To discover our Hebrew ‘gems’, we have to dig deep to get to our Hebraic roots!

In the West, we have been educated on a strong Greek-thinking basis. In this way, the world is viewed and experienced through abstract thoughts and classified ideas.
A simple, fundamental way to define this is that Greek thinking is on a knowledge base – thoughts, reasoning, and theories.

Our western languages are based on sounds(words) to identify and name ‘things’, thereby giving them a label for recognition; in other words, noun-based language.
This is so different from Hebrew, which is a verb-based language, using words to convey and describe actions rather than knowledge.
Each letter in Hebrew is a concept of something concrete and actionable in itself, and every word in Hebrew comes from a ‘root’ of usually three letters, combining the concepts of those letters to convey the full meaning of the word! This is difficult for us to grasp. I hope on this website to begin to look at this in a more detailed way at a later time.

For now, I hope a fairly simple (yet profound!) example will help:

The word which we translate as ‘father’ is a two letter word, ‘av’, consisting of two Hebrew letters, aleph and beit.
Aleph speaks of leadership.
Beit speaks of a house or home.
Therefore, the combination of these two letters makes up the word ‘av'(father) denoting leadership of a home.
In English, we have the word-label ‘father’ to describe a general idea while in Hebrew the word describes a clear, practical function.

Very simply put, the distinction between Western thinking and Hebraic thinking arises from the difference between knowing and doing!

From its earliest days in Rome, the Greek mindset has been hugely influential in shaping the vision of the church – it’s structure, mission, and theologies. So, in translating scripture from the original Hebrew text, these things were the cause of many distortions in understanding and exegesis of Hebrew scriptures.

In these days, we Gentile Christians are learning amazing things from our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters as we study the scriptures from the Hebraic perspective through the wonderful richness of the Hebrew language, correctly and fully translated.

I want to honour those Messianic friends from whom I am learning constantly and I want to share with you the ‘gems’ they have led me to find!

Greek thought is in a linear direction, Hebraic thought is cyclical. Creator God has shown us this when He affirmed the cycles of seedtime, harvest and the seasons “while the earth remains”(Genesis 8:22).

Solomon in his wisdom reminds us…”The sun also arises, and the sun goes even panting to its place; it arises there again(the cycle of the sun). The wind goes toward the south, and turning around to the north; the wind is going around and around and the wind returns on its circuits. All the rivers are going to the sea; yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers are going, there they are returning(the water cycle).” (Ecclesiastes 1:5-7)
“That which has been, it is that which shall be. And that which has been done, it is that which will be done. And there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:8)

Below is a basic summary of what has been said previously:

Hebrew…cyclical
Conceptual/practical
Verb-oriented

Greek….linear
Abstract/ideas
Noun-oriented

Now for one of our ‘gems’!

The word we translate as ‘remember’ is a fine example of Hebraic cyclical understanding.
The Hebrew word ‘zachor’ is not only about remembering/recalling a past event – it is a reliving and re-enacting; a bringing into present reality not only what happened in the past but what can/will happen in the present and the future.
In Biblical terms, ‘remembering’ annually, at Pessach(Passover), the faithfulness of YHVH in the Exodus from Egypt, there is a declaring of His faithfulness in the here, now, and hereafter.

Every event in the Feasts of YHVH proclaim this.

When YHVH ‘remembered’ people, it wasn’t that He’d ever ‘forgotten’ them! His ‘remembering’ was to bring into present reality the fulness of something earlier recognised and promised by Him.

He ‘remembered’ Samson – He gave him back his strength.
He ‘remembered’ Sarah – she gave birth to the child of promise.
And so on…all through scripture.

When Yeshua(Jesus) broke the bread as His body and offered the wine as His blood, He said, “As often as you do this, you do it in remembrance of Me.” (1Corinthians 7:24-26)
When we do this, we DECLARE the present, ongoing power of his death, not just the recalling of a past event!

The Hebrew word, ‘eduth’, is another example of cyclical thought. Our English translation is ‘testimony’.
The pictographs for ‘eduth'(every letter once was represented in pictograph form and still retain the original sense even though now in text form) indicate the sense ‘to see the safe path’. This word is always connected to YHVHs witness to truth…as Psalm 19:7 declares, “the testimony of YHVH is sure” and it is continual, everlasting. It will be as it was, and is!
The root meaning of ‘eduth’ is to ‘do again’
So…the basic understanding of ‘testimony’ is to ‘repeat’; it is the continuation of YHVHs truth as manifest in any event…and it is a ‘safe path’.

When we testify of something YHVH did, we bring into present reality the power that brought the event in the first place, and we prophecy a possibility for the time ahead.
As a Jew, Paul understood this…”The testimony of Yeshua is the spirit of prophecy.”
(Revelation 19:10)

YHVH says “Put Me in remembrance. Let us plead together..”. (Isaiah 43:26)

We ‘cycle’ through the seasons, through His Feast times.
His words are eternal; they are LIFE! A LIVING WORD!
Every time His Word is declared, it accomplishes what it was always determined to do and prophesies what is yet to come.

Hebrew measures in cycles of 7… But that is for another time!
I hope this has whetted your appetite for more Hebrew gems from His Word…more to come!