As I write the daily devotion each day, and I place a passage of scripture within the message — I find myself studying the Hebrew or the Greek of the Word, since I modify the verse slightly to make it easier to read for our worldwide audience, while at the same time making sure the translation doesn’t lose its meaning. However, today I came across a verse whose meaning is so deep in Hebrew, there’s truly no way to give it justice when you translate it to English.
In Isaiah 33:6 it says this, ‘Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, And the strength of salvation; The fear of the Lord is His treasure.’
Now the word stability is the Hebrew word — em-oo-nah, the word is most often translated as faith — however, in this instance, the translators decided to go with the English word, stability. Next the word, strength could be easily be translated as wealth, or treasure. And the word salvation is the same root as the word Yeshua (Jesus). Finally, the word treasure could easily be translated as “storehouse” or “treasure house”.
Now in Hebrew, the order of the words is different than the translation. This verse could easily be translated, “And He will be the faith of your times, A wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is his treasure house.”
And even that translation doesn’t give it justice in the Hebrew.
Truly, it is the “glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of Kings to search out a matter.”
Until next time…
I “always” love to know the Hebrew because many times the depth of the meaning is watered down in our translations. Thank you!