hwhy rme)yo,wa “And God said”
This short Hebrew phrase (pronounced va-yo-mer Yahveh) is extremely common in the Old Testament. In fact, these two words, God’s name and the verb “to speak”, make up about 4% of the entire vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible. This is obviously significant. Why is it that speech is such a common theme in the Scriptures, and why is God so often depicted as speaking? It seems that words and speech are essential to our understanding of who the God of the Bible is. Scripture tells us numerous things about God, and many of them are described in terms of words and speech. God is the Creator, but how exactly did He create the heavens and the earth? Genesis 1 shows us that He spoke them into being. God is our Redeemer, but how did he accomplish our redemption? John 1 says that Christ is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. God has made Himself known to His people, but just how do we know things about Him? 1 Cor. 2 says that God reveals Himself to us through His Word, the Scriptures, and enables us to understand it by the Holy Spirit.
Since language and speech are an important attribute of God, I think it is safe to assume that they are important attributes of us as well, being created in His image. Language is something that we use to create, to convey knowledge and meaning, to relate to and do good to others. Language study is therefore a very large aspect of what a school does, and how we teach it ought to be considered carefully.
Now, every school ever established has surely included language study as a part of its curriculum. It is in Christian societies, however, that education has historically placed a greater emphasis on language than in most other societies of the world. The Puritans required each child to learn how to read because they understood that “the most basic knowledge is of the Word of God, and of every area of life viewed in terms of God’s Word.”1 For them, language study was not just one subject among many. It was of the utmost importance because it enabled the student to read and understand Scripture. Without a knowledge of the Bible, which is the foundation for all knowledge, they believed that instruction in other areas was useless.
Likewise, when it came to study of foreign languages, the Puritans started with Greek and Hebrew, often as early as age 6. If their purpose of studying language was to understand Scripture, why should their purpose of foreign language study be any different? Why not study the languages which would enable students to gain a greater knowledge of the Bible as they read the original text? These are questions which we ought to ask ourselves today as well.
There seem to be two mistaken assumptions which cause the Christians of today to question the wisdom of the Puritans. These assumptions have led to the scarcity of Greek and especially Hebrew language study in Christian schools. The first is that most students will not use the Biblical languages in their adult lives. The second related assumption is that because the purpose of foreign language study in general is essentially pragmatic, it is therefore useless to teach Greek and Hebrew.
I would like to address the second of these assumptions first, because if it is true that it is only helpful to teach students things they will use for the rest of their lives, then we must re-think a lot of what we teach. Why study poetry? Or trigonometry? Why perform drama or read classic literature? Most students will not directly use these things in their vocations. But this line of thinking assumes that doing these things will prevent the study of more immediately “practical” subjects. It doesn’t! Douglas Wilson explains:
We tend to think of our students’ minds as finite shoeboxes, and we then think we must take special care not to put anything in there if we do not want it to remain there for life. But the brain is more like a muscle. A student who learns one language, such as Latin, is not stuck with his shoebox three-quarters full, with no room for Spanish. Rather the student has a mind that has been stretched and exercised in such a way that subsequent learning is much easier, not much harder.2
Learning difficult subjects like trigonometry or Hebrew does not hinder a student’s ability to learn other subjects that may be more useful in his or her adult life. Just the reverse! It will instead strengthen their ability to gain more knowledge and understanding of other subjects in the future.
The study of Biblical Hebrew has a particularly great capacity for “stretching” the minds of students. Hebrew is utterly foreign to Americans in nearly every way. It has a different alphabet, with foreign characters and vowel points. It is read from right to left, versus left to right. Its vocabulary and word order work very differently from English. It has numerous prefixes and suffixes, and often one Hebrew word may take 4 or 5 English words to translate. In short, learning Hebrew is difficult. But it forces students to think and reason in ways they are not normally used to, which allows them to see the world, their studies, and the Bible in ways that they would not otherwise be able to. And it prepares them for other difficult subjects that lay ahead of them. If a student has mastered a difficult language like Hebrew, other complex languages such as algebra or musical notation will not be nearly as hard.
The second common misconception is that Greek and Hebrew do not have any practical benefits for adults. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking both languages will, of course, profit those who go on to pastoral or other teaching ministry in the Church, and hopefully will inspire many to do so. However, students seeking non-ministerial vocations will also gain some very important benefits. Familiarity with the idioms, the structures, and the thought patterns of Greek and Hebrew really does make Scripture pour forth its meaning. Study of these Biblical languages will encourage students to know God’s word more deeply, to be permeated with it, and to enjoy it. The Bible applies to all of life, and is essential to how we worship, how we think, and how we work. If students can learn to enjoy reading God’s word and to give thanks for it as a gift from God, they will be prepared for a lifetime of reading and applying Scripture. Digging into the original text, hearing the words which God spoke and continues to speak, can be a wonderful tool in this process.
Mastery of those words, however, is not the ultimate goal. Rather, knowledge of the words of Scripture ought to lead us to the knowledge of Christ who is the Word made flesh. This is the ultimate purpose of language study and of all study in the Christian school.
1. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1981), 86.
2. Douglas Wilson, The Case for Classical Christian Education (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 140.
Thank you for this article, I find to very encouraging as I try to learn Biblical Hebrew.
On a technical note on your website it seem that after the quote by Douglas Wilson the right side words seem to be cut off a little. Can you fix this?
Randy Talbot
Thanks for pointing out the formatting error. Glad to be an encouragement!
Hearing is linear.
But we are to build spaces (tabernacles, etc.)
How resolve this?
Peter Leithart in Credenda on Rosenstock-Huessy mentions something such as this:
Time is episodic, formed by speech. Timelines turn times into spaces. (A man and a woman vowing marriage make empires, ERH says elsewhere).
(CH: Covenant Renewal Worship, e.g.).
Therefore, to build the spaces, we need heard language. What is the first commandment, ERH asks: Hearken, Israel.
You might at least have a Hebrew and Greek word of the day, on the Lord’s Day, with the Hebrew and Greek alphabet somewhere on teh walls (columns in the ancient world sometimes had Eden at the top (flowers, etc.), sometimes words).
In an LCMS church in Des MOines, Iowa, they have a tri-lingual service. Sudanese, Lao, English.
I propose that our services should have various types of music in sequence, and various languages, in some sense.
ERH says that the order of service is: Imperative, subjuncitve, past, eternal indicative. Magna Carta Latina.
Thus we build the spaces we are to build, by amening God’s speech, don’t we?
There is much work to be done.
You are stepping out in the right way.
Thanks!
Love in King Jesus,
Chuck
member/ambassador
We can certainly start our children out on languages while they’re quite young. I started learning Hebrew as a child both at home in prayers, and in Hebrew school three days a week. Greek Orthodox children go to Greek school in their churches.
Hassidic youth in Williamsburg, New York, start learning the Hebrew alphabet, the “alephbes” as they call it in Yiddish, at age three. Then they get to read the Jewish scriptures in Hebrew, and the Talmud in Aramaic-Hebrew jargon. Their native language is Yiddish, which uses the Hebrew alphabet. Oh, yes, they also have to learn English in school. So it can take them four languages to get through a day, three of which use what we call the Hebrew alphabet (it’s actually the Aramaic alphabet, the ancient Hebrew alphabet having been discontinued long ago).