ALEF
BEIT 
GIMMEL
DALET
HEY 
VAV
ZAYIN 
CHET
TET
YOD
KAF
LAMED 
MEM 
NUN
SAMEKH 
AYIN 
PEY
TSADE 
QOF
RESH
SHIN
TAV 
The Development moving forward from the early pictographs
Here is the first letter of the Hebrew ‘Alef Beit’, showing the development over time to the recognizable letter A of our Alphabet which is equivalent to Hebrew letter Alef
Next is the 2nd letter of the Hebrew ‘Alef Beit’ showing the development over time to the recognizable letter B of our Alphabet which is equivalent to Hebrew letter Beit
Letters
This is where we get our word ‘Alphabet‘ from – the Hebrew ‘Alef Bet‘.
It is the only language in the world that was both ‘pictographic’ and ‘alefbetic’ in nature.
Pictograph a pictorial sign or symbol. pic·to·graph:
1. A picture representing a word, phrase, or idea, especially one used in early writing systems.
2: one of the symbols belonging to a pictorial graphic system
What this means is, that as the first pictograph is
an “ox head”
and corresponds to the Hebrew letter ‘alef’ it also corresponds to our letter ‘A’.
It means a ‘strong one or leader’.
We do have ample evidence that the ancient pictographic characters are the precursor to all later Hebrew alef bets. However since words change meaning over time, an examination of the ancient script can reveal the true intent of any particular Hebraic word when it was originally written.
(Important note: some of these interpretations are purely subjective and should never be used to prove or disprove sound doctrine and used only as study aids.)
The ancient Hebrew language was a language based on the 5 senses, what they could see, feel, taste, smell or hear.
This was also due to their lifestyle which was based in farming and followed the seasons of planting, sowing and harvest, they thought primarily in agricultural terms.
All words made from any particular ancient two letter root, have a similar meaning.
Hebrew thought is ‘solid and concrete’.
Whereas:
Greek thought is ‘abstract’.
In other words:
Hebrew thought is circular and for them everything occurs in recurring, continuing cycles; as are the annual Appointed Times/Feasts of the Lord.
Whereas:
Greek abstract thought is the expression of things that cannot be accessed or felt with the 5 senses and is Linear in nature, only progressing in a forward direction.
The western mindset YAHD דיה is based on abstract ideas.
(A Yad is the Hebrew word for hand. The long pointer used when reading the Torah to keep track of the place is called a Yad.)
The Western Mindset
is also known as a
Greek mindset
which is:
Attention is given to form shape descriptive.
You must Understand in order to Do/act
Everything is seen as either/or there is only one choice one way of viewing things either this way or that way.
Greek thinking puts everything in a box: there is only one right interpretation of Scripture; It says:
my method of systematic theology is the right one and everyone else is wrong.
Salvation
in the
Greek mindset
vs.
Hebrew mindset.
To the Greek mind salvation is the eternal status of one’s soul. It is tied up to “right thinking” and is “creedal” in nature.
Salvation to the Greek mind is the goal of salvation is to escape this world and go to Gods’ dwelling place in heaven.
The kingdom of God exists in Heaven not upon the earth. Jesus is coming in order to take us away from this world. The gospel message to the Greek mind is get your ticket now or you might miss the flight!
Salvation to the Hebrew mind is to prepare a place fit for God to dwell here among His people (now it makes more sense why there is a concerted effort ongoing now to build the 3rd Temple in Jerusalem!) The kingdom of God is God’s reign among people here on earth. Messsiah/Jesus is coming in order to reign over and through us in this world.
The message of salvation in the Hebrew mind is the Kingdom of God is coming. Get ready to serve the king and manifest the kingdom.
So which of these 2 mindsets do we have? Or maybe it’s a combination of both.
The truth is we need to have neither but the mind of Christ!
The Eastern Qaddam is based on Concrete Ideas where attention is given to function, meaning, that you must DO in order to UNDERSTAND and there are multiple ways of seeing things.
Time in Greek and Hebrew:
To the Hebrew mind, reality is the handiwork of a single all-knowing, all-powerful, and Supreme Creator who has personally revealed Himself to key individuals in human history. Reality is intensely, overwhelmingly personal. Truth therefore is a matter of trust — not abstract knowledge.
Function verses Appearance:
Hebrew thought describes objects in the relation to its’ functions, using verbs and nouns (Dynamic).
Greek thought describes objects in the relation to its appearance, using adjectives (Static).
Another example would be a pencil.
Hebrew thought would say “I write words with it.”
Greek thought would say “it is yellow and about 8 inches long”
These 2 definitions may help us in identifying our own mindsets and give us indications of how we can mature to resemble His Way for us.
An e.g. would be the definition of Grace Hebrew word Channah (see mmm post).
To recap if you have not seen it .
Where all dictionaries and concordances define Grace as favor and kindness, which are abstract terms, intangible; and which display no kind of object and simply takes you back to where you began not really understanding what grace is.
Our Heavenly fathers’ pictograph letters for this word, CHEN/channah, paint a picture of pitching a tent with Him, God/Adonai. Just like He pitched a tent/the Mishkan Tabernacle in the wilderness with His children of Israel.
Chet =To protect and surround
Nun = His children his seed offspring
Hey = teaching them through revelation
So when we read in the scriptures, or say to one another, May The GRACE of the Lord be with you… We are in reality saying:
May the place where God provides protection and provision for life, be to and for you, a camp, a precious place of healing, strength, salvation and rescue; for His fence of protection will not cease or fail, but it will continue to surround you and your offspring/family as He pitches His tent/abides with us and teaches us through revelation.
WoW!
Why even bother with an old language???
Because the Word tells us to…
Let this mind be in you…what mind?
The one which was also in Mashiach Yeshua. Pilipiyim (Philippians) 2:5
We are to Have the mind of Christ/the anointed One.
What does it mean?
To have the mind of Mashiach, means to think as Jesus/Yeshua thought … and to think as He thought, we must understand the Eastern mindset that He had… and this requires an adjustment to our Western way of thinking.
Even the Hebrew language, in todays modernized version,
has been westernized to a great degree.
LaShone haQodesh Qaddam.
The language of dedication from the beginning.
The Bible was written in the Hebrew language and we can clearly see its’ cyclical nature, as the end is declared from the beginning, and we are all part of that continuing cycle of life.
By learning to study key words in Scripture, we will start seeing the Word and its’ message as it was intended to be seen. We will begin to change our ways of thinking and eventually, we will begin to see not only that the whole of God’s Word is a picture of Yeshua; but that the picture itself is built on the most basic elements:
A house, a family, and a garden!
The Father’s Word and His aleph bet are comprised of the most basic and simple things for us to understand!
It’s all about the sun (rising in the east, bursting light into the darkness or setting in the west and diminishing into darkness),
water (being washed by His Word),
blood (being purchased by the shedding of His blood),
seeds (the Good Seed and the Bad Seed), thorns, roots, trees and vines, branches and shoots, and fruit
… it’s all about eyes (what we see),
ears (what we hear),
hearts (what we understand),
arms and hands (what we do),
feet (which path we walk on),
heads (what we think and who our headship is),
mouths (what we say and who we praise) …
and it’s all about:
the house of Elohim – the family,
The Door, Jesus/Yeshua,
a tent peg which secures our house,
a plowing tool used to dig into His Word and to plant seeds with,
a fence that surrounds and protects,
a basket that catches fish and stores bounty,
and a staff that steers and teaches the flock.
Following the chart below is a list of the letters – OTIOT – in the ancient Hebrew ‘alef bet’,
A letter, in the Aramaic/Hebrew, is an ot (pronounced “oat”)
and means “a sign” … the plural is otiot (pronounced “oatee-oat”)
As each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is a picture with meaning, when the letters are put together, they not only form a word, but also a story within the word!
Proverbs 25:2 tells us,
“The honor of God is to hide a thing, And the honor of kings to search out a matter.” (Young’s Literal Translation)
This is exactly what God has done with His language!
These are the original love-letters!
The modern word for alphabet actually comes from the Hebrew letters alef-bet, the first two Hebrew alphabet letters corresponding to the “a and b” in the English alphabet.
Below are the characters for each letter and their possible meanings:
The 22 letters/OTIOT of the ancient Hebrew alef bet were originally pictures of animals, tools or parts of the body. Consequently the letters show very little resemblance to the modern Hebrew aleph bet, however the modern letter shapes did evolve out of the pictographs.
The Early Semitic pictograph was simplified to and in the Middle Hebrew script. It continued to evolve into the Late Hebrew script.
The Modern Hebrew letter א developed out of the Late Semitic.
The Middle Semitic was adopted by the Greeks to be the letter “A” (alpha) and carried over into the Roman “A.”
Hebrew letters are all Consonants. There are no vowels (aeiou).
Later, the pictograms evolved into a Hebrew script (sometimes called Paleo-Hebrew) these symbols/letters, strongly resembled the ancient Phoenician alphabet. This was the Hebrew (ketav Ivri) used by the Jewish nation up to the Babylonian Exile (or, according to Orthodox Jews, until the Exodus from Egypt).
Once the letters are understood in their original Hebrew context, we will look at a few Hebrew words which are formed by combining letters together. The meaning of these letters will then help to supply the definition to the Hebrew word. Each pictographic letter has numerous meanings and often appearing to have different shapes which can be confusing.
There are variations to some of the shapes of the various pictographs..
and some similarities in the phoenician alphabet.
Aleph A a
Ox, Strength, Leader
The Aleph, our letter A, is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The alef is a silent letter and simply carries the sound of the vowel. The word picture for alef in the original pictographic Hebrew is a bull or ox’s head with the horns.
As the Ox was the strongest of animals, the picture tells us it means Strength, Power, Apostolic, Chief, Leader, Pillar, Oak Tree, Ram.
Pictograph: Alef is a picture of the head of an ox, the strongest and most versatile animals among the livestock owned by the Hebrews. The ox was used to pull carts or a plow, it provided meat and leather and it was one of the animals used in sacrifices. This animal was the “all” powerful and “all” versatile animal of the Hebrews.
This pictograph also represents a chief or other leader. When two oxen are yoked together for pulling a wagon or plow, one is the older and more experienced one who leads the other. Within the clan, tribe or family the chief or father is seen as the elder who is yoked to the others as the leader and teacher.
This letter has an “a” sound, but also an “e” sound as in elk and elephant, both of which are also powerful animals. The modern name of this letter is “aleph,” which may be the origin of “elephant.”
The Modern name for this letter is aleph and corresponds to the Greek name alpha and the Arabic name aleph. The various meanings of this root are oxen, yoke and learn.
Each of these meanings is related to the meanings of the pictograph. The root (אלף) is an adopted root from the Parent root אל (el), written as in the original script, meaning, strength, power and chief and is the probable original name of the pictograph .
Example of Alef used in a word.
The is a shepherd staff and represents authority as well as a yoke (see the letter lamed). When combined these two pictographs mean “strong authority.” The chief or father is the “strong authority.” The can also be understood as the “ox in the yoke.”
Many Near Eastern cultures worshipped the god El and was depicted as a bull in carvings and statues. It’s possible Israel chose the form of a calf (young bull) as an image of God at Mount Sinai showing their association between the word and the ox or bull and is also commonly used in the Hebrew Bible for “God” or “god.”
The concept of the ox and the shepherd staff in the word has been carried over into modern times as the scepter (as a staff) and crown (as horns) of a monarch, the leader of a nation. These modern items are representative of the shepherd staff, an ancient sign of authority, and the horns of the ox, an ancient sign of strength.
In Modern Hebrew this letter is silent.
Bet/Beth/Beyt/Beit – B b
BEYT “beit, bet, beth” corresponds to our letter B
Pictograph: Floorplan of a Tent
The word picture for the letter bet is: house, in or inside, something enclosed, inner chamber.
In Hebrew, the letter “bet” has a “b” sound and is used as a letter in forming words.
Family, house, in, tent floor plan
The Hebrew word for “house” is beeyt.
The Hebrew letters bet, yood and tav spell the word house.
The letter yood is the sound of “ya” and the picture is a hand, or strong work.
The letter tav is the sound of “T” and the word picture is a cross meaning a sign or covenant.
The word picture for house shows a place of strong covenant, a house of the covenant or sign within.
The Hebrews lived in goat hair tents, which were divided into two halves, male and female sections, and divided by a wall. The picture of this letter is a representation of the floor plan to the tent. The tent was the place where the family laid their “bed”.
Picture: Tent
Associations: Bed
Sound: b, bh (v)
Ancient Name: Beyt
Modern Name: Beyt bet beit
Modern Form: ב
Meaning: Family, House, In
The letter bet, which is the word picture of a household, in, into or family. When alef and bet are together, they become the Hebrew word av (or ab) meaning father. The alef and bet in word picture form show that the father is the strong leader of the house.
The meaning of the letter “bet” is “house, home, abode or family.” Similarly, the Alef (our A) which is depicted as an ox head in the ancient characters, means “head, first or mighty one”. The Hebrew word for father is written Ab. It’s ancient meaning was “the head of the household or family”.
Another bet word is son, and sometimes in Hebrew spelled bet followed by a noon, which is the sound of “N” and the word picture of action/life.
Another word for son is bar, a bet followed by a resh which is the sound of “R” with the word picture of a head or person. These two words for “son” have similar yet slightly different meanings.
The bet and noon pronounced a ben has a word picture of a son that is the life of the house. In other words, his seed carries the life from generation to generation.
The bet-resh, pronounced bar, is the word picture showing the son is the man from within the house.
Another bet word is bet-el, or House of God. Again the Hebrew word for house is byeet, a bet followed by a yood followed by a tav.
One of the words for God is el, an alef followed by a lamed. The alef is silent carrying the sound of the vowel with a word picture of an ox or strong leader. The lamed is the sound of “L” with the word picture of a shepherd or leader. Together the word byeet el has a word picture of a house containing a strong hand of covenant, and the house has a strong leader from within. Bet el is House of God commonly pronounced Bethel.
Another bet word is daughter, spelled in Hebrew bet-tav and pronounced bat. The tav is the picture of a cross meaning covenant. The bet and tav together are a word picture that is of a daughter that carries the covenant of the house, she joins two houses together, or two families together.
Gimmel C c
Foot, walk, gather, carry, camel, cause movement
The name of the third letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is Gimel is Gimel corresponds to our letter G. With one or two m’s. The earliest known pictograph for this letter is and is a picture of a foot.
Pictograph: The picture is the foot of a man. The Hebrews were always on their feet for traveling, working as well as playing “games”. The old Latin word for a leg is “gam.”
Picture: Foot - later a camel.
Associations: Game, Gam
Sound: g
Ancient Name: Gam
Modern Name: Gimel
Modern Form: ג
Meaning: Gather, Walk
It is from an adopted root. The original name to this letter is most likely gam, the parent root of gimel. This letter is the origin of the Arabic letter Geem and the Greek gamma supporting the theory that the original name for the letter did not include the “L.” The word gam means to gather together as a group of animals gathering at the water hole to drink.
The pictographic script for the word gam is the foot, representing “walk” and the m is “water” (See the letter mem). When combined these letters mean “walk to the water.” The letter has the meanings of walk, carry or gather. The sound associated with this letter is a “g” as in “go.”
The Early Semitic became in the Middle Semitic script. This letter further developed to in the Late Semitic script.
The Late Semitic script further developed into the Modern Hebrew ג).
The Middle Semitic script became the Greek Γ (a reversal of the letter due to direction of writing) as well as the Roman C and G.
The Late Semitic became the number 3.
The word picture for gimel evolved into: a camel, to be lifted up, to arise.
The sound of the gimel is the sound of “G”. The Hebrew word for garden is gan, a gimel followed by a noon.
The word picture for noon is life/action. The word picture of a gimel and noon together is a lifting up of life. The Garden of Eden was an eternal lifting up of life.
Another gimel word is geay meaning pride. In Hebrew it is spelled gimel followed by an alef, followed by a hey which has a soft “H” sound and is pictured as: what comes from.
Gimel pictures a lifting up, alef pictures strength and hey pictures what comes from.
The word picture is what comes from lifting up strength of the person above God, in other words pride.
Another gimel word is ga-al meaning a lifting up of God.
The gimel is a picture of lifting up and the sound of “G”, followed by an alef, a picture of strong/strength or head, a silent letter only carrying the sound of the vowel, followed by a lamed, the sound of “L” pictured as a shepherd’s staff or goad.
The alef, followed by an lamed is the word el which is God.
The lamed and the alef, along with the gimel is a picture of: God is lifted up.
Ga-al also has the meaning of salvation or redemption, the root of which is gimel followed by alef followed by lamed. Again it pictures a lifting up of God.
Another gimel word is gal-gal. The Hebrew spelling is gimel followed by a lamed. Again the word picture is something repeated over and over as a wheel going around and around. The gimel is pictured as a lifting up or arising and the lamed pictures a staff or a goad used to push animals forward or moving forward. The word picture shows something rising over and over and being pushed forward as a wheel would be.
Another gimel word is gever. The Hebrew spelling is gimel, pictured as a lifting up or arising, followed by a bet the sound of “ soft V ” pictured as a house, in within, or enclosed, followed by a resh, the sound of “R” pictured as a head, person or man. The word picture for gever is a man from within a house rises or is lifted up like a man’s man, or a manly man.
In Hebrew some letters have a hard and a soft sound. In the word gever the bet is the sound of a soft bet pronounced as a “V”.
Dalet D d
Tent door, pathway, move, hang, entry
The dalet is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet corresponds to our letter D
The entrance of the Hebrew’s tent was covered by a curtain suspended from a horizontal pole. The word picture of this letter represents the “door” of the tent. and sometimes the leaf of a gate or a page) it is something that opens.
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