As most of you know, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. The five Books of Moses were in Hebrew and, according to Jewish tradition, were dictated to Moses by the Lord not word-by-word, but letter-by-letter. Greek is an old language, but the Hebrew culture is much older than the Greek. I suspect that the Greek alphabet was derived from the Hebrew. For example the first four letters of Greek are: alpha, beta, gamma, delta. The first four letters of Hebrew are: aleph, beit (pronounced bait), gimel, dalet. You can see the similarities.

It is unfortunate that most of us, including me, cannot read the Bible in the original language. The names of people and places have meaning in Hebrew, which would assist us in greater understanding of the Scripture.

The Lord also inserted alliteration, puns and other wordplay in Scripture. Again, if we could read in Hebrew, the Word of God would be just that much more delightful to regard. The Book of Micah contains such wordplay. The following are phrases taken from Micah 1:10-15. I have given the Scripture, followed by the interpretation. The definitions are from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Gesenius’s Lexicon.

• Tell it not in Gath. (Tell it not in Tell.)
  
• In the House of Beth Ophrah roll in the dust. (In the House of Dust roll in the dust.)
  
• Those who live in Zaanan will not come out. (Those who live in Come Out will not come out.)
  
• Those who live in Maroth writhe in pain. (Those who live in Bitter writhe in pain.)
  
• You who live in Lachish, harness the team to the chariot. (You who live in Team, harness the team to the chariot.)
  
• The town of Aczib will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel. (The town of Deception will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel.)
  
• I will bring a conqueror against you who live in Mareshah. (I will bring a conqueror against you who live in Conquer.)

Praise the Lord for Jesus, who gives us living water. (John 4:10 & 7:38)