Hebrew and Greek help with the word WORD

***Semper Fidelis*** · #1 (**permalink**) 01-31-2009, 11:24 AM

Doing a word study of Word and this is what Logos came up with:

Why are so many Hebrew and Greek words translated as words and what are the different meanings? I can get a sense for them in the context but any broad or specific thoughts would helpful.

***fredtgreco*** · #2 (**permalink**) 01-31-2009, 11:39 AM

Rich,

The initial point is that words do have shades of meaning, so there can be many synonyms, just as in English. "word" "saying" "comment" "story" etc.

There is also the fact that this is a rather crude computer method. It is a brute force kind of look up, not a fine-tuned one. For example in the Greek one, you have:

ὄδε λέγω - demonstrative pronoun with verb "to say" literally "that which I say"

λέγω - verb form of logos, means "to say"

ὁ λογος - most common, means "word, matter, thing" roughly comparable to Hebrew davar

ρῆμα - means statement, word (one of the basic ones, with logos)

ὁ ρῆμα - same word as the one above, just a different form (masc. not neuter)

ἀκούω - verb, means "to hear"

φάσις - used only once in NT, means "report" (as in "we got word of the battle"

Whitefield · #3 (**permalink**) 01-31-2009, 03:20 PM

From Girdelstone's Synonyms of the Old Testament

Quote:

The most ordinary Hebrew terms setting forth the Divine utterances are amar, to say and davar, to speak. The former refers rather to the mode of revelation, and the latter to the substance. Hence davar is frequently rendered thing, as in Gen. 15:1, 19:8; compare Luke 1:37. Milah has also been rendered word in thirty passages, nineteen of which are in Job and seven in Daniel. It is used in 2 Sam. 23:2, "The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue;' Ps. 19:4, "Their word unto the end of the world.' In the LXX the verb amar is generally rendered hepo and lego and the noun hrema and logion; davar is generally rendered laleo, and the noun generally logos, sometimes hrema, and in thirty-five passages pragma. Milah is rendered logos and hrema; and Nam, to utter or assert, which is rare in the earlier books and frequent in the later, is rendered lego. Peh, mouth, is rendered word in Gen. 41:40 and fourteen other passages.