Hebrew Language

72Languages.com

The Original Language
The Original Language
Introduction to the Original Language
Early Alphabet Equivalencies
Original Language Numbers
Dictionary of the Original Language

Gathering the Pieces of the Original Language
Assyrian, Akkadian, and Sumerian Cuneiform
Hebrew
Linear B
Etruscan
Hindustani
Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic

Early Egyptian Language
Egyptian Hieroglyphic
Hieratic
Hieratic Roots of Arabic
Coptic
The Pyramids
The Four Sons of Horus
The Hall of Judgment
Joseph Smith's Contributions to Egyptology

Ancient American Archaeology and Linguistics
Los Lunas Decalogue
Jaredites: The First Americans
The Jaredites were Black
The Kinderhook Plates

North America’s Lost Archaeology

Ancient Scripture
Hebrew Ten Commandments
Phoenician Ten Commandments
Greek Beatitudes
A New Translation of Isaiah

Commentary
Honesty in Translations
The Origin of Nations
Chronology of the Scriptures
The Seventy
Nephi's Psalm
Units of Time

Linguistic Hoaxes
The Michigan Tablets
Burrows Cave
Wisconsin Cuneiform
Voynich Manuscript

Install Fonts

Hebrew Language

Origin of Hebrew Letters

It is commonly taught that when the Israelites left Egypt, the adopted the Phoenician alphabet, and that the present Hebrew alphabet, which is called “Late Square Hebrew,” came from an adaptation of Aramaic during the Babylonian captivity. Have you seen the Aramaic characters? They are very imprecisely formed, like Phoenician. Hebrew characters are much more precisely formed. How do you get high resolution, precisely formed characters out of very crude, low resolution ones? How do you get a precision line drawing out of a crude sketch?

Hebrew characters are precise proportionate line drawings of Egyptian hieroglyphs. They do not come from Aramaic or Phoenician or anything else. Phoenician is a simplified set of hieroglyphs, while “late square Hebrew” is copied directly from hieroglyphs.

For instance, it is commonly believed that the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet א, called ALEPH, which is supposed to mean “ox” in ancient Hebrew [it does not today], comes from the head of an ox from Phoenician A which is the ancestor of the Greek and Roman A. I find no justification for the universal claim that אלף means or ever meant “ox.” To my knowledge, no use of this word in this way has been documented. It is true that the Phoenician la ALPU in Phoenician is read “ox” but this not Phoenician. It does occur in Hebrew in the plural, and only in the plural, as referring to oxen, but exactly the same word is used referring to the hosts of large army. In this sense it is well documented as an elliptical phrase.

The Hebrew letter א is in fact a representation of the hieroglyph j, a bird in flight. In the language of Adam and in old Egyptian, it is the number 1,000 [see Pearl of Great Price Facsimile Nº 2, figure 4: “a numerical figure, in Egyptian signifying one thousand”]. Do you know what ALEPH means in Hebrew? The number 1,000.

All Hebrew letters are nothing more or less than stick figure hieroglyphs. For example, the Hebrew letter ת Tav, is a simplified drawing of what Egyptologists call “Nut, the godess of the sky” bending toward the earth. What looks to modern eyes like a serif at the lower left represents her hands; the little wave at the upper right represents her head and neck; the horizontal part of the character represents her torso and the right vertical part represents her legs. Check in any book on Egyptology for a picture of Nut bending down over the earth and you will see the similarity. This is not a coincidence. The Hebrew letter ת is a representation of the so-called “Egyptian goddess Nut.” As simple and obvious as this is, I am not aware of any Egyptologist or Hebraist having seen this particular connection.

The hieroglyph for an enemy is a man with an axe buried in his head O. The author of the book would not have known this, but Frank T. Seekins in Hebrew Word Pictures, Living Word Pictures Inc., Phoenix, 1994, pp. 36-39, believes that the Hebrew letter ז ZAYIN comes from a representation of a weapon, whether a sword or an axe. The hieroglyphic representation of an axe is Z. Mr. Seekins goes on to point out that the Hebrew word for “enemy” is רז ZAR, which with the ר ROSH meaning “head” [he says “axe-person”], we have “axe-head,” which as we see above is precisely the Egyptian hieroglyph for “enemy.” Seekins’ derivations are not always correct, but with this one he hit the enemy right on the head.

Consider this chart I have created:

Hebrew Alphabet matches to Hieroglyphs

“Late Square Hebrew”	Root, i.e. Hebrew name of character	Meanings documented in Hebrew, and presumably also in early Egyptian	Egyptian Hieroglyph which the Hebrew character represents
א	אלף	1; 1,000; learn, teach; expanse, atmosphere	j
ב	בית	2; 2,000; house broadest sense; in	=
ג	גמל	3; 3,000; camel; complete; deal out to; recompense; ripen; wean;	*
ד	דלת	4; 4,000; door	*
ה	הא	5; 5000; behold; definite article “the”	L
ו	וו	6; 6,000; peg; nail [in both senses]; claw; to join or fasten with a nail; copula “and”	*
ז	זין	7; 7000; axe	Z
ח	חת	8, 8,000; fence	M
ט	טת	9. 9,000; land, earth; origin of the number 10** in Latin X and Chinese 十 ; origin of the letter T and the Greek letter X, and of the character for 1,000 in Chinese 千. [ten 十 with a multiplier line over it, exactly as in old Egyptian.]	<
י	יד	10; 10,000; hand; strength; side, sign of future tense	X
כ	כף	20; 20,000; head, chief; rock, stone [late Hebrew]; as, like	$
ל	למד	30; 30,000; exercise, learn, teach, train; to, toward	_
מ	מים	40; 40,000; water; from; plural	d
נ	נון	50; 50,000; fish; multiply	J
ס	סמך	60; 60,000; support; sustain; uphold	+
ע	עין	70; 70,000; eye; spring of water	!
פ	פה	80; 80,000; mouth, word, command, counsel, opening; end; according to; proportion, fraction; here; place	K
צ	צדק	90; 90,000; right, righteousness, just, justice	Q
ק	קוף	100; 100,000; ape; circuit, cycle	w J b
ר	ראש	200; 200,000; head, chief; beginning; top; first, foremost	#
ש	שן	300; 300,000; tooth; mountain range	Z
ת	תו	400; 400,000; mark	* This is a line drawing of the so-called sky goddess Nut bending over the earth on her hands and feet, facing toward the left.

*I do not have this hieroglyph in my fonts.

**I can not explain the slippage here, why it is the following character that originally had the value of 10 and not this one. This very phenomenon can be demonstrated in all languages as part of the fallout from Babel.

Gates and Councils

Because the Old Testament, in its older parts, was originally written in a language older than the Masoretic Hebrew that we have today, the word “gate” was often mistranslated for what should be “council,” as I have previously demonstrated. This problem occurs because the older parts of the Old Testament were originally written in a language similar to what we call Akkadian cuneiform, really, the oldest form of Hebrew. The original character, exactly like Chinese radical 30 and 31, 口, meant both an opening and an enclosure. It thereby meant also the mouth and the attributes of the mouth, counsel. With three horizontal strokes to the left of it, an augmentative, it signified the great opening or the great enclosure, or many mouths, signifying a council. In some of the verses listed above, either meaning (gate or council) could be correct, but in some, only council makes sense, especially for example the ones in Proverbs. Not a single case of this confusion exists in the New Testament because it as written in much later languages - Latin [e.g. Mark], Greek [e.g. Luke, Acts, Revelation, John], and a very late form of Hebrew [e.g. Matthew] (where for example we have BAR instead of BEN for “son”, etc).

Here are the instances where this substitution should be made. Make these replacements, and your Old Testament will make a lot more sense.

gate should be council:

Gen. 34:20

Deut. 21:19; 22:15; 25:7;

2 Sam. 19:8

Psalms 69:12;

Proverbs 17:19; 22:22; 24:7;

Isaiah 29:21;

Jeremiah 20:22; 37:13; 38:7;

Lamentations 5:14

Daniel 2:49

Amos 5:10, 12, 15

2 Nephi 27:32 [recall that most similar passages of the OT were copied with little or no alteration; they were not completely new translations as might be supposed]

gates should be councils:

Deut. 16:18; 17:18

Psalm 9:14

Proverbs 31:23, 31

Zechariah 8:16

Eden
I am indebted to Rabbi Joshua Seixas [pronounced SAY-shus], a Portuguese Jew, for the only correct transliteration of the Hebrew letter Ayin that I have ever seen [J. Seixas, Hebrew Grammar, 1834, p.p. 5-6]. I first saw his book some forty years ago back in the 1960s and immediately checked every Hebrew grammar in the BYU library - several dozen in seven languages going back to the 1500s, and none of them had the same system of transliteration as Rabbi Seixas, which I have proved to myself countless times over, is the only correct one, namely, GN at the beginning of a syllable, and NG and the ending of one. The correct transliteration of "Eden" is GNADEN. It means a place of grace, as any German scholar will immediately recognize, and Garden of the Lord, as any Hebrew scholar will immediately see [GAN ADON].

Cf. Isaiah 51:3: “For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD.”

Once the name Eden is correctly translated (GAN ADON, Garden of the Lord), any Hebraist will immediately recognize that it refers to an enclosed area, surrounded by a protective natural or artificial wall, without which, you can not have a garden in a world of beasts of the field - cognate with the words guard, Slavic gorod, Old Church Slavonic grad, Saxon gard, gart, Middle English ward (= prison), etc. Eve should have known better than to listen to a serpent who was trespassing even to be there. Of course you know that “serpent” means any reptile, not just a snake. This one had legs, like a Tyrannosaurus.

In Judges 15:19, keeping in mind that the word Lehi is a place name and also means jawbone, how do you think the word "jaw" should be translated? If you guessed that is should have been left untranslated as the name of the place, Lehi, you are correct. Samson found a spring in Lehi. Water did not come running out of a dry jawbone. See what a difference just a little knowledge of language, and common sense, can make in our understanding of scripture?

Adieu

Why is “adieu” used in the translation of an ancient Hebrew record (Jacob 7:27)? Because it is again an exact translation of which there is no equivalent in modern English, but there is a French word which we borrow which means the same thing. The original word was the locative or directional case of the word “God”. Just as a way of saying “to Jerusalem” was “Yerushalaim-ah” using the directional case, so the single word “God”, Eloah, in its directional case, was ELOHA - “to God” - the exact equivalent of “adieu” and used in exactly the same way. By the way. ELOHA is the direct ancestor of the Hebrew word “Aloha” and was originally only used as a farewell, but like the Italian “ciao” has been extended in its use for both greeting and parting.

While we’re on this subject, I should also point out that the Hawaiian word for “priest” - KAHUNA - is likewise a direct descent from the original Hebrew word for priest, COHEN.

Once while searching for a book in a Defense Department library, I found a Samoan grammar written in the mid-nineteenth century by a man named Pratt. He was a minister of a protestant church. In his preface, he admitted that he was led to produce this grammar because he was “struck by the similarity” of Samoan grammar with Hebrew grammar.

Nazarite

Isaiah 11:1 and 10. Verse 1: Who is the Rod? The "rod" is a prophet the Lord will raise up after Zion is redeemed. He will have a similar genealogy to Joseph Smith. He is referred to in D&C 85:7. The fact that the Church will not be completely cleaned up even then is alluded to in the following verse, 85:8.

Who is the Stem of Jesse? The Stem is the Savior, as explained in the D&C. Who is the branch? He's also called the Branch. This is the explanation of the remark in the NT that He would be called a "Nazarene." In Hebrew the word "Branch" (NAZARI) is the same as Nazarene. Something I tried to explain to McConkie some forty years ago but he never responded to my letter, being, I suppose, understandably too busy. McConkie had quoted that NT verse as an example of missing scripture in the OT. It is not missing; it is simply lost in translation into English.

The Savior was a Nazarite. For this reason, all paintings of him depicting Him with a stubbly beard are incorrect. He never cut any part of His hair (Numbers 6).

The Breastplate of Judgment

In this installment, we’ll find out exactly how the Breastplate of Judgment works, in greater detail than has ever been known before, and we’ll provide a more complete and accurate set of translations for the twelve sons of Jacob than has ever been known before - by “before”, I mean in the last three thousand years, because of course the meanings of the names were known to those who gave them in the first place.

The Breastplate worked by asking the Lord a question, then noting which parts of the twelve stones lit up. A prerequisite for this to work was the presence of the Holy Ghost. If the person present did not have the gift of the Holy Ghost, the stones remained latent. If he did, the two onyx stones on the shoulder of the priest lit up with a dim light which was visible in darkness, as the luminous dial on a watch has a glow which is visible in the dark but not in the light. The characters on the breastplate would light up in a sequence to spell the answer to the question.

Now suppose this were done in English. Is it possible? Here we have the twelve sons, in order: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphthali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Alphabetizing all the letters, we get 70 letters, but with a lot of duplicates and some missing: ABCDEGHIJLMNOPRSTUVZ We are missing the letters FKQWXY; nevertheless, we could cover all sounds in English with the 20 letters we do have if we let PH cover for F, but this is a foreign convention. In what we call Late Square Hebrew such as our Masoretic (traditional) Hebrew Bible uses, there are 50 letters used to spell these 12 names. The letters are: אבגדהוזיכלמנסעפרשת Now the bad news - there only 18 of the 22 letters necessary to write Hebrew words - all the rest are duplicates of those 18! The missing letters are: חטצק which represent individual sounds in Hebrew that cannot be synthesized or approximated by any combination of the other letters. There are no work-arounds as in English. It is simply not possible for the Breastplate to work using the Hebrew characters as they have been handed down to us! These letters correspond roughly to the Roman letters

ABGDHVZYKLMNSXPRST where the X represents a consonantal sound for which there is no remote equivalent. We still aren’t there. As I have said before, though, Hebrew is utterly inadequate a tool to understand the Old Testament - we need to go back even earlier to cuneiform. This is what was meant by the “engraving of a signet” (Exodus 28:11,21,36) - that cuneiform characters were to be used. Now, and only now, it turns out that the earliest form of cuneiform provides exactly the character set we need - an unambiguous set of 70 consonant + vowel and vowel + consonant combinations which provide every possible requirement for the old Hebrew language, and in fact was its earliest writing system.

Having made that explanation, we have paved the way for translating the names. I must make it clear, though, that the characters at the time the Breastplate was made were only used for the sounds of the words, not the meanings, which were in the language of Adam. Scholars should recognize immediately what I am saying here, because they know perfectly well that the Babylonian and Assyrian languages were written in Sumerian cuneiform characters for their sounds, not their meanings except in the case of determinatives. This was exactly the same case for something they do not know, which I have already explained, namely that the Egyptian Hieratic characters were borrowed for their sounds, not their meanings, to form the script called “reformed Egyptian” which I have likewise already explained is the ancestor of what we call modern Arabic, and which answers the question as to why modern Arabic, a semitic language, has nothing to do with ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic, a non-semitic language, except for pressing its compact writing system into the service of the old Hebrew language, for its (hieratic) sounds.

REUBEN, ראובן This name has been traditionally translated “Behold a son” or “See! A son! which would not be far from what is written, but there is a serious problem here. The name is simply not transliterated correctly. Originally it was RAU B GNONI ראובעני. The correct translation is “He hath looked upon mine affliction.” It also refers to one who is morally incontinent [cf. language of Adam GNONAH, Hebrew mistakenly pronounced ONAH, cohabitation], so that it is also read RAB GNONI “great incontinence”, one who does not have enough self discipline to acquire mastery in any field because he can not even control the passions of his own body. This is a description of a go-with-the-flow person, who lacks the physical and moral courage ever to rise above the masses, who seldom finishes a project because he does not have the mental and emotional stability to see it through. This also a description of a person who wants to please everybody, one who is more concerned about formalities than substance, protocol than integrity, flattery than honesty. He will lie to a person’s face to avoid offending him. He will take both sides of an issue, depending upon whom he is with at the moment. He does not have the gumption to deny himself, let alone tell anyone else “No!”. This is the person the king calls upon to write the rules of court protocol to preserve the dignity of the king and honor his guests. He’s very good at not offending anybody - except everybody, with his excess of pomposity. On the plus side, Reubenites are about the friendliest people you will ever meet. This GNONI is the same word we find later, BEN-GNONI, “the son of mine affliction” which Rachel wanted to call her latter son as she died. Personally, I like the more charitable but incorrect traditional translation of Reuben. Yet, it conveys nothing but mediocrity either. “Behold, a son!” Well, whoop-de-doo. More than half the world’s population can say that about themselves (the other half are better looking). But the most important thing is not what part of Israel our heritage may rise out of, but what we do with what we have now. I suppose we all have a little of Reuben’s blood in us, and for my part, even suspecting that makes me want to stiffen my resolve to do better, to be more self-disciplined, to be constant, steadfast, and immovable in conforming my life to right and truth, and acquiring more truth and putting my life into strict unfailing harmony with it.

Reuben is a great flatterer of others and a debaser of himself. In China this is done to such an extent that the personal pronoun may be dispensed with. If it is mine, it is humble. If it is yours, it is honorable. “What is honorable country? Humble country is America.” [Where are you from? America.] Everyone else is Master, Firstborn, but I am the humble one. It is typical for traditional Chinese to make an appointment they know they can not keep just to avoid offending you. In Europe, the tradition of calling others “my lord, my lady” (Monsieur, Madame) or simply “lord” (Herr) is a trait of the house of Reuben. This was introduced in England (Master, Mistress) but died out for the lack of support. Mr., Mrs., Miss are mere labels which have no descriptive power whatsoever. No matter how late you stay at a Brazilian’s house, when you are about to leave, he will say, “O senhor vai ja? E ainda cedo!” [Is the lord leaving already? It is still early!]

The Urim and Thummim are two very large diamonds ground to double convex lenses. The silver bows they are set in separate the lenses by over four inches. The notion that there is more than one set on this planet has yet to be proven.

Simeon שמעון which is commonly known to mean “hearing.” In Genesis 34:30, the original Egyptian account says “Ye have … made my name to stink”. Moses translated and abridged the Egyptian and other records, to write the book of Genesis, as already mentioned. This is one of the rare instances where the King James Bible happens to be a slightly better translation than Luther’s. For the most part, however, the KJV would have been far better had they included Luther’s as one of the sources.

Simeon’s name can also be translated as “name [or reputation] of guilt” in reference to Jacob’s complaint about having his good name besmirched by the reckless hate of Simeon and Levi.

Harshness and cruelty are the attributes expressed here, as a result of which Simeon was not permitted to remain intact as a single nation. Do not look for the abode of Simeon; you will not find it. Early on he was integrated into Judah; now he is found finely sifted among all tribes of the earth and expresses himself as the harshest member of the jury, always the last to concede that the defendant should be acquitted, the cruelest member of a mob.

Levi לוי is commonly known to mean “joined” and joined to Simeon he was a party to the cruel slaughter of Shechem. Like Simeon, he was joined to the tribe of Judah and sifted and scattered to the four winds. His descendants, the priests, are among us today with names like Cohen, Cohn, Kohn, Kahn as well as the obvious family name as in the old Harvard song about the Jewish clothier at 149 Salem Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts - Solomon Levi. The name LEVI is also seen in the name for the tyrannosaurus, LEVIATHAN, “joined strength” which refers to the strength of its scales. I am not adding much here to the fund of human knowledge; all this should be apparent.

Judah, יהודה everyone knows this means “praise”. I’m sure countless Hebraists have called attention to the puns in Isaiah and elsewhere, such as “for my name’s sake … and for my praise” which can also be translated as “for the sake of the Semites … and for the Jews” - the forms are identical in Hebrew.

Judah, like all of the ten older brothers, was not particularly praiseworthy, but it was his portion to be the ancestor of countless kings, including above all, the King of Kings, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, Jesus the Christ. Again, all this is commonly known, as are the attributes of the tribe - they are our doctors, optometrists, bankers, actors, comedians, musicians (especially violinists).

Dan דן is likewise commonly known to mean “He hath judged” and has been ascribed as the namesake of Denmark (Dan-kingdom), the Don River, and everything else. His patriarchal blessing assures that his posterity will indeed be judges, but also suggests highway brigands. His posterity produced skilled jewelers and engravers in stone. His haunt was prophesied to be in Bashan, formerly held by Og, a king of the giants. Earlier it had been the province of Manasseh.

Naphthali נפתלי is commonly rendered “my wrestling” but I think “I have wrestled” is a better translation at the moment. This is a very interesting word because it contains so many additional meanings but I will not cite them here. His patriarchal blessing calls him a “hind let loose” but the word may also be translated as a spear, a shaft, a pointed iron rod; “he giveth goodly words” should be translated “he giveth goodly counsel.” His posterity are counselors, consultants, attorneys, writers. His promised portion is the Southwest.

Gad, גד - this is one of those cases where the KJV is better than Luther. The word Gad does not occur in the OT except as a proper noun and as a likeness for manna. Because the term is apparently used as the name of a god of fortune, Luther erroneously translates it as “good luck.” The root is the same as GADOL, “great” and the correct translation of GAD is a host, a troop, an army. His patriarchal blessing promises him that although he will be under subjection in the early days, in the last days he will prevail over his enemies. Gad has a correct idea of justice and judgment and good legislation.

Asher אשר is commonly known to mean “happy”. For some reason, Danish pastry always comes to mind. Perhaps it is because of Genesis 49:20, “Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.” The name is equivalent to the Roman name Felix. The Hebrew word also connotes straightness of footsteps, calling to mind the appeal of John the Baptist to “make His paths straight.”

Issachar יששכר is commonly known as “hire” and conveys the idea of something purchased or rented, but also connotes a cup filled to overflowing and drunk, drinking to excess. His patriarchal blessing from Jacob implies one who is physically but not mentally strong and would rather bear burdens for others than take upon him the uncertainties of freedom and the risks of personal responsibility. The likeness to “a strong ass” is not flattering. The references of Moses to tents, sand, and seashore suggest North Africa except that the Africans have never been shown to be short on intelligence. In addition to his being the father of Job, in 1 Chronicles 12:32 we find particular astuteness attributed to this tribe.

Zebulon זבלון - in the verse where he is first named (Gen. 30:20) we find the origin of the similar name we see in the NT, Zebedee, which means “my dowry”. Zebulun means simply “abode.” The word also means tolerant.

Joseph we have already treated in earlier installments. His name is preserved in Hebrew, which should be translated “He shall add”. But it means much more, which we have already explained. I think we also mentioned that his abode is in North America (Ephraim) and South America (Manasseh).

Benjamin בנימין the correct translation of this word is “son of the right hand” meaning, one who will be found at the right hand at the Bar of Judgment, one who will pass the Bar of Judgment. It does not mean “son of days” as some have construed from Chaldaic. Elsewhere in the OT we find the name JAMIN as a short form but with the same meaning, “right hand” signifying a person who will be justified at the last day. At least some of his posterity are represented by the Pushtun tribes of Afghanistan.

I should do him the courtesy of translating the name of their father, Jacob יעקב . The simplistic Hebrew residue of the word is “He shall supplant” which is a prophetic allusion to the modern State of Israel supplanting the Edomite Palestinians. A fuller translation of the name, which has never been translated from the original language, means “the breaking forth of the first light of morning” and also connotes the gift of the Holy Ghost being given by the anointing with olive oil by one having authority to do so, and all of the gifts coming in the train thereof - of healing, of enlightenment, and so on.

We will provide fuller translations of these names as time goes on, but for now I want to get on with our hike back through time as recorded in records as I have them.

Aaron, אהרן follower, another. I have never seen a correct translation of this word. It seems to be cognate with אחר which carries the meaning of “another, follower, one who comes after” with the noun-forming suffix -n. It connotes the appendage to the priesthood, subordinate in all things to the higher, or Melchizedek priesthood. Its original meaning also alluded to the fact that Aaron was the second-born in his father’s family, after his older sister Miriam.

Abaddon, אבדן the Destroyer.

Abagtha, אבגתא name of a Persian chamberlain to Ahasuerus, transliterated from Persian cuneiform; اباءثا ”the water of Agtha”.

Abana, a river of Damascus, - more next time.

One of the four ways of expressing the superlative in old Hebrew is to be redundant: מנת־חלקי, literally “the portion of my inheritance” but it should be translated “my greatest inheritance.” Perhaps you can think of some expressions in the Bible that were translated as redundant phrases that actually should have been translated as superlatives.

Inscrutable mysteries are perfectly obvious in ancient languages. The Hebrew word for “death” מות is identical to the Egyptian word for “mother” represented by the hieroglyph of a vulture P, also representing death, just as the hieroglyph for priesthood, Z is also used to represent “life”. Herein lies the answer why women do not and cannot hold the priesthood. There are two parts to all creation in the Second Estate, a temporal part and an eternal part. Just as men contribute to creation with an eternal part, so women do with a temporal part. Were it not so, creation of the Second Estate sort would be impossible.

The Hebrew conjunction prefix “with” את־ [also sign of the accusative] is the ancestor of the Latin conjunction of the same sound and meaning [“et”].

The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jasher has some interesting information not available anywhere else, but cannot be taken too seriously because of some of many erroneous passages and items my mother used to call “froth.” I would like to suggest the source of this froth. The translator’s preface is very good and gives examples of sources of confusion arising from unpointed Hebrew text. In addition to these, I would suggest the following.

The text mentions a king, Ayon, and later a usurper, Rikayon, neither of which is mentioned in our scriptures. In old Hebrew, “king Ayon” is written n`yaKlm, and “from Rikayon” is written n`yaKlm. In the old version of the script, R and L are interchangeable.

I think the name "Ayon" occurs only once. This would suggest that it is a translation error.

A similar error occurs in the OT where the KJV translators have Samson drinking water from a jaw. "Jaw" should have been left untranslated, as the place name, "Lehi." Even Luther makes the same mistake ["Kinnbacken"].

Judges 15:19
19 But God clave an hollow place that [was] in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which [is] in Lehi unto this day.

Notes on Seixas

I want to share with you some peculiar things about Hebrew, and then we will do a new translation of Genesis and Isaiah. These are from Seixas, 1836.

First, he points out that all Hebrew letters are either radicals or serviles. As in Chinese, radicals are the roots of words. Serviles are so called because they serve many purposes, which we shall see. When part of a root, a servile becomes a radical. A radical cannot become a servile. I.e., we will list the serviles; no other letters can serve their purpose.

The serviles are grouped by Seixas into a three word sentence as a mnemonic: ckfu van iwht He does not translate it, but it means “Moses and Caleb came in.” The letters, right to left, are

BLCV HShM NTYA

Of these eleven serviles, seven may be used as prefixes, each of which has its own set of meanings.

n M means: from, on account of, out of, by means of, in comparison of, of, at, to, on, since. It is thought to be a contraction of in, MN. Note that this is the ancestor of the Russian genitive suffix M which it inherited from Assyrian cuneiform.

a SH is a relative pronoun, who, which, because, that, etc. When standing alone it is written out rat, ASHER.

ה H carries the meanings of a definite article or demonstrative pronoun: the, this, that, or relative pronoun that, which, who.

Here we see in Hebrew the last vestiges of characters having meanings in their own right. No other writing systems carry meanings in the characters themselves except Chinese today. In the original language, every character had a matrix of sounds and meanings.

ו U, V. This is the Hebrew conjunction: and, but, yet, then, that, or \, nor, even, now, so, &c.

Let’s continue with the serviles (as opposed to radicals).

The conjunction ו, VAV, performs similar functions to the WAW we saw above in Arabic. And, but, yet, then, that, or nor, even, now, so, etc.

We inherited this same character from the Romans as U and V, and in Hebrew it was also pronounced U and V too. Just as we could tell by context how to pronounce revolve and revolution, solve and solution - we use two different letters - the Romans and Hebrews before them used only one because the context always made it clear which to use.

The Hebrew letter כ KAF, is cognate with and used as the Romance “que.” In modern Hebrew it is pronounced SH when used as a relative pronoun. This bi-phase pronunciation actually goes back to the language of Adam, where TTE, pronounced KEKU by Egyptologists is actually pronounced SHEM as mentioned in a much earlier installment. Like “que,” כ means as, like, according to, when, in, through, etc. This is a shift in meaning from the original language, where it meant “unto” among other things. Thus in the name Michael, which is in the language of Adam, we have 9kN, MI = like, CHA = unto, EL = God. It is interesting that the Romance languages have preserved the language of Adam “like unto” but in reverse order, “como” instead of MI CHA. So it is no surprise that Hebrew has shifted the meaning from the first syllable to the second. In Hebrew, MI is an interrogative, “who?” Of course, you know that CHA is just another way of writing KA, and you can see that the Hebrew letter is the same as the Roman letter, just turned about face because the language is written in the opposite direction.

Remember reading in the Old Testament that that the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were both made of “shittim” wood? What is “shittim” wood? This is not a translation at all; it is merely a transliteration of the Hebrew original שטים. This is also a place name, as we see later in the Hebrew text, where Moabites lived. Luther translates it “Akazienholz.” It is indeed the acacia mimosa Nilotica, which we will hear a lot more about when we get into translating Egyptian hieroglyphs in a few weeks.

The word Babel seems to be a scribal error for BALAL. Babel itself means nothing in Hebrew that has been documented except as Josephus explains it as an early word for confusion. The documented Hebrew word of this meaning is לבל, BALAL, not בבל, BABEL.

On the other hand, the purpose of the tower having been to reach heaven, or the city of Enoch still in orbit before reaching escape velocity, supports the name בבל as cognate with the Babylonian word BAB-ILU, generally translated as “gate of God” but better translated from the original cuneiform as “gate to heaven, ” the latter character being the same in cuneiform in either case, N. This character can mean god, God, heaven, or any celestial body, including a star or planet, or yes, even a satellite or city in orbit.