My Plan for the Next 22 Weeks

I love the Hebrew language and am on a quest to learn it and comprehend it.  What do I mean by that?  Well, Hebrew is a deep, rich language.  To learn it is one thing ... to really comprehend it is another.  Did you know that all languages of the world point to Jerusalem? West of Jerusalem, we read from the left to the right and east of Jerusalem, they read from the right to the left. Hebrew itself is read from right to left. The Hebrew aleph-beth (first two letters - where we get our term alphabet) contains 22 consonants and no vowels. There are vowel sounds in the language, but they are not written. The Hebrew reader knows what the word is based on the surrounding context. (Modern Hebrew does have vowel markers, but again, they are not always written.) Another interesting aspect of the Hebrew language is that each individual character has meaning. When combined into what we recognize as a word, the meaning of the word is derived from the combination of the meanings of the letters. Take for instance the Hebrew word for father - Ab (pronounced like Av - the "b" is soft and the a as the "a" in father).

The Aleph (a gutteral with no sound.)  The unwritten vowel sound is what you hear.



The Beth (pronounced: Bait) can have a hard (b) and soft sound (v).

The Aleph means "strength" and the Beth means "house."  So when you combine the Aleph and the Beth to make the Hebrew word Ab it carries the meaning, "strength of the house."


Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm as well as the longest chapter in the Bible. It is also what is called an acrostic Psalm with the first letter of each verse within each stanza starting with a successive letter of the Hebrew aleph-beth. If you open your Bible and look at this Psalm, you will see the way it is divided up - there is an Aleph section of 8 verses followed by a Beth section of 8 verses and so on.  All 176 verses are divided into stanzas of eight verses each. In each of these 8 verse sections, each verse starts with a letter of the Hebrew aleph-beth. So, for instance, in verse 161, which is the beginning of the "Shin" stanza, the first word is Sarim (saw-reem) - Hebrew for Princes.  Nothing in the Bible is there by accident and coincidence is not a kosher word.  Over the next 22 weeks, I'm going to commit myself to sharing brief devotionals on this blog from Psalm 119 taking into consideration the underlying meaning of each letter.  So stay tuned ... much more to come.