Nuances in the Words of scripture seen in The Biblical Hebrew
Psalm 103:13: Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
Something we deal with in Chaim Bentorah Ministries, particularly in our classes on our All Access Learning Channel membership site are nuances. A nuance is a subtle difference in the meaning of a word which may or may not have an impact on the depth of understanding of a passage of Scripture.Psalms 103:13 has such a question of nuance. As a father has compassion on his children the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. Some translations say upon, some say over, and some just do not translate that word ‘al which means upon or over. Is there a difference between saying on or over?
In the recent assisination attempt on President Trump I read where secret service agents threw their bodies over the former president but then the same reporter said that a man in the audience thre his body upon his family to protect them from the bullets. Is there a difference between over and upon? We don’t stop to consider our choice of words like a journalist. Perhaps to that journalist he saw a difference in nuance between secret serivce agents protecting the one they are charged with protecting and the husband and father protecting his wife and children. To have compassion over someone is not as personal as having compassion upon someone. It is almost like compassion over someone is less personal than upon someone.
Would you like Chaim Bentorah as your personal Hebrew teacher?
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Here is the thing about Biblical translation. There is no way to tell from the Hebrew whether you use the word ‘al as either over or upon. It is depends upon the context. Perhaps to you the context is the same but then maybe to you there is a difference and you would want God to have compassion upon you rather than over you.
Which is right? No Hebrew teacher around can tell you which is correct. That is between you and the Holy Spirit. Hebrew is a very ambiguous language and I believe that is of Divine Intent. You do not have the precision that you have in a European Lanague like the. Greek. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:15 how can know if it is the Holy Spirit guiding us and not some Chaim Bentorah. “Let the peace of God rule your heart.” The word rule in both Greek and Aramaic means to umpire. You need an umpire to call those close ones. If Chaim Bentorah says one thing and your preacher says another and you wonder who is right. It is the Holy Spirit who is right and that is because you will have a peace about the insight, there will be a sense of rightness. It might be that Chaim Bentorah and your preacher are both wrong but the peace of God will lead you to the truth of God.
Join us this Saturday where I’ll go into more depth about the nuances of Biblical Hebrew Words during our Weekly Torah Portion teaching. Click ob the kink to join. Hope to see you there! https://www.hebrewwordstudy.com/
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Thanks & Blessings, it means a lot to me!
Thank you for this beautiful lesson.
I like to think that perhaps saying that the secreted serve men threw their bodies over Trump that they formed a type of shield over him,but never actually touched him. When the father threw himself on his family he made actual body contact with them. I’d like to think that that would be very comforting to his family to know how much he loved them. I hope that Trump will help that family.