Isaiah 17:1

Someone cited Isaiah 17:1 this week, which is a verse that has some interesting issues that get lost in translation. Isa 17:1 says...

"Damascus will no longer be a

city (עיר = AYIN YUD RESH in Hebrew)
but will become a heap (עי = AYIN YUD)

of ruins" (Isa 17:1)

When you remove the letter RESH from the word city (עיר = AYIN YUD RESH), it no longer says "city" but a "witness heap" (עי = AYIN YUD) or a pile of ruins. This is a form of word-play that parallels the content of the message.

This would be similar to saying in English....

"Damascus will no longer be a city,
but a sit [of ashes]"

"Damascus will no longer be a town, but
a tow [something you'd tow to the junkyard.]"

or perhaps

"Damascus will no longer be a village,

but will become a vile pile."

I don't know of any English translation that preserves this wordplay, even though it could have been done in English had they given it a bit of thought. King Jimmie could have at least footnoted word play like this, but usually didn't even thought there's a lot of this kind of stuff throughout Scripture.

But there's still something one might see in the Hebrew that you won't see in any of these English translations or even in a text that footnotes that there is wordplay here. You just have to learn to THINK in Hebrew to catch the full essence. Because in Hebrew thought, the letter RESH is symbolically linked with the head. And why was Damascus being judged? Because they refused to obey He who was Head of heaven and earth. When you remove the Head (Who is Yeshua) from the equation, you no longer have moral order, but just a mental pile of ruins.

When you read the Scriptures in the original language, you'll notice stuff like this. This is why Jewish children as young as 13 are expected to be able to read Hebrew by that age. Learning a language isn't as hard as you might think. An hour a day or even half-hour a day can work wonders. And if you get a study partner - your spouse, someone else in your family - you can learn from each other. Not to mention the fact that it will innoculate you against a lot of weird teachings out there that read a lot of things into the text that really don't say what they are trying to promote the text as saying.

Shalom, Yoseph