What does Amen really mean? What is God's name? Where is Jesus in the Old Testament? Below are clear, honest answers to twenty-five of the questions people ask most — each one opened up through the ancient Hebrew letters, where so many of these words were pictures long before they were sounds.
Jump to: The words we pray and sing · The names of God · The first things — and the language · Finding Christ in the Hebrew · Words that carry the whole story
Amen (אָמֵן) comes from the Hebrew root aleph-mem-nun — the same root as emunah, “faith.” It means “firm, sure, faithful — so be it.” To say amen is not to end a prayer but to lean your whole weight on it as true. Its first letter, Aleph, is the picture of God Himself.
Hallelujah joins two Hebrew words: hallelu (“praise!”) and Yah — the short form of God’s name, YHWH. So every hallelujah literally means “praise Yah.” That same syllable is hidden in names like Isaiah and Elijah — the Name of God woven quietly through the whole Bible.
Selah appears over 70 times in the Psalms and was never translated — a mark of its mystery. Most scholars read it as a musical pause, or from a root meaning “to lift up”: stop, breathe, and lift the words higher. Honestly, the meaning is debated; but its invitation is clear — pause and consider.
Shalom is usually translated “peace,” but it means far more than the absence of conflict. From the root sh-l-m (wholeness), shalom is completeness — nothing broken, nothing missing. It’s the wholeness a life has when the house is rebuilt and every piece is back in place.
Hosanna is the Hebrew cry hoshia-na (הושִׁיעָה נָּא) — “save now,” or “save, we pray” (Psalm 118:25). The crowds shouted it as Jesus entered Jerusalem. It is praise and desperate plea in a single breath: the sound of people who know they cannot save themselves.
God’s personal name is written with four Hebrew letters — YHWH (יהוה), often said as “Yahweh.” In the ancient pictographs those letters — Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey — spell a picture: Hand, Behold, Nail, Behold. “Behold the hand; behold the nail.” The Name itself carries the shape of the Cross.
Elohim (אֱלֹהִים) is the word for God in Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning, Elohim created.” It is grammatically plural, a plural of majesty and fullness: the God who is more than we can hold in one word. It’s the very first name of God the Bible gives us.
When Moses asks God His name, God answers Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh — “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). Built from the Hebrew verb “to be,” it declares the One who simply is — self-existent, unchanging, present tense forever. It is the root behind the name YHWH.
Adonai (אֲדֹנָי) means “my Lord” or “my Master.” Out of reverence, readers of the Hebrew Bible say “Adonai” aloud wherever the sacred name YHWH is written — so the Name is honored rather than worn out. It is the language of a servant who gladly belongs to his King.
Abba is the intimate word for “Father” — the name Jesus cried in Gethsemane. Here is the quiet wonder: the first two Hebrew letters, Aleph and Bet, spell av (אב) — “father.” Aleph (the strong one, God) upon Bet (the house): the strength of the house. The alphabet itself opens with Father.
The first word is Bereshit (בְּרֵאשִׁית) — “In the beginning.” Its six Paleo-Hebrew letters can be read as pictures: a house, a head, God, consuming, a hand, and a cross. Before God spoke light into being, the plan of redemption was written into the very first word. Read the full decoding, free →
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Read in Hebrew, a hidden word sits in the middle of the verse — et (אֵת), spelled Aleph-Tav, the first and last letters. Untranslated into English, it is the signature of the One who is “the Alpha and the Omega.” See Genesis 1:1 decoded →
Three languages: the Old Testament mostly in Hebrew (with a little Aramaic), and the New Testament in Greek. The oldest Hebrew was written in Paleo-Hebrew — a script where every letter was still a picture, long before it became the square letters we know today.
Paleo-Hebrew is the most ancient form of the Hebrew alphabet — the script of Moses and David — in which every letter was a picture of an object: an ox, a house, a nail, a cross. It’s not a theory; it survives on real artifacts across a thousand years. See the 10 that prove it →
Each of the 22 Hebrew letters began as a picture carrying a meaning — Aleph an ox (strength, God), Bet a house, Mem water, Tav a cross. Read the pictures and words open a second layer of meaning. Explore all 22 letters and their meanings →
Far more than most readers realize — scholars count over 300 messianic prophecies. But it runs deeper than prophecy: in the Hebrew letters themselves, in the Name of God, in the Aleph and the Tav, the shape of the Cross keeps surfacing. That thread, from Genesis to Revelation, is what this book traces. Get the book →
Messiah is the Hebrew mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ) — “anointed one,” the king marked out and set apart by God. “Christ” is simply the Greek translation, Christos. Same title, two languages: the promised, anointed King the whole Old Testament leans toward.
Jesus’ Hebrew name is Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) — “Yah saves,” or simply “salvation.” The Name of God (Yah) is built right into it: the name itself is a sentence — God saves. He was given the name that announces exactly what He came to do.
Immanuel (עִמָּנוּאֵל) breaks into three words: im (with) + manu (us) + El (God) — “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). It is the whole gospel in one name: not a distant God, but God who came near and stayed.
Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet — “I am the First and the Last” (Revelation 1:8). In Hebrew that same claim is Aleph and Tav — and those two letters appear together in the Bible’s very first verse. He signs the beginning and the end.
Grace is chen (חֵן) — favor freely given, not earned. “Noah found chen in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). A quiet marvel: spell Noah’s name (נח) backwards and you get chen — grace hidden at the very center of the man God rescued.
The Hebrew for covenant is berit (בְּרִית), and the Bible never “makes” a covenant — it cuts one (Genesis 15). Covenants were sealed by cutting, by blood, by cost. It is the language that leads straight to a cross and a torn veil.
Faith is emunah (אֱמוּנָה) — not a feeling but a firmness, a steadfast leaning. It shares its root with “amen.” “The righteous shall live by his emunah” (Habakkuk 2:4) means: the righteous live by holding on, firm, to the One who is faithful.
The last Hebrew letter, Tav (ת), was drawn in Paleo-Hebrew as a cross — an “X” or “+”. Its meaning was “mark, sign, covenant.” In Ezekiel 9, a tav is marked on the foreheads of those to be spared. The alphabet ends where the story does: at the cross.
Seven is sheva (שֶׁבַע), tied to the words for “oath” and for “fullness/completion.” God finished creation in seven days and rested — the world made whole. To swear an oath in Hebrew is literally “to seven oneself.” Seven is the number of a promise kept and a work complete.