Question by Don R: Bible Readers: Can you solve the mystery of this untranslated Bible word, if I give you a few clues?
22 times, through the Hebrew Old Testament (Tanakh), there are two Hebrew letters joined “Aleph” and “Tav”. This word would be like us putting A and Z together as AZ at various locations in a book. Aleph and Tav are the first and last letters of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These 22 “AlephTavs” are not translated into our English bibles. For example: In Genesis chapter one, it reads in Hebrew “In the beginning, created YHVH, AlephTav, heavens and earth”. From the very beginning, God calls Himself, basically, the ‘First-Last’ letter. So, why do you supposed these Aleph/Tavs (first and last letter of the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet) are spread 22 times throughout the Old Testament? And why were they not carried forward in translations? Furthermore, do you find a link to what Jesus (Yeshua haMashiach) calls Himself in Revelation?
Best answer:
Answer by John quill
And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.
9 Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in the dark.
10 And the blood of the saints shall cry from the ground against them.
11 Yea, they have all gone out of the way; they have become corrupted.
Add your own answer in the comments!
The Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Here is the Greek equivalent
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Rev 1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send [it] unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Rev 22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
This is another nominee for the PaleoBabble Aaaargghhh! Award. A spellbinding example of truly craptastic Bible interpretation (not to mention the old bromide about knowing enough to be dangerous).
In the real world of biblical knowledge, the aleph and tav spell what is known as the accusative marker (and scholars have known it for millennia – no mystery here). It is not translated since it is a grammatical/syntactical pointer. It is a two letter word that points to (in most instances) the direct object of a sentence (clause) in Hebrew. Other ancient semitic languages have aleph-tav to mark the direct object (the accusative): Ugaritic, Pheonician, Aramaic, etc. I guess Jesus is in these pagan inscriptions too!
את (et) has not equivalent in English. It’s a term used to indicate a direct object.