make a mark of a mark on the foreheads of the men" where the type or
style of the mark is not indicated. Secondly, because the last letter of the
Hebrew alphabet is called the "tav" it is possible that this passage
is saying "make a mark of the letter tav on the foreheads of the
men". If this is true then the mark was the letter tav. At the time of
Ezekiel this letter would appear as + or x. But in ancient Hebrew it appeared
more like the cross shape we are all familiar with, kind of like the letter t
(without the tail at the bottom).
Personally
I believe the second interpretation is the better translation.
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Verse of the Month – Genesis 4:5
By: Jeff A. Benner
וְאֶל־קַיִן
וְאֶל־מִנְחָתֹו
לֹא שָׁעָה וַיִּחַר
לְקַיִן
מְאֹד
וַיִּפְּלוּ
פָּנָיו׃
But unto Cain and to his offering he
had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. (ASV)
וְאֶל (ve-el)
The base word is אל (el) meaning "to" or "toward" with the prefix ו (ve) meaning "and".
קַיִן (qa-yin)
This is the name of Adam and Hhava's (Eve) firstborn son usually transliterated as Cain.
וְאֶל (ve-el)
The same as the first word in this sentence.
מִנְחָתֹו (min-hha-to)
This base word is מנחה (min-hhah) meaning a donation or offering. The suffix is the possessive pronoun meaning "of him". Because the base word is feminine, ending with the letter hey and is in possessive (donation of...), the letter hey is exchanged for the letter tav.
לֹא (lo)
This is the word meaning "no", commonly preceding a verb in order to negate the action of that verb.
שָׁעָה (sha-ah)
This verb means "to look with respect". The conjugation (or I should say the lack of any prefixes or suffixes to the root) of this verb identifies the subject of the verb as third person, masculine, singular and the tense of the verb as perfect. This word should be translated as "he looked with respect".
וַיִּחַר (vay-yi-hhar)
The base word is חרה (Hharah) meaning "to flare up with great anger". The prefix י (y) identifies the subject of the verb as third person, masculine, singular and the tense of the verb as imperfect. The prefix ו (v) means "and" but also reverses the tense of the verb from imperfect to perfect. This word would then be translated as "and he flared up with great anger".
לְקַיִן (le-qa-yin)
Again we have the name Qayin but prefixed with the letter ל (l) meaning "to" or "towoard".
מְאֹד (me-od)
This word means much or great.
וַיִּפְּלוּ (vay-yip-lu)
The base word is נפל (naphal) meaning "to fall". When a verb begins with the letter נ (n), the נ is dropped from the word when conjugated. The prefix י (y) and the suffix ו (u) identifies the subject of the verb as third person, masculine, plural and the tense of the verb as imperfect. The prefix ו (v) means "and" but also reverses the tense of the verb from imperfect to perfect. This word would then be translated as "and they fell".
פָּנָיו (pa-nav)
The base word here is פנה (panah) meaning face, but in Hebrew this word is always written in the plural form - פנים (paniym). The suffix ו (av, but usually pronounced with an "o" except in some cases such as this) is the possessive pronoun meaning "of him". Because the base word is written in the plural with the suffix ים (iym) and is followed by the possessive pronoun the letter ם (m) is dropped. Note: The phrase "faces fell" is an idiomatic phrase in Biblical Hebrew to mean "sad".
The following is a literal rendering of this verse from its Hebraic meaning.
And to Qayin and to his donation Yhwh
did not look with respect and Qayin greatly flared up with a fierce anger and
his faces fell.
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Copyright © 2006
Jeff A. Benner
Ancient Hebrew Research
Center
Please feel free to use, copy
or distribute any material within the "Biblical Hebrew E-Magazine"
for non-profit educational purposes only.
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