I think this makes as much sense as Sesame Street's abcdefk, jklmnop, qrstuvxyz (if you are young enough to remember that song.) Can you make a sentence or two with the following words - father, great, save me, gold, wheat, all, king, sign, dust, righteousness, horn, oil of gladness, instruction.
This challenge can go beyond the Hebraists to English speakers. The letters in red below - if they don't get messed up in publication - are the letters of the Hebrew Alef-Bet in sequence. I bet I could have chosen a little better to make the sentence easier or more meaningful.
Father, in your great mercy, save me.
With golden wheat, feed us all.
Your king, a sign in the dust of righteousness,
raises our horn with the oil of gladness,
making present your instruction.
אַב
גָּדֹל
הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי
זָהָב
חִטִּים
כָּל
מֶלֶךְ
נֵּס
ָעָפר
צֶדֶק
קֶרֶן
שֶׁמֶן
שָׂשׂוֹן
תּוֹרַת
Friday, May 30, 2008
Reading vertically did I miss any?
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3 comments:
Oh Father, who is greater than great, who saves me and who is the giver of all things--be it gold, be it wheat--all things are from you, my King. I search for a sign as I grieve the "returning to dust" I see all around. Instead, you answer with your righteousness announced as with a horn, and the oil of gladness flowing through me as your instruction fills my life.
Well, that's my attempt at your fun challenge. I had to kind of stretch the concepts, and I'm rather vague on the whole idea/symbolism of "horn" (and can't figure out how to make a literal horn fit, either).
My biggest problem, of course, is needing to use so many extra words. And I'm highly doubtful it would cross well over into Hebrew.
In any case, it was fun and stirred up fond memories of spelling assignments like this from around 3rd grade. I've also enjoyed watching my 5th grade daughter's creativity with such assignments (particularly having to write a mnemonic sentence with only the letters, in order, from each of her spelling words.)
oh, now I see (I'm reading your posts out of order) that the point was to get the whole aleph-bet with representative words in SINGABLE form.
Wow - nice work - I think it would translate into Hebraic rhythms. The horn of David is an important metaphor of joy in the Psalms. Also the horns of the altar could maybe be worked into the mix.
Psalm Vs Word Masoretic Text English
75 יא QRNY וְכָל קַרְנֵי for all the horns of
118 כז QRNVT עַד קַרְנוֹת even to the horns of
132 יז QRN קֶרֶן a horn
148 יד QRN קֶרֶן the horn
75 ו QRNKM קַרְנְכֶם your horn
92 יא QRNY קַרְנִי my horn
89 יח QRNYNV קַרְנֵינוּ our horn
89 כה QRNV קַרְנוֹ his horn
112 ט QRNV קַרְנוֹ his horn
75 יא QRNVT קַרְנוֹת the horns of
75 ה QRN קָרֶן the horn
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