Words of the Week | February 1, 2019

To the wise | Seldom do most people think about the origin of things – one of the first things this journey inspired in me. Where does the English word “God” come from and what is it in the Hebrew Language? We should, more frequently, consider the origin of all things… After all, knowing them is the destination and revealing them is what Yahuwah is always doing. Moses tells us that we should ask, pleading, for the first days, when humanity could speak to and hear God directly, as did Israel at Mt. Hareb. (Deut 4:32) In this, we find that going to the source (and consequently discovering the origin) is a necessary part of this walk.

Hebrew | God, in English, is attributed to the Germanic language and a word translated as to call or invoke. “Smart” people will tell you that European and Afro-Asiatic languages are unrelated despite the fact that DNA proves we all derive from the same African ancestors. This would imply that language did not exist or did not evolve prior to humans arriving in Europe. This brings us back to the importance of knowing the origin of things as essential to our understanding. – even the origin of humanity and of language itself!

In Hebrew, the word pronounced “god” is the same as the name of one of the sons of Israel, “Gad”, correctly pronounced, “God”. The word גד refers to things that are gathered at an entry and exit point. It’s translated to words like fortune, the places where resources are gathered, a band of people gathered together, a bunch of stuff gathered together, the riverbank where water gathers, and the tendons where muscle gathers.

Still, its most frequently interpreted as “tell”, the gathering together of specific verbal communication that enters one from an external source and exits from that one to whom it was given. The ancients would have simply understood this as the gathering door… the place where or thing that something enters or exits gathered together.

Gad is prophecied by Israel as being the one who will be that gathering and who will gather Israel and will tell of restraint, which is indeed the purpose of the gathering in the first place. (Gen 49:19)

Thus, it is entirely possible that the English and/or the Germanic word meaning to call or invoke, derives from this Hebrew word “גד” , often interpreted tell, essentially referring to the gathering that is at the beginning and end of all things…. The one thing that becomes many than becomes one again like the tendon, riverbanks, a telling, a bunch, a band of people, and humanity as a whole! God/גד represents unity that once was and that will be again.

Read more on this topic.