Building Words from Letters in the Holy Language
The meaning of Hebrew words (in the original Holy Language) is derived from the meaning of the letters that go into spelling those words. For example, for the word jb (pronounced Nach) meaning "rest", we would expect that its meaning can be built from the letters b (Nun) and j (Chet). That is, the symbolic meaning of each letter contributes to the meaning of the word "jb" just as each letter contributes to the spelling of the whole word.
At http://members.home.net/joe.viel/learn/alefbeit/CreativeForces.htm I discussed how Nun or b refers to an emerging. We also discussed how Chet or j refers to a struggle to reach a higher state of rest. Put the two together, and you have Nun representing emergence being combined with Chet representing a struggle and Nach (jb) therefore represents emerging from a struggle, to be at rest.
I have heard a variety of people say that this means that once you know the meaning of the Hebrew letters, you can assemble the meaning of the words from the individual letters. It would seem you can certainly begin to assemble at least part of the meaning. Of course, vowel sounds are the "unknown forces" and how they affect the meaning of words is something for which we may not have complete knowledge. Most certainly, this type of analysis helps us understand the shades of meaning to a word. As an example, we see that the Hebrew words for "prune" and "sing" are spelled the same way, but pronounced different. For example….
When the word rnz is pronounced zaMAR , it means "prune"
When rnz is pronounced zimMER, it means "sing"
So it is not just the consonants, but the vowels that affect their meaning. And while the meaning of the consonants have been revealed to us, the meaning of the vowels have not. But there is indeed something that these words have in common, that we'll discuss in a moment.
Now keep in mind that this only works with the original "Holy Language" of Hebrew. It does not work with all words in modern Hebrew. There are many words in the modern Hebrew vocabulary that were not part of the original Holy Language.
In the following, we will examine several sets of rules or guidelines that can be used to assembly the meaning of words from their letters. This requires some familiarity with Hebrew, and even those fluent sometimes have trouble putting it all together. But indeed, a novice can still see that this principle exists and better appreciate the value of why every believer should learn Hebrew if he really wants to learn the deeper things of God. The novice can take this and apply it to known meanings to better understand shades of meanings. Some degree of fluency is needed to be able to interpret a word without a dictionary.
The first category of words we will look at are those that have the typical 3 letter root. Most words in Hebrew are 3 letters long or derived from a 3 letter root. In such cases, the word may be described as including concepts that involve all 3 letters, sometimes as input to the concept, and sometimes as output to the concept. Keep in mind that sometimes the benevolent meaning of the letter drives the usage in a word and sometimes the negative meaning drives its usage.
As an example, let's take a look at the word "rnz" meaning "prune" when pronounced "zamar" and "sing" when pronounced "zimmer". Zayin represents constancy of some sort, as we've already discussed. Mem is a flow. So when you combine Zayin and Mem, you have a constant flow of something. Indeed, a branch is something that is constantly growing. When one sings, there is a constant flow of sound. Most singers feel like there is a constant flow of vowel sounds coming out of them when they sing, occasionally interrupted by consonants - but always a constant flow. It's hard to hold a note on a consonant, but if you try, you will see the importance of a constant flow in singing. So we see clearly why these two letters are part of both of these concepts.
Now the Resh is added to this "constant flow". What does this indicate? Well, Resh is about getting back to the beginning point. When you "prune" something, you get it back to a point it used to be at before its constant flow of growth caused it to grow beyond the point at which you pruned it! When you sing, your voice oscillates back and forth. Scientists depict musical notes with wavelengths that go back and forth but oscillate around a set reference point that one always returns to. This might be hard for a non-technical musician to comprehend, but he can also see the oscillating nature of his vocal chords when he sings - how the vocal chords expand and contract - but return to a resting point. So both singing and pruning deal with the same set of creative forces, but in different ways, and the "unknown" vowel sounds make all the difference in determining how those known forces of Zayin, Mem and Resh are combined together.
Perhaps this example for "singing" demonstrates why there might be times you simply won't know enough about science to see the connection between a word concept and how the forces tie to it. This is a complicated issue scientifically, but within the realm of what modern day science understands.
In the case of the word "prune", Zayin and Mem are inputs to the word because they are there before the action starts. Resh is an output to this verb because it is what you end up with when the pruning is done - you get back to a point you were at in the beginning.
In the case of the word "sing", all three letters could be considered outputs to the action described by the letters, since singing produces a constant flow of a sound that oscillates/vibrates at some level. So we see how these two words are differentiated from each other, both in the vowel sounds that come between each created force/letter as well as how these letters are used in the words. In one case, mostly inputs, in the other case, all outputs.
So there are several possibilities that can exist for any given word. All letters could be outputs, 1 or 2 could be inputs and the remaining letters could be outputs, or all letters could be inputs to the action / thing being described by the word. But since Hebrew is read right to left, the letters that are input to what is being described are usually on the right, at the beginning of the word, when both input and output letters are present to the meaning of the word.
Sometimes the letters are like adjectives that describe a noun, rather than describing inputs and outputs to an equation. For example, V+(TaF) is Hebrew for "small child". Tet represents the ability to distinguish between good and evil. Pey represents an opening or the beginning part of something. Combine these two concepts together and you are describing the beginning part of being able to tell good from evil. Children are immature and need to be taught right from wrong, wise from foolish. So this tells us the connotation of the word - the fact that we're dealing with an immature individual.
In a way, this can be thought of as a special case of all letters being an input to the word described. But they may also describe the output as well.
Sometimes when letters are combined, only part of their meanings are relevant. This can be due to a number of reasons, the most notable might be the fact that certain concepts are incompatible with each other. We talked a little about this in the way letters intersect in Psalm 119. Here's another example.
PiNA in Hebrew, or vbp, means to vacate or leave a location.
Pey, again means the opening or beginning part of something. Combine that with Nun, which means to emerge while staying connected, and we have the beginning part of emerging while staying connected. But when we "vacate", we do not stay connected, do we? Of course not, but remember, Nun here is combined with Pey, and so the product of these two forces being joined together is that we only get the beginning part of Nun - the emergence, and not the full aspects of Nun. Also, this word has a Hey at the end, making it "feminine" or "incomplete". It's incomplete because the "staying connected" aspect of Nun does not exist in this word.
The masculine form of this same word/concept would be panim (ohbp) which means "surface" or "face". A "surface" is part of an object, but not the whole object. It is the outer layer or outer part (think Pey here) of an object that emerges from the object (think Nun in the emerging part). But unlike pina, the surface stays connected to the source, thus we see this word appearing in the "masculine" or "complete" form. It is also plural (hence, the "oh" makes it plural) in the Holy Language from all known usage. I suppose that if there was such a thing as just a "pan" in Lashon HaKodesh (The original Holy Language set of Hebrew vocabulary words) it would be an infinitely small dot on the surface of the object. And every infinitely small dot would be part of the "panim" or "surface", forming an infinite number of infinitely small dots. [There is a word "pan" in modern Hebrew that means "form", similar to "surface", but it is not believed to have any ancient usage.]
Now change only one vowel, and you go from "panim", which is the exterior surface, the "penim" which is the interior. Both are still connected to the body of the object that lies between them, and both the panim and the penim emerge from this are of the object between them. I would suspect from the spelling that "penim" would refer to the more inner interior, not everything from the surface downward.
Pey also appears in a lot of words in which something is opened up. Thus its not only the beginning part or outer part of something, but can often imply the fact that the out part is question is opening up, the way a mouth can open. Of course, that doesn't always have to be the case, much like someone's mouth does not always have to be open. For example, the letter Tzaddi is linguistically connected to the concept of a "side" since Tzad (sm) means "side". Tzaddi could therefore almost be read as "my side", since a Yud at the end could indicate possession in the first person. In Jewish literature, the term "the other side" refers to the side of darkness. Thus, for a righteous person, "my side" would be the side of righteousness while "the other side" would be the side of unrighteousness.
When Pey is combined with Tzaddi, we often find words where a side is opened - not surprising since Tzaddi is connected with a "side" and Pey is connected with opening things. Examples include Petzetz (qmp) which means "to blow up". You have something with sides (the m part) and you open it open (the p part).
Another example of where only part of the meaning of a letter/force appears to be present in the word is in the Hebrew word Dash (as) which means to thresh, trample, crush, etc. We understand Dalet to represent the power that transforms us, and a threshing is certainly a transformation. So the first letter could be considered used in its entirity. But the second letter, Shin, represents a cycle of breaking something apart and putting it back together again. A threshing certainly involves the first part of the cycle of Shin, but it doesn't involve the rebuilding or preserving we see revealed in the hidden connections made in the Psalms with Shin. In such cases, it is generally a case that the letter is an input to what the word describes. But not every aspect of what is put into something by a force/letter will necessarily be part of the outcome. Also, the use of part of the meaning of a letter to make up the meaning of a word can occur even when the word is not "feminine" or "incomplete".
Another good example would be with the word Shimmer (rna), which means to "safeguard" or "watch" or "keep". Here, another aspect of Shin is used, the preserving aspect, but not the aspect of breaking something apart, as with Dash. The preserving aspect of Shin is combined with the flow of Mem , to watch/guard on a continually flowing basis. Resh describes the result, or output of this, because it watch-guarding keeps you where you started, and Resh is about that "head" or starting point.
We've already talked about how some letters have a grammatical use. Sometimes, the meaning of a word can be assembled from the letters when a letter is read "grammatically" even though it's not being used that way. For example, in the word Kanaf (Vnk) , which means "wings", "skirt", "fringes", etc., The leading Kaf can be read "like" here, even though it's not being used grammatically. The Nun and Pey together suggest something that emerges from an opening, while staying connected. The Kaf in front of it suggest it is like this, but maybe not exactly like this, with some possible modification to that model.
Or when a Waw/Vav is in the middle of two letters, it can often be read as "and" - simply indicating that the two are joined. For example, the Hebrew word for "day" is Yom (xuh). Mem is a flow and Yud can be interpretted as a "measure". Time flows, so the mem makes sense. And a day is a measurement of the flow of time. So "xuh" could be read as "measure and flow".
Basically, when a letter that is used grammatically appears in a word, one must be careful to examine whether the meaning of that letter is the cause for its presence in the word or whether the grammatical usage of that letter better describes why it's there.
Sometimes the derivation of the word comes more from the sound or name of the force/letter. For example, the sound of the letter Kaf refers to the palm of the hand or sole of the foot. The most tender spot on the body. One word for "rock" in Hebrew is Kefah, which takes Kaf and makes it feminine, indicating it is incomplete. This might indicate something that lacks tenderness. Certainly, a rock lacks tenderness.
In the case of Kinun (iubf), meaning "foundation" or "established", we could read the Kaf at the beginning of a word grammatically meaning "like" and see the "Nun" in the rest of it. So we could read this as "like Nun" or something similar to Nun. Kinnun means and certainly, this is "like Nun", which stays connected to its source! And while Nun has an emergence, a foundation is what other parts of a building emerge from. So it is like Nun in the sense that an emergence occurs, but unlike Nun because what emerges is not the same as the word being described.
Sometimes words are actually compound words whose meaning is derived from the two words that compose it. Some of these compounds are easy to see, in that they are the simple joining together of two words to form another word. But sometimes it is more subtle than that. Hebrew does not write letters doubled when there is no vowel between, them, so you might end up using the middle letter for both the end of the first word and beginning of the second. One example of this would be the word Chadash (asj) which means "renew" or "repair". We've already talked about how Dash (as) means "to break apart" and analyzed this from it's composition. Chad (sj) means "one" in Hebrew. So Chadash (asj) speaks to us of something that both broken apart and one. It was broken apart, then put back together as one.
We see this word used in several places in scripture, such as the repairing of an altar in 2 Chronicles 15:8, the repairing of the temple in 2 Chronicles 24, and the renewal of the kingdom under Samuel in 1 Sam 11:14, among other places.
As can be seen with the previous example of Kinun (iubf), sometimes a combination of the above approaches might be in use.
One valuable aspect to this is that it can be valuable as a way of determining shades of meanings to words. One example of this could be seen in the two words for a home, which are…
The word Beit (whc), which means "house" The word dar (rs), which means "dwelling place" At first glance, the English reader might look at beit and dar and conclude they are two different words that mean the same thing. Well, a graphical artist might paint the same picture based on these two different words, but there is a different connotation. We've already covered the concept of a beit earlier, and how it puts emphasis on the physical building and how it shelters someone from the outside environment. Dar or "dwelling place", on the other hand, puts the emphasis on the fact that at the end of the day, it's the location I go back to. It may or may not do a good job of sheltering me. A "dwelling place" could even be something other than a beit, since someone could live underneath a roof with no walls. But the point is, it is where the presence of the individual in question is to be found on a regular basis.
We can see the concept of a "dwelling place" present in the letters. We have a Dalet, which is connected to a door and something we have to go through to enter the "dwelling place". We also have Resh, which again, refers to getting back to the starting point of a cycle. If I leave the house and go back to where I came from, that would be a case of Resh, because I'm going back to my starting point.
Another example might be the difference between Nach and Shavat. Both mean "rest", but take note that we discussed earlier how Nach seems to imply emerging from unrest. Shavat, on the other hand, begins with a Shin, which is about preserving. So Shavat is describing preserving a current restful state. Shin is about breaking, rebuilding, and preserving what's rebuilt. However, keep in mind that sometimes we only need part of the meaning of a force to build the meaning of the word. When Shin is present, it means at least part of Shin, perhaps all of it, was used to build the word.
Looking at the rest of the word Shavat, the second letter is Bet, which involves containment. The last letter is Tau, which is an anchor that marks something. So we see the concepts of the preservance of Shin, the containment of Bet and the anchoring effect of Tau all present in the word Shavat, indicating its about staying in a currently restful state.