The Expanded Meaning of "To Sit" in Hebrew

“I am now going to take exception to the present translation of the Bible in relation to these matters. Our latitude and longitude can be determined in the original Hebrew with far greater accuracy than in the English version. There is a grand distinction between the actual meaning of the prophets and the present translation.”

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 290-291

In a previous post I mentioned that the verb “to sit (down)” in Hebrew, lah-SHEH-veht, has a much broader meaning than the same verb does in English. The English verb only relates to the actual action of sitting down, but in Hebrew the verb includes the added meanings “to dwell or reside”. The implication is that scriptural invitations from God for us to sit mean that we are being invited to remain with Him permanently. Notice that the Hebrew verb used in the following Old Testament verses for “to sit” and “to dwell” are the same (lah-SHEH-veht), so they all use the same root of shin-vet (sh-v) in various conjugated forms.

“Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down (shvee שְּׁבִי), O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.” (Isaiah 52:2)

 “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt (veh yeh-SHEHV וַיֵּשֶׁב) by the well Lahai-roi.” (Genesis 25:11)

“I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit (i.e., ‘dwell, stay’, loh eh-SHEHV לֹא אֵשֵׁב) with the wicked.” (Psalms 26:5)

“If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit (yesh’-VOO יֵשְׁבוּ) upon thy throne for evermore.” (Psalms 132:12, emphasis added)

But this verb in Hebrew also carries an additional connotation that reveals itself in a few related words. The Hebrew word for “tribe”, “clan”, or (my preferred term in English) “an extended family”, is SHEH-veht (שֶׁבֶט), which is derived from the verb “to sit (down)”. The relationship between the verb and this noun becomes clear when we consider that in ancient Middle Eastern culture usually just family members, immediate and extended, routinely sat together in council or in social gatherings. So when the Lord uses the verb "to sit" as an invitation, He means that we are all invited to dwell with Him as part of His Eternal family.

In New Testament writings, the Apostles often referenced this expanded meaning. See Ephesians 2:6 as an example.

“And (Christ) hath raised us up together, and made us sit (i.e., dwell) together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” 

Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon

A sample of Demotic writing, a type of "reformed Egytian"

Just a quick point before diving into what (for me, at least) is a fascinating topic: This post will only deal with “external” or logical evidences of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Gaining a spiritual or internal witness that the book was written by prophet-authors under the Lord’s direction and by inspiration is a completely different matter. It requires the reader to study the book with an open mind and heart, then to ask God in prayer about its authenticity. (See Moroni 10:3-5, Book of Mormon.) Although we should never accept “external” evidences in place of spiritual witnesses of Divine truth, they often support and reinforce the spiritual knowledge a person has gained. It’s from this perspective that I’ll describe just a few of the thousands of linguistic evidences that the various writings that make up the compilation we know as the Book of Mormon was written by Semitic groups using the linguistic structure of the “learning of the Jews.”  (See 1 Nephi 1:2 and 1 Nephi 3:19)

Click on the following link for a brief explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon.

Book of Mormon

LDS Book of Mormon scholar-linguists such as Sidney B. Sperry and Hugh Nibley have written extensively about Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. I’ll touch on just a few examples of these unique linguistic elements that these authors haven’t already commented on, at least not to my knowledge. The Hebraisms I’ll reference here are examples of (1) Hebrew possessive constructs, (2) the use of conjunctions for lists, and (3) other Classical Hebrew idioms that weren’t commented on by Sperry in an article I'll reference at the end of this post. At this time I won’t delve into a fourth category of Hebraisms - singular nouns in English that have plural endings in Hebrew - since I already covered that topic in my blog post dated January 24th, 2014.

Possessive Constructs

In English we generally express possession through the use of possessive pronouns that function like adjectives (my, your, his, her, our, etc.) or by using an apostrophe + an "s". But in Hebrew, the most common grammatical construct used to show possession is the preposition sheh שׁ (of) + a corresponding indirect personal pronoun (me, you, him, her, us, etc.). For example, notice the differences in possessive syntax between English and Hebrew detailed below:

English construct - “Yesterday I saw his dog.”

Hebrew construct - “Yesterday I saw the dog of him.” (Eht-MOHL rah-EE-tee eht hah-KEH-lehv sheh-LOH .אתמול ראיתי את הכלב שלו)

The sentence using the Hebrew possessive structure sounds extremely unnatural and foreign to us, just as it would have to 19^th Century English speakers such as Joseph Smith. But for some reason, perhaps as a type of “external” evidence that I discussed earlier, the Lord preserved the original Hebrew-based structure in many passages of the translation of the Book of Mormon into English. The following is just a short list of examples from my study of the book last month. Again, the phrasing sounds foreign because it truly is foreign to 19th Century English.

“Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.” (Note that “his power” wasn’t used here in 2 Nephi 9:25, emphasis added)

This is one of my favorite examples because it sounds so unusually awkward to the English-trained ear:

“Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord. How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man knoweth of his ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God.” (Jacob 4:8, emphasis added)

And finally,

“Hearken, O ye house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord.” (Jacob 5:2, emphasis added)

Again, the common English structure would be “my words”, but this phrase can be seamlessly rendered in Hebrew as “eht hah-mee-LEEM sheh-LEE (מילים שלי), “the words of me.”

Conjunctions

I’ll use only two of many examples here from the Book of Mormon. In 19^th Century and contemporary English, lists are grammatically structured using commas to separate each of the items in sequence, with the last member in the list being flagged with an “and”. In Classical and Biblical Hebrew, however, an initial “and” (vav ו) marks each item in the list, not just the last one. For comparison, note the following passages. The first comes from the Old Testament: 

“The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun.” (Genesis 35:23, emphasis added)

These next two passages are from the Book of Mormon. They both show the same Hebrew-based conjunctive structure:

“And four of them were the sons of Mosiah; and their names were Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni; these were the names of the sons of Mosiah.” (Mosiah 27:34)

“Therefore the people of the Nephites were aware of the intent of the Amlicites, and therefore they did prepare to meet them; yea, they did arm themselves with swords, and with cimeters, and with bows, and with arrows, and with stones, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons‍ of war, of every kind.” (Alma 2:12)

Hebraic Idioms

Some of the most common Hebrew idioms that emigrated to the Americas from the Middle East as God guided various groups here are the expressions “As I live”, “As thou livest”, and “As the Lord liveth.” These phrases were often used in ancient Semitic languages to initiate an oath. The Hebrew root contains two parts: a conjugated form of the verb "to live" (xai חַי), followed by the person whose name the oath-taker is referencing.

From the Old Testament:

“And the mother of the child said, As‍ the Lord‍ liveth, and as‍ thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her.” (2 Kings 4:30)

From the Book of Mormon:

“But behold I said unto them that: As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us.” (1 Nephi 3:15)

“And it came to pass that I spake with him, that if he would hearken unto my words, as the Lord liveth, and as I live, even so that if he would hearken unto our words, we would spare his life.” (1 Nephi 4:32)

“Lift up thine eyes round about and behold; all these gather themselves together, and they shall come to thee. And as I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on even as a bride.” (1 Nephi 21:18)

To close out this post, I included a link to an article by Sidney B. Sperry of Sperry Symposium fame. In it he details a wide array of Hebrew idioms found in the Book of Mormon. (The PDF can be found at the bottom left of the webpage.)

Sperry article

The Word and Creation

I’ve always been fascinated by the first chapter of John in the New Testament. It’s here that I first became acquainted with the Savior’s name-title The Word and, by linked association, His role as Creator. The passage regarding The Word having first made all things and then later having “dwelt among us” provides support to the various Christian denominations that teach that Christ played the central role in the physical creation of all we see around us.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”( John 1: 1-3)

I obviously don’t understand the entire scope of this name-title given to the Savior, which is also referenced in Revelation 19:13, but my Biblical Hebrew studies have recently helped me understand what it may mean in part. It turns out there are also passages in LDS scripture that support the Hebrew language insights that I’ll refer to here.
 
In Hebrew, the terms for "word", "act(ion)", and "thing" are all related to the same three-letter root דבר (dalet-bet/vet-resh), which are loosely equivalent to the English letters D-V-R. While reading the examples of linguistic connections between the set of Hebrew terms related to speech, action, and existence, it’s important to remember that in Hebrew and other Semitic languages word relationships are founded on consonant patterns. That’s in part because across the whole range of spoken language throughout history, vowels are fluid, meaning they’re much more prone to change within a word over time than consonants.

We see that three-letter root I mentioned above (D-V-R דבר) in such words as “to speak” (leh-dah-BEHR  לְדַבֵּר) and in the noun “a saying”  (dah-VAHR דָבָר), which also means "thing". In the book of 1st Kings we also find the same root present in the phrase "the acts of Solomon", deev-REY she-loh-MOH דִּבְרֵי שְׁלֹמֹה. So the Lord's title referenced in John (The Word) seems to be linked to His role as the Creator: "and all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Human speech is passive when not backed by the authority and power of God. In contrast, the Lord's spoken commands are actions that result in things coming into existence. See Genesis 1:3, 1:11, and the following scripture as examples:

“So shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth (the speech part): it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please (action), and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11, inserts added)

 The significant link detailed above is easily lost in the New Testament Koine (Common Greek) since the terms in that language for "word" (logos) and "thing" (pragma) have no linguistic connection. Interestingly though, the Hebrew doctrinal and etymological links resurface in several places in the scriptures, including Moses 1:27, 30-32.

“And it came to pass, as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the Spirit of God. 

And it came to pass that Moses called upon God, saying: Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them? 

And behold, the glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God, and talked with him face to face. And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me. 

And by the word of my power have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.” (Emphasis added)

Arising from the Dust

There are several words in Hebrew for “dust” (אָבָק ah-VAHK, אֲדָמָה ah-dah-MAH, and עָפָר ah-FAHR, for example), but the one that seems to appear most often in the Old Testament is ah-FAHR. It means “dust, dirt, earth, soil”. In the scriptures, however, it has many symbolic meanings. Dust signifies “humility, humiliation, contrition, sorrow, corruption, sin, worldliness” and even “death”, both physical and spiritual.

In reading the Old Testament in Hebrew, it’s interesting how often the word surfaces in different contexts. Here are a few passages that shed light on these symbolic meanings.

“And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.” (Joshua 7:6)

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” (Psalms 103:13,14)

“My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.” (Psalms 119:25)

“And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” (Genesis 3:14)

This last reference offers a strong contrast to what we are to do in leaving behind all association(s) with worldliness, corruption, and spiritual death.

“Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.” (Isaiah 52:2)

I’m struck by the order and beautiful simplicity of the process. Lying in dust is equivalent to spiritual death, or the sleep of death. We then arise at God’s call, leaving the corruption of earthly appetites and sin behind, even going so far as to shake off whatever traces of our former, worldly selves might still be clinging to us. Then the majesty of the Lord’s mercy becomes apparent as we are invited to sit down. This isn’t an insignificant invitation. I'll mention two examples that underline the graciousness of God in this respect.

First, in ancient Middle Eastern culture, sitting down generally involved two types of social interactions; sitting in counsel/judgment or sitting within a close social circle. On the first point, the most common words for chair in Hebrew are כִּסֵא  (kee-SEH) and קָתֶדרָה (kah-teh-DRAH ). If the second word sounds familiar that’s because it’s the root of cathedral, which originally meant a place (seat) of judgment. As for sitting within close social circles, the seating would normally happen at meal time or at night once the day’s work was over. In both cases, those whom the Lord sanctifies (frees from sleep/spiritual death and worldly corruption) are invited to assume their place of friendship within His Kingdom.

Secondly, the verb "to sit (down)" in Hebrew (לשבת, lah-SHEH-veht ) holds a broader meaning than exists in English and other Western languages. It carries the additional idea of "to dwell or reside", so the Lord's invitation to arise from the dust and then to sit down carries the implied message that once we are cleansed we may stay permanently with Him.

The Abrahamic Test and “Binding”

The one good thing about having occasional bouts of insomnia is that a sleepless night gives me the rare opportunity to read uninterrupted for several hours. Last week I had one of those experiences and ended up reviewing what’s often called "Abraham's Test". The account of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, is found in Genesis, chapter 22.

“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” (Emphasis added)

I’ve read this passage dozens of times before in English, but this time around I discovered something that’s only evident in the text's original language of Biblical Hebrew. You’ll notice that I highlighted “whom thou lovest” above. For some reason, the translators who produced the King James Version of the Bible translated the verb “to love” in the present tense here in spite of the fact that it was conjugated by the original author using the past tense. In Hebrew, the passage literally reads “whom thou hast loved” or “whom thou loved” (אֲשֶׁר-אָהַבְתָּ, ah-SHEHR ah-HAHV-tah) instead of “lovest” (אוהב, oh-HEHV ).

Reading the account of Abraham’s experiences last week impacted me more deeply than it ever had before because the wording in the original language implies something very profound that’s lost in the English translation. The fact is I "have loved" our children in the past, but that love obviously still continues in the present as well. So there appears to be a dual meaning in the passage above that made the test all the harder. God's use of the past perfect tense communicated finality and inevitability regarding the ultimate outcome. In referring to Abraham’s feelings of love for Isaac as being in the past, the message could have been interpreted by the patriarch as his relationship with Isaac was then (at least temporarily) ending, that he had already lost Isaac, and that he would in fact be required to follow through and sacrifice his son, just as Elohim would with His Beloved Son. There is no hint of the pending “ram in the thicket” that would eventually substitute for Isaac as the required offering. This must have made the test all the more faith-stretching and heart-breaking.

Some final thoughts on Abraham’s test and his life in general:

In Judaism, the account of the trial of Abraham’s faith is referred to in Hebrew brewHeHas the Akedah (עֲקִידָה), which means “The Binding”. This term relates directly to Abraham tying up or binding his son’s hands, arms, and/or feet to prepare him to be sacrificed.  Genesis 22:9 reads:

"And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.” 

Over time the Akedah came to represent the ultimate trial of one’s faith, especially as related to Abraham’s test, but the theme of binding also runs throughout the entire narrative of the Patriarch's life. Abram himself was once physically restrained to be sacrificed while in the land of Ur, something that adds a sharp sense of irony to the command God later gave him to offer up Isaac. (See Abraham 1:15-20.) Then came the figurative binding nature of the covenant that Jehovah established between Himself and Abram, who He then names Abraham (Father of a Multitude), detailed in Genesis, chapter 17. Through the Abrahamic Covenant, generations of the patriarch’s literal and spiritual posterity that were likened in number to the stars of heaven or the grains of sand on the shore are bound to him and to God. Later came the Akedah, which included more references to literal and figurative binding, including:

1) The tying up of Isaac

2) The binding (restraining) of the ram in the thicket

3) The figurative binding of Abraham's heart to God’s

Touching on the third point, perhaps there’s no greater tribute to the nobility of Abraham’s character than that God chose him to participate in this exercise in empathy, what we know as "The Abrahamic Test". The patriarch, who was above all a father, earned firsthand insight into Heavenly Father’s tender feelings as an Eternal Parent and came to understand, perhaps better than any mortal being, the emotional cost to God of voluntarily offering up His Son for us.

The Word-Name Adam

There’s an interesting difference of opinion regarding the origins of the word-name “Adam” which God gave to the first living being on Earth. Non-LDS Hebraists generally agree that the name was derived from the Hebrew word for “earth, soil, dirt”, אֲדָמָה (ah-dah-MAH). That would make sense because Adam’s physical body was created from the dust of the Earth, to which it returned once he died.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19)

However, according to LDS scripture it’s the other way around. Rather than the Hebrew word for “earth, dust” being the origin of “Adam”, we're taught that God assigned that name to the first man long before Hebrew existed as a distinct language. The lone reference in the LDS Standard Works to the origin and meaning of the word-name “Adam” is found in the Book of Moses, a collection of passages from Joseph Smith’s translation of the Old Testament. Moses 1:34 reads:

“And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many.” (emphasis added)

This Divinely revealed definition dovetails seamlessly with the Genesis teaching that not only did God assign the name-title Adam to the first man whom He created, but also to Adam and Eve, as the first couple.

"Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:2, emphasis added)

Only a man and a woman united together may become the instruments of God to create many. In this sense, everyone who is fruitful and multiplies and replenishes the Earth, whether male or female, becomes "Adam," or many. In LDS theology, the same applies in the hereafter to those who are obedient to God's laws but haven't been able to have children in this life for whatever reason.

Seeing that the word-name “Adam” has no connection to Hebrew words that convey the idea of “many”, such as הָמוֹן hah-MOHN (a noun for “many” or “multitude”), רַבִּים rah-BEEM (an adjective for “many” or “numerous”), and הַרבֵּה hahr-BEH (an adverb meaning “many”, “much”, “plenty”), it follows that words in Hebrew that have etymological connections to “Adam” are only derivations. In fact, the name itself (אָדָם ah-DAHM) was adopted into Hebrew as one of several words that signify “man, person, human being”. Below you’ll find a list of other Hebrew words that most likely owe their origin to the word-name “Adam”:

אֲדָמָה (ah-dah-MAH) – earth, dirt, soil

דָם (dahm) – blood

אָדוֹם (ah-DOHM) – red

אָדָם בֶּן (ben ah-DAHM) – person, man, human being, mortal (literally, “son of man”)

To me, the most interesting words on this list are “blood” and “red” since their connections to the account of Adam and Eve’s creation are less obvious than the word for “earth”. The one comment I’ll make about possible links are that some linguists believe that the Hebrew word “red” more closely relates to the reddish color of human skin than to the red color of blood or the reddish hue of the earth and/or clay from which Adam’s physical body was formed.

"I will be Who I will be."

In the third chapter of Exodus there’s a wonderfully detailed account of a conversation that Moses had with the Lord at the beginning of his ministry as a prophet. In spite of Jehovah’s reassurances that He would qualify him for the work of helping liberate captive Israel from bondage, Moses wondered why he had been chosen to lead God's people and voiced his concern that Pharaoh and even the Israelites themselves wouldn’t believe that the Lord had sent him. During the course of the conversation, the hesitant messenger-to-be asked Jehovah how he should reply when the Israelites asked who had sent him.

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM, and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.”

The self-identifier the Lord uses here, “I AM THAT I AM,” has become one of the best known and (to me, at least) one of the most difficult to understand names that He has assigned Himself. The curious part of the English translation of the Hebrew phrase אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (ehyeh asher ehyeh) is that it was rendered in the present tense in spite of the fact that the verb form the writer used is actually in the future tense. The sentence literally means “I will be Who I will be.”

With that background info out of the way, I’ll bring this down to a personal level. I’ve read that phrase many times, but before reading the passage in the original Hebrew, the Lord’s statement to Moses always seemed very abstract and cryptic to me. It was as if there were some mysterious code to be cracked that I couldn’t quite access. It turns out that, for me, the key to understanding part of what the Lord may have meant was reading His statement in the future tense. It's so much more understandable in my opinion reading the phrase literally.

The doctrinal applications started to flow once I viewed the Lord’s statement as an affirmation made in the present regarding His status and actions that were then future. Here’s what I mean. Jehovah’s comments made at other times regarding His role as the promised Messiah seem to dovetail with what He affirmed to His prophet on that occasion. I now read something along the lines of “I will be Who (I covenanted with you and the rest of the human family to be before the Earth was created, namely your Savior. I am the same yesterday, today, and forever, and I always keep my promises. I will come to Earth in the Meridian of Time, take upon Myself flesh, and live as a mortal, although I will continue to be God, the same as I am now.”)

In “ehyeh asher ehyeh,” I hear an echo of the Lord’s words to the Brother of Jared found in the Book of Mormon (Ether 3:16):

"Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh."

Or in other words, “I will be Who I will be.”