For those who do not know it, many names within the Bible have been changed or translated over the years in addition to the text. Good, God-fearing translations are an awesome way of getting God’s word into the language in which a people can understand it without them having to learn a different language, which can be a barrier. However, I have found it quite helpful and enlightening at times to dig deeper into the history of Greek and Hebrew translations of the Bible for better understanding of context and meaning. Clearly it takes more time, but not that much more. A good keyword study bible can give you a lot of background on the original Hebrew and Greek meaning of key words. More recently, I have begun a journey to learn Hebrew. I want to understand God’s instructions to us in the context of the language He created for us.

Two quick examples, which perhaps some of you already know, to illustrate the point.

Jesus was originally pronounced “Yeshua” in Hebrew, though I am typing it in English letters here. The Hebrew letters are very different and I need to figure out how to load a “Hebrew” keyboard onto my computer to be able to enable Hebrew characters. Yeshua means “salvation”. The Romans changed the ending from an “a” sound to an “s” so as to denote  masculine in their language.  Later the English added the letter “J” to the alphabet and it changed again.

Jehovah essentially means “eternal one”. He will be, He is, and He has been. I may not be getting the grammar structure quite right, but you get the idea.

Anyway, you can see with a little digging  to get closer to the original roots of the scripture the meaning starts to open up more and more. It is not just a name, but each name has significance. It brings us closer to knowing what God intended.

Learning another language is not for everyone or for everyone right now. But I do encourage you to consider a key word study Bible for Hebrew and Greek and to start using the internet to explore the meaning of the scripture more deeply for yourself. Of course, test everything against what scripture says. You can not believe everything that someone says on the internet. Even those of us who are well-intended will not get everything right. Seek God Himself and His help on your journey. He will not fail you.

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