The Hebrew Advantage
by Dr. Leon W. Mohammed

Blessed is he who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth. This is a worldly saying which suggests that children who have parents of great material wealth are fortunate from birth. This same truism applies to the spiritual realm as well. We might well say, "Blessed is he who is born with a Hebrew scroll in his mouth, for from birth (natural or spiritual) he can draw from the eternal wealth provided by his Hebrew heritage."

In his letter to the Roman church, Paul asks this question: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?" Then, he answers his own question with these profound words: "Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God" (Romans 3:1,2). The word oracle from the Greek means "utterance." The utterances of God were those "God-breathed" words that the Hebrew prophets of old spoke as "they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (II Timothy 3:16; II Peter 1:21).

If it had not been for the Hebrew prophets, we would not have known to look for the Messiah. Moses told the children of Israel that God would raise up a prophet out of the congregation and that this prophet would have the same modus operandi as Moses. He was, of course, speaking of Yeshua. As Moses was a deliverer from natural bondage, Christ is a deliverer from spiritual bondage. As Moses revealed the ramifications of the original covenant between Yahweh and his people, Christ reformed the operations of the original covenant and transformed it into a spiritual new covenant (Hebrews 8:1-13).

How to obtain God’s favor was revealed to man through the matrix of Judaism. Moses said that if the children of God would listen diligently to the principles and concepts of the word of God and if they would practice those axioms, Yahweh would bless every facet of their lives. On the other hand, Israel’s failure to obey God’s commands would permit the curses to come upon them (Deuteronomy 28).

The immutable nature of God would not have been known without Solomon and Malachi, both Jews who spoke of God’s unchanging nature. The very existence of the Israeli nation is a testimony to God’s divine consistency (Ecclesiastes 1:9; 3:14, 15; Malachi 3:6). Divine healings, the raising of the dead, the feeding of multitudes come out of the Biblical history of the nation of Israel. These historical accounts and divine concepts were uttered by Hebrew prophets. Even the parables of Jesus are correctly understood only when considered within their Jewish milieu.

The advantage of being Jewish is that one is given access to the God of the universe through the words that he manifest in the system of Judaism. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Jewish people for their faithfulness in giving us the word of God through the millennia and causing us to understand the truth about the Messiah.

Most Gentile Christians presume that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus is analogous to the rejection of the Messiah. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the Jews have always believed in the Messiah, and they still do. It was because of their unwavering expectation of the Messiah’s coming that the words of God declaring his advent were delivered and preserved. It was for us Gentiles and for our salvation that Israel was blinded in part and did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. As a result of their partial blindness, we, the wild olive tree, were grafted into the tame olive tree. We Gentiles who did not know the ways and precepts of God were given access to this life and knowledge, the rich sap of the olive tree (the system of Judaism), because of our faith in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. The tree of the Jewish way of life has become to us a tree of life through Jesus.

One of the greatest parts of the legacy which we have received from Judaism is the Hebrew language, the tongue of the prophets, the idiom of the Bible. Hebrew is a holy language and possibly mankind’s proto-tongue. It has certainly had profound effects on the course of human events for millennia. Virtually all of the Bible was either written or thought in Hebrew. Is it any wonder that the New Testament writers argue for even the verbal inspiration of the words of the Tenach (first testament)? "Not one jot [yod] or tittle [letter crown or decoration] shall pass from Torah until all be fulfilled," Jesus, himself, said.

Could it be that the very letters of the Hebrew alphabet are pregnant with spiritual meaning and insight? The Hebrew alphabet is unique in that each letter is a picture symbol, which is a visual representation of the ideas suggested by them. The reading of the Hebrew alphabet from beginning to end forms an ideological picture that reveals truth. Not only each word of Hebrew, but also each letter, causes us to understand the principles of divine truth.

In Hebrew the word for truth is tm,a> (emet). This word is composed of the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, the alef, the last letter of the alphabet, the tau, and the exact middle letter of the alphabet (including the final forms), the mem. "Truth demands total accuracy from start to finish, including every part in the middle as well." 1 There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and a total of twenty-seven letters which include the final form of previous letters.

For centuries Jewish scholars and rabbis have searched the words of Holy Scripture in great detail. Some even went so far as to suggest that the very shapes of the letters of the alphabet have significance. Another aspect of this limitless search of the scriptures has been the notation of the numerical equivalents of the Hebrew words in a process called gematria. Rabbi Benjamin Blech notes that "the letters of the Alef-Bet are powers of their own. Their rearrangement gives us insight into the relationship between seemingly different words and concepts. Their numerical significance, their gematria, must also be understood. For words that share the same numerical total have a kinship." 2

Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. The numerical values of the letters range from 1 to 400, and formed in a manner in which the numbers could be expressed. (See chart on page 21 for details.) As scholars began to apply these numbers for each letter and to add them together as the letters formed words, they found amazing connections within the Hebrew language.

An example of the hidden wisdom in the codes of the gematria is revealed in the Hebrew words for "father," "mother," and "child." Blech notes that the gematria (numerical equivalent) for the word child in Hebrew is 44 and that is the sum of a father–3 and mother–41. It is not simply man and woman, sperm and egg that have merged; it is the numerical essence, the gematria, that is as powerful as genetics in the act of creation." 3

It is generally acknowledged that mathematics is the universal language. Numbers transcend the language barrier. The laws of mathematics are not inhibited by the borders of linguistics. And, if the Hebrew language is innately numerical, then the Hebrew tongue is universal, perhaps even eternal.

Another example of the power of the gematria is seen in the comparison between the Torah and the light that God created on the first day of creation. There are 613 divine commandments in the Torah. The gematria for the Hebrew word translated light (rwah ta) in Genesis 1:4 is 1 (a–alef) + 400 (t–tau) + 5 (h–he) + 1 (a–alef) + 6 (w –wow [vav] + 200 (r–resh) = 613.4

One must remember that this was not the light of the sun, moon, or stars because they were not created until the fourth day. The light that was first given to creation was the light of God’s essence. It was the light of Torah, his Word. It was the light of the Messiah, Jesus. John 1:1 declares, "In the beginning was the Word [Torah], and the Word [Torah] was with God, and the Word [Torah] was God." The Holy Writ also tells us, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105. Indeed, there is a greater light than the sun, moon, and stars. It is the light provided by the Logos (Torah) of God, written and spoken originally in the Hebrew language. And, the numerical code, the gematria, of the Hebrew alphabet provides an insight into a deeper understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

As we survey ever so briefly what ranks as an inexhaustible supply of knowledge contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, we understand the value of being knowledgable in the Hebrew language. While every believer will not become a Hebrew scholar, every individual can learn details about the language of scripture and profit thereby.

The Bible is a Hebraic book. The prophets were Hebrew men. Jesus was a Jew. In order to understand the Word of God, we must return to observing and searching it through Jewish eyes, and we must read it with a Jewish heart.5

There is, indeed, an advantage in being Jewish. It is the Word of God that brings to salvation both the natural and the spiritual Jew. And, it is made available to us through the living Torah, the Word of God, Jesus the Christ. Blessed is he who is born (again) with the very Word of God in his mouth.

1Rabbi Benjamin Blech, Secrets of Hebrew Words, (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1991), p. 61.

2Ibid., p. IX.

3Ibid., p. XI.

4Ibid., p. 30.

5Marvin R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham–Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989), p. 11.