Do Hebrew Letters Have Meaning?

It is sometimes claimed that each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has meaning, and that the “true meaning” of a Hebrew word can be determined from the meaning of its constituent letters.

For example, the Hebrew word ab, meaning “father”, is spelled with two letters: Aleph and Beth. According to the theory, the letter Aleph signifies an ox while the letter Beth signifies a house. From this, theorists conclude that the Hebrew word for “father” really means “the leader of the house”. However, that is not at all how the Hebrew language works!

Problems with the Hebrew-letter-meanings theory

There are a few problems with the Hebrew-letter-meanings theory.

Firstly, the Hebrew-letter-meanings theory is very arbitrary. There are no consistent rules. The Hebrew word for “mother” is em. It is spelled with the letters Aleph and Mem, which supposedly signify “ox” and “water” respectively. Does the Hebrew word for “mother” therefore really mean “the leader of water”—whatever that means?

Secondly, the Hebrew-letter-meanings theory assumes that Hebrew words are spelled based on the meaning of their letters. However, that is not how any language works! In reality, Hebrew words are spelled according to how they are pronounced. The Hebrew word for “father”, ab, is spelled with the letters Aleph and Beth because it was pronounced as “ab”, and not because of the meanings of those letters.

Thirdly, the Hebrew-letter-meanings theory does not consider the history of how languages develop. Like other ancient languages, Hebrew was a spoken language long before Hebrew letters were invented. In other words, long before the letters Aleph and Beth were invented, the Hebrew word for “father”, ab, already existed, and it was already pronounced as “ab”.

The origin of the Hebrew alphabet

The names of the Hebrew letters do have meaning, since they were directly derived from words. However, the Hebrew letters themselves do not have meaning. For example, the word aleph did mean “ox” and the word beth did mean “house”. However, the letters Aleph and Beth themselves have no meaning.

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet were created using the rebus principle: Existing symbols were used purely for their associated pronunciation sound, without any regard at all for their meaning. For example, in order to express the “b” sound in writing, a symbol for a house was used as a letter. The symbol for a house was chosen because a common word for “house” was beth, which started with the “b” sound. Accordingly, this letter was named “Beth”. Thus, the letter Beth was used to express the “b” sound in writing. However, the meaning of the word beth, “house”, was completely irrelevant to the letter Beth.

Conclusion

The myth that Hebrew letters have meaning has no basis in history or language. In reality, Hebrew letters do not have meaning any more than English letters have meaning. False teachers could derive the “true meaning” of Hebrew words in any way they want, by assigning to Hebrew letters any meaning they want, in order to teach anything they want—and their followers would not know any better.