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| Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and wife Hemda |
The Man and the Miracle that Revived Hebrew: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
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“For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah and the Word of LORD (YHVH) from Jerusalem.” - Isaiah 2:3
Would you like to know Hebrew?
You may be surprised to discover how many Hebrew words you already do know, such as halleluyah, amen, and shalom.
Let’s take a brief look at what these three words really mean and discover the man and the miracle that has revived the Hebrew language around the world after 2,000 years of linguistic exile.
Halleluyah actually consists of two Hebrew words: hallelu, meaning praise (a plural imperative) and Yah (shortened form of Yahweh, the personal name for God and often written as LORD)
Amen, a Hebrew word commonly said in prayer means dependable, faithful, certain and true.
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| Orthodox Jewish children watch as Israelis gather at the Western (Wailing) Wall for prayer. |
This word has the connotation of faith, since its root A-M-N can mean faithful, have faith, believe, reliable, confirmed, and to be firm.
Amen is often translated as truly or verily in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament), which we will see later is quite Hebraic.
“In that day you will not question Me about anything.
"Truly, truly, (amen, amen) I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” - (John 16:23)
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| The Hebrew word Shalom, read from right to left. |
And, of course, people around the globe know the Hebrew word shalom, but not many know that it means much more than peace.
It encompasses wholeness, blessing, and well-being.
It is also used conversationally to greet others hello and goodbye.
The Miracle of the Survival of Hebrew
Hebrew has against all odds defied extinction.
The fact that it’s now a modern language used daily by more than seven million people in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world is an absolute miracle.
Logically, Hebrew should have died out two millennia ago after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70 and defeated the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, resulting in the scattering (Diaspora) of God’s Chosen People to lands near and far.
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| The Great Synagogue on Dohány Street in Budapest, Hungary |
But Hebrew didn’t completely fade away.
It survived primarily in the synagogues and yeshivas (Jewish seminaries) as a scholarly and liturgical language.
While noticeable differences between Ancient and Modern Hebrew exist, they are not drastic.
In fact, if Moses were to return today, he would likely understand modern Hebrew, though he would have to learn some new words as well as adjust to some differences in syntax (arrangement of words to form a sentence).
Some of these syntax changes are due to the influence of Yiddish, a combination of German, Hebrew, Slavic, and other European dialects that became the spoken vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews in central and eastern Europe beginning in the ninth century.
And, of course, many words had to be introduced to accommodate technical and cultural innovations.
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| Jewish-reads-prayer-holy-book-Western-Wailing-Wall |
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda: Father of Modern Hebrew
Throughout the Tanakh (Old Testament), we see men of courage leading the Jewish People out of their exile and into their destiny: God used Moses to bring the children of Israel out of slavery into freedom.
He used Joshua to bring them out of the wilderness into the Promised Land.
And He used Cyrus to bring them out of Babylon and even help them rebuild the Temple.
The movement of Jews back to the Biblical land of Israel in the last two centuries required many such courageous partners and visionaries.
In the area of language, God used a man named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda to help teach the Jewish People leaving the Diaspora how to speak Hebrew again in modern pre-state Israel, a move of God that was prophesied 2,700 years ago:
“Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west.
"I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
"Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth.” - (Isaiah 43:6)
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| Eliezer Ben_Yehuda |
Ben-Yehuda, whose name means son of Judah, was born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman in Luzhki, located in the former Soviet territory and modern nation of Belarus.
He believed that the revival of the Hebrew language in the Land of Israel could be the key to uniting the scattered Jews.
As such, he rejected the Diaspora lifestyle, including the speaking of Yiddish and other regional dialects.
History has proved his strategy to be successful.
Ben-Yehuda: Radical Approach to Reviving Hebrew
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda took a radical approach to his mission: some might even say fanatical!
He insisted that only Hebrew be spoken in his home.
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| Yarkon Park, Tel Aviv: |
He is even reported to have admonished his wife after hearing her sing a Russian lullaby to their child.
The first native speaker of Modern Hebrew was his son, Ben-Zion (Zion’s son), who also was only allowed to speak Hebrew.
His extreme efforts paid off.
By setting an example in his own family and taking students into his home to learn Hebrew, along with the help of others passionate for the cause of national unity, he helped to start a linguistic revival.
The Development of Modern Hebrew
Ben-Yehuda’s deep calling and conviction caused him to push forward even amid ultra-religious Jews who accused him and his work of being blasphemous.
After millennia of isolated use, Hebrew had been viewed by these Orthodox Jews as the one and only Holy Language, which should be spoken only during prayer and in the synagogue.
Through one of the newspapers that he edited, Ha-Zvi, Ben-Yehuda not only promoted his edgy Hebrew vernacular, he waged war against certain religious practices and customs in the Land, which led to his arrest and the closing of the paper for fourteen months in 1894.
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| Eliezer_Ben-Yehuda_at_his_desk_in_Jerusalem |
In 1890, he established the Hebrew Language Committee (Va’ad ha-lashon ha-Ivrit).
The Committee set out to establish uniform standards in grammar, terminology, and pronunciation that would be used throughout schools, commerce, and government.
It published bulletins and dictionaries and established thousands of Hebrew words that are in everyday use today.
Ben-Yehuda’s English–Hebrew / Hebrew–English Dictionary is still one of the most commonly used dictionaries.
Ben-Yehuda, who immigrated a year before the First Aliyah movement (1882–1903), saw the fruit of his efforts in the Second Aliyah (1904-1914).
In this movement, 35,000 olim (immigrants), mostly from Russia, entered the Ottoman-ruled land of pre-state Israel and many embraced Hebrew as their new spoken and written language.
In 1922, with the region now under control of the British Mandate of Palestine, Ben-Yehuda and his supporters crossed a great milestone — the formal declaration of Hebrew as one of the land’s three official languages, alongside English and Arabic.
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| A view of the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives |
Near the end of that year, on December 16th, Ben-Yehuda died at age 64 of tuberculosis, a sickness he suffered from for most of his life.
Such was the honor and respect that the Israeli people had for him that 30,000 people attended his funeral. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
To honor Ben-Yehuda, large Israeli cities often have a street named after him.
In fact, the most famous and busy streets in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are named Ben Yehuda Street.
In the book Was Hebrew Ever a Dead Language?, Cecil Roth succinctly summarized Ben-Yehuda’s contribution this way: “Before Ben-Yehuda, Jews speak Hebrew; after him, they did.”
Just five years after the Modern State of Israel was reborn in 1948, the Israeli government replaced The Hebrew Language Committee with the Academy of the Hebrew Language, which operates out of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The Academy continues to create new words from Hebrew root word structures as it replaces loaned words derived from other languages.
It also continues to set standards for Modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based on the historical development of the language.
Though it has been labeled Israel’s “language police,” the Academy considers its decisions binding only on formal speeches and written texts.
Though Hebrew is now the native tongue of new generations of Israelis and integrated throughout society here, in the ultra-Orthodox religious neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, some still reject Hebrew and use Yiddish for their everyday spoken language.
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| The Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem |
Even so, when they pay bills, deal with Israeli companies on the phone, and interact with the larger society, they do have to speak Hebrew.
The Hebrew Bible
While Aramaic was at one time the common language of the Israeli people, including Yeshua (Jesus), it accounts for less than one percent of the Tanakh (Old Testament), which was written primarily in Hebrew.
Out of the over 23,000 verses in the Tanakh, only 250 are written in Aramaic. We find Aramaic, for example, in Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Daniel 2:4b–7:28, and Jeremiah 10:11.
And although the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) is written primarily in Greek with some Aramaic, it is very Hebraic in nature.
Why?
The apostle Paul who wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the Brit Chadashah even identified himself as being “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee.” - (Philippians 3:5)
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| A Jewish man reads the Torah |
For that reason alone, learning Hebrew helps us to better understand the true plans and purposes of God.
Roy Blizzard, Jr. in Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus said,
“If any additional advances are to be made, especially in better-understanding the words of Jesus, the concentration must shift to the study of Hebrew history and culture, and above all, the Hebrew language.”
“For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah and the Word of LORD (YHVH) from Jerusalem.” - Isaiah 2:3
First and foremost, our mission is ministering to Jewish people with love and comfort.
“Comfort, comfort my people (Israel), says your God.” - Isaiah 40
Located in the Holy Land, the Bibles For Israel ministry is producing the first-ever Messianic Prophecy Bible.
We educate Jewish people on the prophecies about the Messiah in the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures), showing the truths by defining the Messianic and rabbinical points of view.
Not only are we creating the free Messianic Prophecy Bible in print form, we are tirelessly working on the creation of free Bible software for mobile and computer devices.
free.messianicbible.com
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