Bryan supplied several good reasons for pastors to learn Hebrew in the form of verses from Hosea. For those who are regular readers of this blog it should come as no surprise that I think pastors ought to know Hebrew and Greek, and know them well. I also think that laity ought to learn the original languages as a matter of course. I think someone’s religious experience can only benefit from learning the original languages.

So, since Bryan was nice enough to provide some reasons for learning Hebrew, I thought I might provide an example as well. The Hebrew Bible is filled with various word plays. These commonly occur in the poetic sections of the canon, though they are not uncommon in the prose sections as well. In particular I direct your attention to 1 Samuel 6.5 which reads:

ועשיתם צלמי עפליכם וצלמי עצבריכם המשחיתם את־הארץ ונתתם לאלהי ישראל כבוד אולי יקל את־ידו מעליכם ומעל אלהיכם ומעל ארצכם

English: You shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats, the ones destroying the land. Also you shall give glory to the God of Israel, perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you and from upon your gods and from upon your land.

Some background to this verse is necessary. The Ark of the Covenant had recently been lost to the Philistines. The circumstances surrounding that event, although interesting, have no direct bearing on the point of this post. Suffice it to say that the Philistines got more than they bargained for. First they put the Ark in Dagon’s temple. Apparently YHVH didn’t like sharing a house because within a couple days Dagon’s idol had been pretty well demolished. After this, the Ark gets passed around the Philistine cities, and wherever it is the Philistines are afflicted with tumors (and…uh…rats?). As you might imagine it doesn’t take them long to figure out they want nothing to do with Israel’s God, and so they ask their religious leaders what they ought to do. Verse five, above, is part of the instructions which they are given.

The really fun bit is a wordplay that simply doesn’t come through in English. The Philistines are told to give glory (כבוד) to the God of Israel. The idea being that if they do so, maybe YHVH will “lighten (יקל) his hand.” In other words, maybe YHVH will stop afflicting them. The fun thing here is that the basic meaning of כבוד has to do with being heavy. The juxtaposition of the two words creates a subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, wordplay. The Philistines ought to make God heavy, and perhaps he will lighten his hand.¹

One would never notice the wordplay in an English translation since our word “glory” has no relation to our word “heavy.” Limiting oneself to reading the Bible in English ensures that one will never be exposed to the plethora of brilliant literary features within the text. Learning Biblical Hebrew is an activity in which all serious students of the Bible ought to be engaged.