With God all things are possible
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| The Hebrew Bible , or Old Testament , was written over a period of 1,000 years , primarily in Hebrew. As you might expect the language changed a great deal over that time.
Toward the end of the Old Testament period, Hebrew actually began to die out as a spoken language, partly as a result of Jew's intermarriage and assimilation with other cultures. We see this in Nehemiah's distress over the Jews who had married foreigners nd whose children could not even speak " the language of Judah". Nehemiah 13:23-24
By Jesus' day, most Jews in Israel spoke Aramid, a Syrian based language similar to Hebrew. Those Jews who had scattered throughout the Mediterranean world spoke Greek and perhaps local dialects. This becomes apparent in the response of the crowd at Pentecost Acts 2:6-11. These Jews pilgrims were visiting Jerusalem from many different cities, but it took a miracle for all of them to understand the same language,
For more than 2,000 years, Hebrew was kept alive only among rabbis. Then, about 100 years ago, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a Lithuanian Jew, worked tirelessly for its revival as a spoken language. Certainly the establishment of the nation of Israel and its adoption of the odeon Hebrew helped make that a reality. Modern Hebrew is based upon Biblical Hebrew and Talmudic Aramaic, and it's traces of German and Russian.
Psalm 77:11 I will call to mind the deeds of The Lord; I will remember your wonders of old.
The Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) is a wonderful candidate for illumination. It's ancient cultural settings, are treasure troves for fact finding, since customs, tools, weights and measures and even calendars, to name a few things, were different from our own today. The aold Trstament is not merely facts. Instead, they have the potential to be valuable insights that can deepen your joy while reading the Old Testament.
For it was WITH God all things are possible.
Have a BLESSED Thursday
Father God, guide me today to do all things that will bring glory and honor to You. Father , Lay Yôur hand if protecting grace (favor) over California fires victims, and Louisiania floods. This is devastating to see the destruction of both. May they all seek You for guidance and comfort Amen  |
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