Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

''Ayîn - ע (Strong's #5869)
`/G, eye

This letter ע 'ayîn is the 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet preceding the letter "p", where we have the letter "o". It temporarily becomes the 17th letter in the acrostic chapters of Lamentations 2 through 4 where ע 'ayîn and פ pê' are transposed, despite being in the correct order in chapter 1 and all the acrostic Psalms. It originally represented an "eye" as is quite obvious from a survey of its letter shape evolution (looking like a letter "o" or oval on its side and resembling an English lowercase "y" in the Dead Sea Scrolls square Hebrew script). Indeed, both the letter name and the Hebrew word for "eye" are identical. It is pronounced almost like "eye-in" but with a guttural throaty sound (if possible!) at the beginning. Arabic has two forms of the this letter: Ain and Ghain, the latter being more throaty still, and it seems that Hebrew probably had both pronunciations for words such as עֲמ^·רָה '^amôrâh (Strong's #6017), beginning with ע 'ayîn, are pronounced as Gomorrha and transliterated in bibical Greek as Γομορρα Gomorra. The same is true of the word עַזָּה 'azzâh (Strong's #5804), more familiar as Γαζα Gaza.

European words for "eye" retain more than the English and have the historical guttural sound: ojos (Spanish), yeux (French), augen (German). Middle English, nevertheless, had ein and eyne. Chinese have iyan and the Eskimos iye. עַיִן 'ayîn "eye" (Strong's #5869) occurs nearly 900 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. On 22 occasions it is translated by "fountain, spring" or "well" (e.g., Genesis 16:7; 24:13), perhaps because eyes can "water" or flow with tears.

En Gedi or עֵיןגֶּדִי 'êyn gedi (Strong's #5872) is a place bordering the Dead Sea, yet quite alive and populated by palms and other plants, and literally means "eye" or "fountain" of a "kid-goat", and hence possibly named as a watering place for goats because of its location by an oasis.

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