The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the BibleTHEAYIN AND GHAH.................................................................................................
While the Modern Hebrew alphabet consists of twenty-two letters, the evidence
suggests that there were additional letters in the original Semitic and Hebrew alphabet.
One of the ancient Semitic languages of Canaan was Ugarit. This ancient language is
almost identical to the Hebrew language of the Bible but, instead of consisting of
twenty-two letters it has twenty-eight letters. One of the major differences between
Ugarit and Hebrew is the additional letter "ghah". Evidence, such as will be presented
here, suggest that the letter "ghah" exists within the Hebrew text of the Bible.
One Word - Two Meanings....................................................................................
The strongest evidence of the missing ghah can be found in two different meanings of
one Hebrew word. The Hebrew word ra’ (SV in modern Hebrew) can mean “friend” or
“bad”. The examples in the table below (Table 1) list several of these double meaning
words that contain the letter S (ayin). The first column is the word as it appears in the
modern Hebrew Bible. The second column is the word spelled with the ancient Hebrew
letterS (ayin) and its meaning. The third column is the word spelled with the ancient
Hebrew letter K (ghah) and its meaning.
Table 1
Modern Ancient Ancient
with ayin with ghah