There have been a few instances where I ran across someone who wanted to get a (Biblical) Hebrew tattoo and were hoping for a little assistance in terms of the grammar.
The most common question is how to say beloved
in a Hebrew tattoo. Well, I just happen to be an expert on this one. Beloved:
דָּוִד
Lover is the Qal Active Participle of the verb to love
and looks like this:
אֹהֵב
You can see an example of this word in plene in Deuteronomy 10:18. If you are a woman, however, you may want to go the route of the feminine form:
אֹהֶבֶת
You can see an example of this word in Genesis 25:28.
Perhaps you would rather have the tattoo say One Who Is Loved.
That is the Qal Passive Participle and looks like this:
אָהוּב
You can see an example in Nehemiah 13:26. If you are a woman, however, you may want to go the route of the feminine form:
אֲהוּבָה
You can see an example of this word in Deuteronomy 21:15.
Getting new glasses is sweet. Getting new prescriptions sucks. Seeing things in a whole new perspective, priceless. For some odd reason, my eyeballs decide to change shape over the course of every new decade, which causes my sight to become blurred and changes my whole perspective of the world–literally. Of course, the change takes place slowly over a long period of time so that my mind gets used to seeing things according to whatever shape my eyes are in. When the new lenses come in, it is a bitter sweetness. Everything jumps out into amazing 3-D clarity. I marvel at the sight of individual leaves on trees, the faces of strangers in the dark, distant road signs that are entirely readable… And yet, I know there is going to be a good headache for the next day or two and everything is going to look somehow skewed for the next week as my mind copes with and tries to get used to the sudden changes…like height (somehow I and everything else around me managed to shrink about a half a foot). Fortunately, even though things look smaller or further or closer or whatever than they did before…I am not bumping into things. Somehow my mind knows that the space is no different even though my eyes tell me otherwise. Creation is incredible. Praise be to YHWH.
The hardest thing to do was trying to forget the meanings and interpretations imposed on me by other translations or tradition so that I could, hopefully, make decisions based more on the grammar and narrative of the text itself than on my own presuppositions or theological leanings. However, as I learn more about the Ancient Near East, I do hope to use that as a direct influence. Here, for example, I have translated verse one with heaven and earth
since this was a common phrase in the ancient world (for example, the Sumerian ziggurat, Etemenanki, house of the foundation of heaven and earth
). The phrase signified the entirety of the physical/material world. I now present the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1-6 as taken from the 1983 BHS Michigan-Claremont electronic text along with my humble translation.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אֹור וַֽיְהִי־אֹֽור׃
וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאֹור כִּי־טֹוב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאֹור וּבֵין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃
וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים ׀ לָאֹור יֹום וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹקֶר יֹום אֶחָֽד׃ פ
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתֹוךְ הַמָּיִם וִיהִי מַבְדִּיל בֵּין מַיִם לָמָֽיִם׃
Genesis 1:1-6
1. In a beginning, Elohim created heaven and earth. 2. But the earth was vacuous and uninhabited, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and a wind of Elohim was swooping over the surface of the water. 3. Then Elohim said, “Let there be light” and light was there. 4. Then Elohim saw that the light was good and made a separation between the light and the darkness. 5. And Elohim called, “Day!” in reference to the light. And in reference to the darkness, Elohim called, “Night!” And evening was there. And morning was there. Day one. 6. Then Elohim said, “Let there be a broadened space in the midst of the water and let a separation be there between waters for the water.”
Genesis 1:1-6
