Sinaitic Hebrew:

the Moses Script

In modern languages, words are understood to be alphabetical spellings representing sounds whose meanings are determined by usage: by the etymology of recognized words. To understand a language depends on memorization of shifting concepts that are passed from generation to generation as speech. The peoples of the Nile valley, in the days of Moses, enjoyed a richer and more organic sense of a language based not on sound, but on the geometry of creation.

Trade between tribes and "nations" -- loose associations of tribes due to geography -- was dependent on a common language. That language, whose origin is debatable, has many names because it was used by many tribes: not for speech, but for business. Shared throughout the world of Pharaoh for commerce, the emblematic language used for the compilation of Torah was spread abroad by the Phoenician peoples, who shipped goods throughout the Mediterranean basin. One of the pyramids contains a complete Phoenician ship. Pharaohs were not fools. They revered the glue that made the system work.

Meanings of Phoenician words were not based on sound, but on interactions of the emblematic properties of the alphabet, whose letters are suggestive of vast concepts. Torah's word forms were symbolic encapsulations that narrow the concepts of its individual letters. Locked together as words, the emblems brought intended meanings into better focus. Torah's emblems weren't designed for speech: the letters were consonants, every one of them. The written language undergirded the speech of many peoples. Widely used for commerce, the Phoenician alphabet served as the common language of the Egyptian empire.

The Paleo-Hebrew alefbet used at Mount Sinai is named by some as Ketav Levonah, "the Letters of Light." Not contrived, the language used in the compilation of Torah springs from the mathematics of Creation, itself. Its emblematic word forms derive meanings not from usage, but from the interaction of the symbolic shapes of their letters. The "sea" my is the gift (y yod, hand) of water (m mem, fluidity). A "river" rhn unfolds the promise (n nun, pregnancy) of life (h he, showers/light), which decends from above (r resh, the mountains). The interplay of principles carries the oracular dimensions of the Hebrew scriptures. Moses was versed in all the arts of Egypt.

Eriktology is the skill of reading Hebrew word forms not as sound cues that point to memorized, etymological meanings, but as loose, emblematic representations of the principles underlying objects and actions. In this discipline, each letter of a word contributes concepts to the substance of a word's definition. The meanings of a word's letters are homogenized into a common concept, whose application in a particular context establish the word's definition.

Sinaitic Hebrew is the language of the Lively Oracles of God. If valid, the etymological meanings of biblical Hebrew words, as collected into diverse dictionaries, are affirmed and magnified by the understandings derived from this discipline. These pages are offered by way of introduction.