Sisters Standing Strong
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
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Love
We have idioms, such as “something you can hang your hat on.” Hebrew and Aramaic have many idioms that are unfamiliar to us.
In Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as in other Semitic languages, the words themselves have an action behind them. The action is sort of implied in the word. Once you know the action, you’ll have something that helps you to remember that word.
Each letter or character in Semitic languages goes back to a very ancient pictograph. These ancient pictures even predate Hebrew. Each picture (represented in a letter) was something common to everyday life. Each letter combined into a word helped in the understanding of what the word meant.
You can see the characters in very old Hebrew paint a picture that we can see. The first letter (on the right) looks like an ancient stone fence, and the second letter (on the left) looks like a one-room house.
The Greeks turn it around because they write from left to right like we do. Most of the houses in ancient times were two-story, so they added a second story, and that’s how we get the letter B.
When those two ancient letters are put together, the picture of the “fence of house” or the “fence of family.” Everyone who is inside the house or the family is guarded on the outside by a wall or fence—and that fence is love! Think of that picture when you read about love, such as “God is love.”
Once you know what the picture is, you then need to know what the underlying action is. The action of the simple word for “love” is “to breathe on” or “to kindle like a fire.” You can imagine blowing (breathing) on a fire to kindle it.
When you do a word study on love, three things stand out that show how we can love one another.
1. To be dear or to cherish
Deuteronomy 33:3 ESV:
Yes, he loved (hobeb) his people, all his holy ones were in his hand; so they followed in your steps, receiving direction from you,
God loved his people. He took care of them, guarding them and giving them manna in the desert every day (except on the sabbath) for forty years. He fed them. He cared for them. He watched over them. He protected them. He gave them direction; He guided them with His words. God’s love was active, moving, doing things, and going places.
Isaiah 40:11 ESV:
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
John 1:18 KJV:
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
The shepherd’s robe had a pocket in which he could carry a lamb. That’s what “in the bosom” means. The lamb could not jump up into the pocket, the shepherd would have to pick it up and place it there.
When we love others, we can draw them to us to comfort and encourage them.
2. Providing and protecting one another.
We get the word “alphabet” from the first two Hebrew letters: Aleph and Beth.
The letters Aleph א and He ה. Aleph א means “the strong one.” He ה gives us the picture of a man with his hands upraised like he’s shouting “Hey!” and it means “behold” or “revealed.”
This version of the word for “love” means “the strong one revealed to the family.” God is the strong one. He’s not only the epitome of love; He’s also the Father of the family.
The Aramaic word for “sister” is khti also has the idea of “fence” in it. “My sister” is like “my fence.”
The Hebrew word El means “the strong one.” In Hebrew, “love” and “to give” are closely related.
Zephaniah 3:17 ESV:
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Being inside the fence of God’s family is like a refuge.
Romans 5:6–9 APNT:
6 Now if Christ at this time, because of our weakness, died for the ungodly,
7 (for seldom does anyone die for the ungodly, although for good [ones] perhaps some would dare to die)
8 here God has manifested his love that is toward us, because if when we were sinners, Christ died for us,
9 then how much more will we be justified now by his blood and be rescued from wrath by him?
In the book The Armor of Victory it talks about the principality of Beelzebub. Beelzebub is called “the prince of the devils” (Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15). That name in Aramaic means “lord of words.” His main tactic is to use words to dominate and control people.
1 John 4:9–12 APNT:
9 By this the love of God toward us is known, because God sent his unique Son into the world that we would have life by him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but [that] he loved us and sent his Son [as] a payment for our sins.
11 My beloved [ones], if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is completed in us.
3. God has made us the apple of His eye
Deuteronomy 32:9– ESV:
9 But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. 10 “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
The “apple of the eye” is the pupil. He created us so that we have eyebrows that filter the sunlight to protect the pupils from ultraviolet light. The eyelashes prevent things from coming into your eyes. When we blink we wash our eyes.
God says he keeps us as the pupil of His eye!
The Hebrew idiom is of the little man in the eye. If you look closely in someone’s eye, you see a reflection of yourself. God holds us so closely that he never ever stops looking at us. People look away, but God doesn’t.
Sal Arico: You are the Apple of My Eye:
Ephesians 5:1–2 APNT:
1 Therefore, imitate God as beloved sons.
2 And walk in love, as Christ also loved us and delivered himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smell.
Ephesians 4:1–2 APNT:
1 I, therefore, a prisoner in our Lord, beg you that you should walk as is proper for the calling that you were called,
2 with all humbleness of mind and quietness and long-suffering. And hold up one another in love
See Also
Aramaic New Testament Android App
Scripture References
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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