Hebrew Word Origins: From Ancient Cries to Modern Sirens - NehemiasWall.com

[00:00:03]A long time after the king of Egypt died, the Israelites were groaning under the bondage and they cried out in the Hebrew and they cried out Vayyiṣʿaqu.

[00:00:11]Right? It's the same root as Azaka or Azakot, which is um sirens.

[00:00:16]Um so why is a siren from the word crying out? And that has to do with So there's different conjugations in Hebrew. This is the Kal conjugation.

[00:00:25]If you look at the Nifal conjugation, it says all the troops in the city gathered to pursue them. And the word isn't gathered. It says Vayyiṣaʿaqu.

[00:00:35]And they responded to the cry.

[00:00:38]Right? So Lehiṣaek, the Nifal Niṣak, is to respond to someone who's crying. And what are they crying? They're crying, "Help! We're at war! You have to come and join the military. You have to come and join the army. We're being attacked." Right? They didn't have standing armies in ancient times. So someone's job It was someone's job to go through the villages and the towns and shout at the top of their lungs, "We need your help. We need to defend ourselves."

[00:01:03]And that's um from the word uh Zaak. And so that's where we get the modern Hebrew Azaka. It's a siren that goes off to warn people about the um rockets that are coming in.

[00:01:18]So Azakot here is sirens, but what it really means is when there's a siren in Israel, depending where you are, you have anywhere from a few seconds in Jerusalem. I had 90 seconds to run to a bomb shelter or to a um secure room. And secure room isn't is just a bomb shelter. That's one of the rooms in your apartment.

[00:01:37]Every apartment built after 1993, every house built after 1993 has a bomb shelter room. It's usually one of the kids' bedrooms.

[00:01:45]Um So Azakot means the sirens that lead us to run into the bomb shelters.

[00:01:51]Um Next one here is Harada'ash Ol Al Ol Hamatzav, Which is anxiety that comes up in light of the situation.

[00:02:03]And we were talking about the word so you know that word from a common word that that we hear in modern Israeli society.

[00:02:10]What's that word?

[00:02:12]Haredi.

[00:02:13]Or Haredim. So what's Haredi Haredim?

[00:02:17]Or in English they'll sometimes say Haredim. Or ultra-Orthodox. So so what does it what does it mean? Well, I just told you what it means. But it it refer it actually comes from a verse in the Tanakh.

[00:02:28]Um there's a group of Jews in both Israel and and overseas who call themselves Haredim.

[00:02:35]Um Harad is the word that means to to shake.

[00:02:39]Isaac was seized with violent trembling and the word is and he shook.

[00:02:45]Like that's what means.

[00:02:48]And from that we get the word Haredim which is actually from a verse in the Tanakh.

[00:02:55]Um which I'll find in a second here.

[00:02:57]Um And the verse is hear the word of Jehovah.

[00:03:04]And the English you who are concerned about his word. In the Hebrew it's those who tremble towards his word. Right? So they hear his word it's towards even directional.

[00:03:17]And they they tremble when they hear it.

[00:03:19]They tremble with with awe.

[00:03:21]Um so and they and by the way that that's Haredim here from the singular one who shakes.

[00:03:29]But then they derived another form which is Haredi. It's called in modern Hebrew the singular.

[00:03:35]Um from that plural in Isaiah 66:5.

[00:03:38]So that is is the word for anxiety.

[00:03:41]Yeah. Could you could you go back to a concordance and go back to the very first verse that came up when you did that search? It's just it illustrates one of the things I love about about Hebrew the language in general. And it says that the JPS translation says and Isaac was seized with a very violent trembling. Mhm. [clears throat] And can you explain where they get the idea of violent trembling? How do they know it was violent or if there was some kind of intensity to it?

[00:04:05]>> Vayechalad and he shook Isaac and Isaac shook or trembled charada gedola a great trembling ad me'od until very much.

[00:04:17]That's literally what it says.

[00:04:19]So they're like, well, how do we translate that? Like cuz that's a very Semitic expression, a very Hebrew expression. It doesn't translate perfectly.

[00:04:26]And Isaac shook a great trembling until very much, right? So he's shaking violently is what it means, right? So they're kind of paraphrasing it. Yeah.

[00:04:35]It's definitely it's a very vivid image in Hebrew.

[00:04:39]And even in modern Hebrew you do this where you you use words with the same roots very close to each other, right?

[00:04:44]>> Oh, absolutely, for sure. That that's that's another um Semitic form of sort of like type of repetition [clears throat] is very common in Semitic languages.

[00:04:56]So charada sholalet metzav is anxiety that comes up, literally trembling, but it's the word for anxiety that comes up in light of the situation.