Towards, unto, into and in Theos

We have already seen in the previous blog entry how that the preposition ‘el אל (‘to’ or ‘unto’) can be shortened, or truncated, down to one letter, that is the letter ל (l), and still retain the sense of ‘to’ or ‘unto’. This was seen in the format ‘I will be to them for ‘elohym and they shall be to me for a people’. Recurring, as it does, in the prophecies of Yehezq’el and Yeremyahu.

This, again, is relevant to the argument about the use of the homographic ‘el אל and its transferable meanings. Truncation in prepositions is a common phenomenon in biblical Hebrew. These prepositions are pre-positioned directly in front of the word which they govern and are directly attached to the beginning of that word. An interesting occurrence is the use of לאל in place of the longer form אל־אל (to/unto ‘el). Both forms occur in the Hebrew Old Testament and it is possible that the longer form creates a greater emphasis on the ‘to’/’unto’ sense.

The same truncation process also occurs with other prepositions such as מ (m) from the long form מן (min) meaning ‘from’/’of’ and ש (sh) from the long form אשר (‘asher), meaning ‘who’.

Furthermore, and perhaps of significance in the progression of this blog is the use of the preposition ב (b). This letter is known as ‘beth’ and is taken from the word for house (beth בית). Early Hebrew, both paleo-Hebrew and before that proto-sinaitic, are somewhat pictorial in nature and letters seem to bear a resemblance to certain things which they then bear the name of. In this case the letter ‘beth’ is supposed to, in a pictorial form, represent a house. In any case, one of the primary meanings of ב when prefixing another word is that of ‘in’. This heightens the relationship of the truncated ב with the word from which it was seemingly taken (בית – house) because the journey ‘into’ ends with being ‘in’ and the final ‘in’ is often in a/the house. Thus:

And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to Yahweh: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house (בבית), because she hid the messengers that we sent. (Yehoshua’ 6.17)

So here, as with Noah, salvation is dependent on being in the house and, presumably, her relatives, after being called by her, had to make that journey unto, before being in, the house.

A common use of the preposition ל (l) is in the term לעולם (le’olam), usually translated ‘for ever’ but really meaning ‘to/for the age’. The use of the truncated ל (l) in this phrase will be useful in upcoming blogs in considering ‘el אל as not only a journey in distance but also in time.