JU5-7: A Spiritual Play On Words That Can Only Be Seen In The Original Hebrew

“When leaders in Israel dedicate themselves,
and the people volunteer,
you should all bless Adonai.”
-Judges 5:2

I wanna show you something interesting in verse 2 from Judges chapter 5.

Take a look at the part where it says “you should all bless Adonai”.

First of all, “bless” here does NOT mean what we typically think it means.

Normally we think “bless” or “to be blessed” means to be given good things from God.

But in this case, it doesn’t mean that all.

Instead it means to kneel or bow down in praise and reverence to the Lord.

Second, there’s an interesting play on words happening here that you’ll totally miss unless you’re familiar with the Hebrew language.

The word for bless in Hebrew is BARUKH.

If anyone has ever attended a Jewish worship service of any denomination, I’m sure you’ve heard the following prayer:

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam.

Translated it means “Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe”.

So here’s my point.

Because of the great victory the Lord provided, Israel is told their response should be to barukh or bless the Lord.

Now what was the name of the leader who led these northern Israelites into battle?

His name was Barak.

Any light bulbs going off in your heads now?

The Hebrew spelling of Barukh (to bless) and Barak (the military leader) is different by only one letter as follows:

ברוך

and

ברק

In other words, Barak the military general is spelled bet-reysh-koof.

And Barak that means to bless is spelled bet-reysh-chaf.

In spite of the minor spelling difference, when these words are said out loud, they sound the same.

So here’s what’s going on.

In her song of praise, Devorah is rightly giving credit to both God and His chosen instrument Barak for their deliverance from Yavin King of Hatzor, and Sisera who led the Canaanites.

Pretty cool beans, don’t you think?