Lost in Translation

When I took Hebrew at Regent a few years ago, I absolutely fell in love. It was beautiful. It was the language of my beloved Old Testament. I was certain this must be the language of choice in heaven :) But when I started my courses at U of Toronto this semester, Hebrew felt more like a thorn in the flesh than an encounter with heaven. I was surprised how much one could forget!

I finally had a breakthrough with my Hebrew studies a few weeks ago. My head was clear enough to sit down and read back through some of the basics. I even made cards with tables and reminders to tape on my desk shelves, and I only made them once the information made sense. I'm now beginning to experience a resurgence of my admiration of Hebrew, and other things about the language that didn't make sense or that I didn't have a firm grasp on before are becoming more clear.

Upon reflection, I realized that I had not simply been frustrated by the difficulty I experience with Hebrew, it was deeper than that. I felt let down, or even worse, offended, because the language I remembered understanding, enjoying, and professing to love was all of a sudden an inaccessible source of frustration. That hurt. Adding insult to injury, I was having far less trouble with Greek - a language for which I've quite vocally claimed to have less than affectionate feelings - than I was experiencing with my darling Hebrew. Slighted, confused, certainly frustrated, and not in control - that is how I felt about the whole language thing.

But perhaps this unexpected turn of events is really by the grace of God. Having already noted my general dislike for studying Greek, I can say that I was more than a little apprehensive about taking a class entirely devoted to translating and reading it (I'm taking an Advanced Hellenistic Greek course this semester in which we're working with passages from the Greek Old Testament/Septuagint). Yet the relative ease of working with Septuagint Greek thus far as compared to the Hebrew we're translating for my class on Deuteronomy allowed me to see Greek from a different perspective. I'm beginning to appreciate it as well. Had I been able to soar through the Hebrew from the beginning, perhaps I would have retained my aversion to Greek. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

One final note - I happened to look up as I was writing the words above and saw a verse which I have framed and placed in my room. Seeing this treasured verse reminded me of my Deuteronomy professor's exhortation to memorize the verses we like in Hebrew. My thought was that a verse that carries so much depth, memory, and meaning for me in English would have far less significance for me in Hebrew. But in that moment I had two small revelations (appropriate for this season of Epiphany, eh?):

1. The Hebrew verse would lack significance only because I'm not yet intimately knowledgeable of the Hebrew language, and 
2. I get to become intimately knowledgeable of the Hebrew language!

This second realization delivered a quite surprising sense of joy. Of course, the same applies to Greek as well. How incredible it is to be doing something that I know I enjoy and to be even more abundantly blessed with an expectation of greater things to come!