Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
davar
Word, thing, matter, event. Speech and the thing spoken are one noun.
Genesis 15:1, in every translation this tool compares.
That's the thing. He gave his word. English uses thing and word in ways that almost touch, and then keeps them apart.
Because Hebrew does not separate a word from the reality it names, which is most of what the word of the LORD means and is invisible once English picks one of the two.
Versions read word, thing, matter, or event according to context.
דָּבָר davar · H1697
Davar covers an utterance and also a matter or affair. The Ten Commandments are the ten devarim, the ten words. A word of the LORD is not merely speech about an event; the categories are not separated.
English split speech from substance, so the Hebrew idea has to be argued rather than heard.
When a language uses one word for a statement and for the state of affairs it describes, that is a claim about how speech works and it is built into the vocabulary.
Word is the majority rendering; thing and matter appear where word would be nonsense.
- the ten devarim: Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13
- davar as matter: Genesis 21:11; 1 Samuel 10:16
- the word of the LORD: Genesis 15:1; Jeremiah 1:2
