Elisabeth and Max sing the Hebrew Alefbet.
About Psalm 119
Sometime last year during our family Scripture reading we spent some time reading Psalm 119. You may know that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. You may also know that it focuses on the law. Throughout the chapter the psalmist is praising the virtues of the law, pronouncing his dedication to it, or praising God for his lovingkindess in giving us his law. In fact, there are supposedly only two verses in the chapter that do not contain the word law or a synonym for it (precept, statute, etc.).
You probably also know that Psalm 119 is an acrostic. It has twenty-two sections, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet (the alefbet). In each section, every single line of the poem begins with the letter associated with that section. So in verses one through eight, each line (or each verse) begins with the letter alef-the first letter in the Alefbet. The acrostic communicates the idea of the completeness of God’s law and the complete devotion of the psalmist to praise and uphold God’s law.
Family Reading
During our time reading as a family I decided to help Elisabeth and Max learn a little about Hebrew poetry and also to help them at least hear the letters of the Alefbet. So each night I reminded them which letters we had read the previous nights and which letter we would be reading that night. About half way through I sang the Alefbet song you hear them singing in the video. To my surprise, they learned the whole Alefbet with relatively little effort.
The main reason I’ve included the song as a blog post, is because many moons ago I promised some friends that I would make a recording of Elisabeth and Max singing the song so they could teach it to their kids. So here you go, Duffs. Thanks for your patience.
The Alefbet
I’ll be enhancing the post and video later (maybe in a couple years)–but for now see the list of letters below or Judaism 101 for more.
- alef
- bet
- gimel
- dalet
- he
- waw
- zayin
- het
- tet
- yod
- kaf
- lamed
- mem
- nun
- samech
- ayin
- pe
- tsade
- qof
- resh
- sin
- shin
- tav
