The Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew:
Hebrew (fl -1200 to -586 and since +1885) is the main language of Israel and the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament). It is one of the best known examples of a dead language brought back to life.
- Speakers: 9 million (5m native).
- Countries: Israel: native to 49%, understood by 90% of Jews and 60% of Arabs (2011).
- Script: Hebrew (22 letters, runs right to left), since about -950.
- Language family: Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family.
The two main kinds:
- Classical Hebrew, what the Bible uses (called Yehudith in Isaiah 36:11). Like Phoenician, it was a dialect of Canaanite.
- Modern Hebrew, the kind Israel uses now.
Hebrew is
- a close cousin of Arabic, Amharic (Ethiopia), Punic (ancient Carthage) and Aramaic (what Jesus spoke) and
- a distant cousin of Tuareg (Berber), Ancient Egyptian, Somali, Hausa (Nigeria), and Oromo (Ethiopia).
- It is not related to Yiddish, a Jewish form of German.
By -539, Hebrew was dead. When Jews returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Captivity they were speaking Aramaic, the language of Babylon, what the King James Bible calls Syrian or Chaldean. You see the change take place in the book of Daniel, which is partly in Hebrew, partly in Aramaic.
Knowledge of Hebrew was never completely lost: Jews continued to pray in it while scholars and rabbis learned it so they could read and study the Bible. But it was no longer the language of daily life.
In +1881 all that changed when Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his wife moved to Jerusalem and began speaking only in Hebrew! Their son became the first native speaker in over 2,000 years. Ben-Yehuda gave lessons and ran a newspaper to help others learn and practise everyday Hebrew. He wrote a dictionary that filled in all those words missing from the Bible, like telephone, rice and clitoris. Not all his words stuck, but it gave Hebrew a workable starting point.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed it: Hebrew was too holy for daily life. They still use Yiddish.
Zionists, who wanted a homeland for Jews in Palestine, loved the idea and helped spread its use.
By 1922 Hebrew had plenty of native speakers and became an official language of British Palestine.
After 1948 the Israeli government made it the main language of education, radio, television and the press.
English words and expressions that come from Hebrew, mainly by way of the Bible:
- by 1000: Satan, devil, Christ, manna, amen, Sabbath.
- 1100s: Jew, synagogue.
- 1200s: balm, shekel, firmament, unicorn, holocaust.
- 1300s: behemoth, leviathan, messiah, abacus, cherub, jubilee, peace (as greeting).
- 1400s: ethnic, rabbi.
- 1500s: Jehovah, Passover, stiff-necked, hallelujah, scapegoat, skin of one’s teeth, my brother’s keeper, long-suffering, stumbling block.
- 1600s: Hittite, sour grapes, pour out one’s heart, fly in the ointment, read the writing on the wall, fall flat on one’s face, set one’s teeth on edge, land of the living, backsliding, rosebud, shibboleth.
- 1700s: helpmate.
- 1800s: goy, Bar Mitzvah, Yahweh, yeshiva, golem, matzoh, kosher, chutzpah, schmooze.
- 1900s: kibbutz, tush, gun moll, pita, schlemazel, Palestine.
Sometimes the same word entered English in different forms by way of Greek, Latin or Yiddish: messiah/Christ, Satan/devil, goy/ethnic, etc.
– Abagond, 2014, 2018.
See also:
Nice post, except that Jesus taught the prayer in Aramaic as you point out was his language, and it was ultimately recorded in Greek, so rendering it in Hebrew is a stylization. More importantly, the prayer has been traditionally called “The Lord’s Prayer” because Jesus taught these words. But actually it was intended by Jesus as a model or paradigm of how his disciples should pray. The prayer has traditionally be learned and recited by rote across denominations, although in fact Jesus intended it as a basis upon which to build, each part consisting of a different aspect of prayer. So, to simply pray the so-called Lord’s Prayer (which is really the Disciples’ Prayer) misses the point of Jesus’ lesson. The actual “Lord’s Prayer” is best represented in John 17, which is Jesus’ own prayer.
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The notion that an oppressed, dispossessed people could survive so long and then resurrect themselves on their ‘own’ ground, on their own terms is very touching and inspiring. That their own travails have made them blind to the people (Palestinians) they are now oppressing is also very instructive. A whole lot of the world’s troubles, politically and individually, can be reduced to this dichotomy. We ‘overcome’ our own mistreatment, but only by mistreating someone else, usually NOT the people who’d originally mistreated us. This is what makes the nonviolent approach so valuable, it breaks the cycle. I don’t know of an example of it that predates the practice of it by the American slaves during slavery. Can anyone think of one?
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Hello,
I wonder if it has been discussed here all the money the US has given over 60 years to Israel. Not only in aid but in actual military aid (with the exception that the military funds can be spent in Israeli military companies and not in American military ones, this is a first and nobody has been extended that privilege).
Maybe comparing that money sent to Israel to the other big programs like the Marshall plan, the New Deal, etc…
This will put in perspective where the priorities are in light of all the budget cut in welfare programs aimed to hurt primarily people of color.
Best,
Jose
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Another awesome post.
Hebrew is related to the large Afroasiatic language family. From my linguistic studies the Afroasiatic language family has the longest recorded history than any other language family.
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This article talks of a revival of Hebrew along with a new language “Judeo-Arabic”
from: http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/68082/so-what-did-muslims-do-jews
Like their neighbours, these Jews wrote in Arabic in part, and in a Jewish form of that language. The use of Arabic brought them close to the Arabs. But the use of a specific Jewish form of that language maintained the barriers between Jew and Muslim. The subjects that Jews wrote about, and the literary forms in which they wrote about them, were largely new ones, borrowed from the Muslims and developed in tandem with developments in Arabic Islam.
Also at this time, Hebrew was revived as a language of high literature, parallel to the use among the Muslims of a high form of Arabic for similar purposes. Along with its use for poetry and artistic prose, secular writing of all forms in Hebrew and in (Judeo-)Arabic came into being, some of it of high quality.
Much of the greatest poetry in Hebrew written since the Bible comes from this period. Sa’adya Gaon, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Ezra (Moses and Abraham), Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi, Yehudah al-Harizi, Samuel ha-Nagid, and many more – all of these names, well known today, belong in the first rank of Jewish literary and cultural endeavour.
W here did these Jews produce all this? When did they and their neighbours achieve this symbiosis, this mode of living together? The Jews did it in a number of centres of excellence. The most outstanding of these was Islamic Spain, where there was a true Jewish Golden Age, alongside a wave of cultural achievement among the Muslim population. The Spanish case illustrates a more general pattern, too.
What happened in Islamic Spain – waves of Jewish cultural prosperity paralleling waves of cultural prosperity among the Muslims – exemplifies a larger pattern in Arab Islam. In Baghdad, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries; in Qayrawan (in north Africa), between the ninth and the 11th centuries; in Cairo, between the 10th and the 12th centuries, and elsewhere, the rise and fall of cultural centres of Islam tended to be reflected in the rise and fall of Jewish cultural activity in the same places.
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i took two semesters of hebrew in college
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Abagond,
as far as i appreciate some of the things you write. I´m generally surprised and sometimes shocked of what you allow yourself to write about Africa.
I´m a long “reader” or should i put “lurker” but i have intervened very few times.
The Afro-asiatic aka chamito-semitic Language family doesn´t exist. It is a white creation, a white fustration, to cut the nile vallee and the cultures surrounding it from the rest of Africa and claim and pseudo-white- Semitic Origin of the people of that part of Africa. What they want to achieve is to state that the native people are inferior and weren´t able to built extremely advanced civilizations in their times, that couls just be achieved by leucodermic-semitic elements appearing from nowhere. They tried exactly the Same thing in southern Africa when they found great Zimbabwe: “god that couldn´t have been built by the inferior beings”.
This theory has never been demonstrated nor proved by any of the white people who hide behind it. Yes it´s white people ,who are fueling this fallacy. The genetic Kinship ( it is a concept in the linguistic, to show the oneness of a language family) has never been demonstrated, nor has their commonl ancestor been reconstructed, and this is crucial. We speak from the indo- european family because, this work has been done. All the african languages that you mentionned in your post, excepted the berber and amharic are related to one another and related to the other languages from the rest of Africa, in the big African family. This was one of the main point, of the demonstration of the African cultural unity. And this has already been settled in 1974 in Cairo in a colloquium. Organized with world class scientific and expert, it completely rejected this fallacy that doesn´t have any credibility. Yet the same white people who promoted it act like this never happened and continue to spread their lies and intellectual fustrations and you find black people buying it, without questioning it. You generally find this kind of attitude by blacks who have been culturally europeanized, and see the non-white world, especially Africa, through eurocentric eyes. They will question what white people say about them in america or europe, but will not do the same when the same people present them with Images and theory of Africa, who has been and continue to be dehumanized by the same people.
This is not personal but i recall you, reading a greek book about war i think, and saying that it helped you understand the world and human nature i think. This is the perfect illustration of eurocentrism, from a greek experience, you universalize, you are able to understand the cultural experience or nature of a khoi from south Africa ( the real name is actually Azania).?
How can hebrew be related to certain african languages and not to others , when african languages are one single family?
Why do this continue to happen? white people have the means, the resources and the power to do it, that´s why.
Is it possible to have accurate information about Africa?
People interested in it can do their research. And the best thing is always to go to the source. Most of the lies have been debunked, but unfortunately people are not interested researching that and the most readily available info is the info from the group, who control the media, the perception, and who have the means of spreading his point of view. Never let other people tell you something without going to the source, especially when the people, who do it have an interest pursuing a not so humane agenda.
For the ones reading french, here is an article about “Afro-asiatic”, from the best expert on african linguistic:
Click to access ankh_1_t_obenga_le%20chamito%20semitique.pdf
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I had the chance to learn Hebrew for two years in high school and my teacher was an amazing woman.
She taught us every letter in the hebraic alphabet had a “funny” story. Like this letter, ד (dalet: the hebraic version of D) kind of looks like a door and the Hebrew word for door is very similar to the letter (deleth/daleth).
My name Déborah means “bee” in Hebrew. It’s pronounced “Dvora” and it’s written: דְּבוֹרָה
The hebraic for Hebrew, עִבְרִית is pronounced “ivrit”.
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Some languages can sound wonderful when sung.
I especially like the sound of Portuguese and Polish. Hebrew is another one.
A 17th century Hebrew poem by Shalom Shabazi, a rabbi from Yemen, Arabia, was put to music and sung by Ofra Haza, a singer from a Yemenite Jewish family. This version has modern, disco-like, instrumentation.
The song, “Im Nin’alu” (If they are locked), according to the description accompanying the video, is about angels praising God.
Some of the words in English:
If the doors of the generous ones are locked,
The doors of the sky won’t be locked. (sky refers to heaven/god).
If the doors of the generous ones are locked,
The doors of the sky won’t be locked.
God is alive and sublime to the angels,
In his spirit they’ll rise above….
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkr1V9RZpi8)
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@ Déborah M
Great comment, so interesting.
Can you tell whether you write script from right to left?
Is the language easy to pronounce?
Does your name have a number to go with it?
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http://www.numberman.net/Hebrew_Gem_Calculator.html
my hebrew teacher told me you can’t just learn hebrew to go through old books, you have to learn to speak it!
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@ Bulanik
Yes you write script from right to left, just like in Arabic.
I’m terrible with accents so I’d say it’s not easy to pronounce. Many sounds are pronounced from the throat, like in Arabic.
I’d say the easiest language to learn, to pronounce and to read when you’re a French-speaker is Spanish.
“Does your name have a number to go with it?”
What do you mean?
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Ivrit is the name for Hebrew or modern Hebrew. Hebrew shares a common ancestor with Arabic which is also written right to left and without vowels. In Hebrew grammar you must use different forms of verbs when referring to men and women.
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Great post. Do more of these kind of post. i like learning different things.
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Hebrew became a dead language, But rose again thanks to Elizer Ben-Yehuda. To be the national language of of Isreal. Reference: Hebrew For Dummies, Jill Jacobs.
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Modern Arabic is written without short vowels, but you do write the long vowels.
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Hebrew numbers are sometimes written in hebrew letters.
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@ Mary
“Hebrew numbers are sometimes written in hebrew letters.”
That’s what I believed as well. I was wondering whether the Hebrew letters of Deborah’s name also symbolised a number.
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