The Languages of the Bible

By Mark D. Kaplan

The Middle East

Three Biblical Languages

SEEING IN VISION the time of Christ's return, John saw people praising God, "...a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb...."

God's plan of salvation includes every human being regardless of language. The Bible has been preserved for us in three different languages, illustrating God's love for all people. Linguists have classified the world's languages in various families based on common characteristics. Two of the biblical languages, Hebrew and Aramaic are in the Semitic family, which also includes Arabic and the ancient language of Akkadian. When used by linguists, the term Semitic refers to a family of related languages of Middle Eastern origin. The term is not used by linguists in a racial sense. The New Testament has been preserved in Greek, an Indo-European language which has had a major influence on our contemporary world. God's use of different languages in the Bible followed a pattern of focusing first on one region, then widening the scope of the message to include an empire, and finally including the entire known world between India and Ireland. Of course, in modern times the Bible, through translation, has been accessible in almost every language known to human beings.


God's plan of salvation includes every human being regardless of language. The Bible has been preserved for us in three different languages, illustrating God's love for all people.

Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, a dialect of Canaanite. The Canaanites were descendants of Ham. Biblical Hebrew and biblical Aramaic are written with the same alphabet. The most ancient Hebrew scriptures used the Canaanite style of forming the letters. For about twenty-four centuries the entire Old Testament has been preserved in the style of alphabet used anciently by Aramaic speakers.

There are also some portions of the Old Testament written in the Aramaic language. The Arameans (ancient Syrians) were descendants of Shem. The New Testament scriptures have been preserved for us in Greek. The Hebrew word for Greece is Javan. Contemporary Hebrew transliteration would spell it Yavan. The children of Javan trace their ancestry back to Japheth. Three sons of Noah, three patriarchs for the human race, three languages of the Bible, the written word which forms the basis of God's judgment on the whole of humanity.

One of the earliest ancient cities was Akkad in Mesopotamia (Genesis 10:10). The ancient language of Mesopotamia, Akkadian was similar to Biblical Hebrew. Perhaps Abraham originally spoke an Akkadian dialect in Ur. He later migrated to a region which spoke a related language, Aramaic. Aram was a descendant of Shem (Genesis 10:22). The name of Aram became identified with the region known later as Syria. When Abraham went south to Canaan the relatives that he left behind continued to speak Aramaic. The Canaanites were descendants of Ham (Genesis 10:6). In Canaan Abraham picked up the local language. His clan's version of Canaanite became known as Hebrew.

"The Lip of Canaan"

THE CANAANITE DIALECT spoken by the Hebrews is called the Hebrew language. In Isaiah 19:18 it is called literally, "the lip of Canaan." It antedated the birth of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, and was brought by him and his extended family into Egypt during the administration of Jacob's son, Joseph. Our readers are probably familiar with the account of Joseph's miraculous rise to prominence and that when his brothers first visited Egypt, they didn't recognize him. Joseph and the group of brothers communicated with one another through an interpreter. When Joseph's brothers spoke to each other in Hebrew, they assumed that he could not understand (Genesis 42:23).


Our speech should always reflect Christian values and will therefore, at times, differ from the speech of many others who are not practicing the religion of the Bible.

Please read the first verse of Psalm 114. When God led Israel out of Egypt, the Israelites were departing from a people who spoke a different language, ancient Egyptian, which is known to us through the various Coptic dialects. The peoples in and around Canaan spoke mutually intelligible dialects. Perhaps Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are analogous today. The famous Mesha Stone, an archaeological relic from the ninth century BC, illustrates that the ancient Moabite language was similar to Biblical Hebrew.

The term "Hebrew" might have been used for all of the descendants of Eber, but quickly in Genesis it comes to refer to a specific branch of Eber's descendants, those who have a covenant relationship with God. In Genesis 14:13 Abraham (then called Abram) is referred to as "Abram the Hebrew." One of the connotations of Hebrew is of a person who has crossed the Euphrates River, as Abraham did when he left Babylonia to go westward. Abraham, in that sense, became a Hebrew when he crossed the Euphrates River and left his old life behind, a type of baptism. Much later in biblical history, the prophet Jonah told the Gentile crew on the tempest tossed ship that, "I am a Hebrew and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land" (1:9).

Abraham's descendants crossed the Red SeaThe Red Sea and then the Jordan River on their trek to the Promised Land. There they gathered to hear the exhortation of Joshua, who reminded them that they were Hebrews; they had crossed over the Euphrates River from Babylon. In the following message the word translated "the other side" is derived from the same root as the word for Hebrew.

"And Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says the LORD God of Israel: "Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all of the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac."'" (Joshua 24:2-3).

In the end-time, the Arabic speaking Egyptians will be motivated to learn a closely related language, Hebrew. This will enable them to read much of the Bible in its original language and to be more effectively taught by the Jews (Zechariah 8:23). This sign of Egypt's repentance and conversion is prophesied in Isaiah 19:18. "In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear by the LORD of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction." This development will have been preceded by the repentance and conversion of the Israeli Jewish population at Christ's return (Zechariah 12:10-14).

The Imperial Language

OF THE COMING MESSIAH, Daniel prophesied, "Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed." (Daniel 7:14). This prophesied polylingual praising of God is found in the Bible itself, where in some of the Old Testament books God inspired passages to be written and preserved in the gentile language of Aramaic, which uses the same alphabet as Hebrew. The Aramaic style of writing the letters was different. The Jews adopted that style and used it to copy the Holy Scriptures after returning from the Babylonian Captivity. The Samaritans to the north of Judea had their own Bible which in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah was probably still being written with letters formed in the pre-exilic fashion. By switching to the Aramaic form of writing the letters of the alphabet, the Jews could more effectively guard the integrity of their own sacred writings, the "oracles of God."

Scroll The common people of Judah spoke Hebrew before the Babylonian captivity, but the elite of Jewish society also spoke Aramaic, the linguna franca of their region (II Kings 18:26-28). The language of the Jews who had returned to the biblical land of Israel under the Persian Empire was distinct from the gentiles who also inhabited that land. Nehemiah knew that children of mixed marriages were losing their religious distinctiveness when he heard them speaking in ways that reflected gentile influence. (Nehemiah 13:23-27). There is an important spiritual lesson in that account for contemporary Christians. Our speech should always reflect Christian values and will therefore, at times, differ from the speech of many others who are not practicing the religion of the Bible.

There are four Aramaic passages in the Old Testament. At this point we are not discussing a style of writing, we are discussing the use of a different language! One purpose that the Aramaic passages serve is to illustrate that God did not intend to have an intimate relationship with just one segment of humanity. Aramaic was a major gentile language of the ancient Middle East. It was known and used by the international elite of that region from the eighth century BC through the fourth century BC. Aramaic, sometimes called Chaldee in the old King James Bible, continued to be a language of major importance until the rise of Islam. The spread of Arab civilization caused another close relative of Hebrew and Aramaic, Arabic, to become the dominant language from Spain to India.


The New Testament Church began in Jerusalem on Pentecost of 31 AD with a linguistic miracle that momentarily removed the barrier to interethnic understanding that God had instituted at the Tower of Babel.

The first use of Aramaic in the Bible occurs in the thirty-first chapter of Genesis, verse forty-seven. Jacob ended a period of exile in Syria with a formal agreement with his cousin Laban. Laban named the place of agreement in Aramaic, his language. The Aramaic term means "Heap of Witness." Jacob gave the equivalent name in his language, Hebrew.

Many scriptures in the Old Testament point to a time when the message of God's coming Kingdom will be proclaimed to all the nations. The ancient Hebrew prophets foresaw a time when the whole world would unitedly worship the God of Israel. "I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath." (Isaiah 45:23) The Apostle Paul later quoted this prophecy in his Epistle to the Church at Rome (Romans 14:11).

Toward the end of the Book of Isaiah we read, "I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles." (Isaiah 66:19)

Imagine reading a chapter in a book and abruptly coming across a passage in a different language, then just as abruptly switching back. Such a literary anomaly could be a calculated effort to heighten the dramatic import of what is written. It could also serve to focus on a particular audience.

The tenth chapter of Jeremiah contain twenty-four verses in Hebrew, but verse eleven is in Aramaic. The Aramaic verse comes without warning and is immediately followed by verse twelve which continues the same thought but switches back to Hebrew. The impact is powerful. The verse intends to include those nations whom God would use to punish His people. Those nations would also be judged. The Chaldean Empire was destined to fall, and its false religion was destined to become extinct. "Thus you shall say to them: 'The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.'" (Jeremiah 10:11).

The first half of the Book of Daniel is more autobiographical in nature than the second half, but the two halves of the book are tightly linked together by a literary bridge that overlaps them. A different language is used from the second half of Daniel 2:4 through the end of chapter seven. The material is preserved in Aramaic, the lingua franca of that time, a language that gentiles could understand. For prophecies more specifically related to God's Church of that day, the nation of Judah, the scriptures return to the use of Hebrew in chapter eight.

The Book of Ezra quotes two official decrees of the Persian Empire in Aramaic, presumably the language in which they were issued. The second is found in chapter seven, verses twelve through twenty-six. The first is found in an Aramaic section which includes Ezra 4:8 as an introductory comment and continues with further historical background through the eighteenth verse of chapter six. Gentile readers could thus be informed concerning important events in the history of the restoration of Judah under the Old Covenant. The Hebrew portion begins again in 6:19 an account of the observance of the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread.

We can summarize now by stating that Genesis 31:47 contains an Aramaic phrase and that there are four Aramaic passages in the Old Testament: Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4b through 7:26, Ezra 4:8 through 6:18, and Ezra 7:12 through 26. Two closely related languages were used to record the material that constitutes the first thirty-nine books of the Bible. The Old Testament scriptures were inspired in languages spoken in southwest Asia. With the coming of the New Testament scriptures, God made use of a European language, Greek; a language which even in ancient times was a very effective tool for refined discussions. The Greek-speaking world has been responsible for the preservation of the final twenty-seven books of the Bible.

The Language of the New Testament

DURING THE CENTURIES between the Testaments, the western Jewish Diaspora came to be Greek speaking and to read the Holy Scriptures in Greek. The Greeks are descendants of Javan, a son of Japheth (Genesis 10:2). The Jews who lived in the areas occupied today by Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq became Aramaic speaking and required Aramaic translation in order to understand the Old Testament. There are some Aramaic words and phrases in the New Testament, written of course with the letters of the Greek alphabet. Jewish religious scholars such as rabbis and scribes continued to speak, read, and write in Hebrew. Their conversational language was different in some ways from Biblical Hebrew. It is known as rabbinic Hebrew. The Oral Law of Judaism was finally written in rabbinic Hebrew in 200 AD in the Mishnah. This work was later greatly expanded by an Aramaic commentary called the Gemara, which was completed by about 500 AD. When people refer to the Talmud, they are usually referring to the combination of the Mishnah and the Gemara.


God is the original author of racial and linguistic diversity. Both will continue in the millennium, but with one all important difference, one world religion, God's Truth.

John 19 states that the description of Jesus as "King of the Jews" was written on His cross by order of Pilate in three languages. God declared through the writing of Isaiah, "...That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath." (Isaiah 45:23) Paul informed his Philippian brethren, "...that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (2:10-11) The Book of Revelation concludes the Bible. It contains letters to seven Churches that represent the whole Church of that time and throughout history. These Churches were located in Asia Minor, a center of Hellenistic culture in those days. All of the congregations were Greek-speaking. The cities involved were Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The Greek alphabet is used symbolically: "...I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last..." (Revelation 1:11).

The Jewish establishment of the first century rejected Jesus and His disciples as religious authorities. Judaism would not accommodate Christians. Even today, the New Testament has no status in Judaism whatsoever. God gave the opportunity to the Jews to receive more canonical material. Judaism rejected the gospel, so the additional scriptures that are now called the New Testament were given to the Greeks to preserve for all humankind (Romans 1:16;2:9-10). In the first century, AD, most Jews could not fluently speak or understand Hebrew. That same condition is true today. The Jewish population of North America is much larger than the population of the State of Israel. Israelis speak, write, and read Hebrew but most Jews in the United States and Canada could not understand even a brief memo written to them in Hebrew. The Churches to which Paul wrote his epistles had Jewish and gentile members, but the congregations were all located in Greek speaking areas. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews may have been originally written in Greek. Consider this: nearly all Reform Jews in America speak English. Only a minority have mastered the Hebrew language. Yet, their synagogue organization is called the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. If the Book of Hebrews was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, that original version has never been found. It was necessary to write the Epistle in Greek in order to preserve it as a part of the New Testament.

The New Testament Church began in Jerusalem on Pentecost of 31 AD with a linguistic miracle that momentarily removed the barrier to interethnic understanding that God had instituted at the Tower of Babel. Tower of BabelThe divine intervention at Babel prevented a rapid advance of technology that would have led to the potential self-destruction of humanity long before this century. In Jerusalem God dramatically began the re-education process that will some day result in universal peace and prosperity. In the latter miracle, the speakers were enabled to speak a different language and also the hearers were enabled to hear in their own languages.

Different Languages, One Religion

GOD IS THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR of racial and linguistic diversity. Both will continue in the millennium, but with one all important difference, one world religion, God's Truth. Zephaniah prophesied that when God's kingdom reigns over the earth, "For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, That they all may call on the name of the LORD, To serve Him with one accord" (3:9).

Perhaps this is a prophecy not only of future spiritual unity, but of one international language. This language will not necessarily replace all the others. Its purpose will be to give to all human beings, whatever local language they may speak, the ability to communicate directly with every other human being. One world language under the rule of Jesus Christ will be a tremendous blessing to humanity.

While we await Christ's second coming, we are to live by every word of God, some of which was originally inspired in a language of descendants of Ham, some in a language of Shem, some in a language of Japheth. God's Church today includes members from many different national, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds, of whom Peter wrote in chapter two, verse 10 of his first Epistle, "who once were not a people but now are the people of God."


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