Today is Brought to You by the Hebrew letter VAV

Vav means nail or hook and by itself it appears 13 times in Exodus to describe the hooks holding each curtain to its pillar in the Tabernacle. Grammatically it serves to hook words together and link them in a sentence as a conjunction meaning “and”, “so” or “but”.

In the alphabetic verses in Psalms 119: 41 -48, every verse, of course, starts with the letter vav working as a connector, but some translations have lost some or all of the meaning. Let’s read Young’s Literal Translation of these verses to detect all of the ands:

41 And meet me doth Thy kindness, O Jehovah, Thy salvation according to Thy saying.

42 And I answer him who is reproaching me a word, For I have trusted in Thy word.
43 And Thou takest not utterly away From my mouth the word of truth, Because for Thy judgment I have hoped.
44 And I keep Thy law continually, To the age and for ever.

45 And I walk habitually in a broad place, For Thy precepts I have sought.

46 And I speak of Thy testimonies before kings, And I am not ashamed.

47 And I delight myself in Thy commands, That I have loved,

48 And I lift up my hands unto Thy commands, That I have loved, And I do meditate on Thy statutes!

Another interesting thing is that there are only 10 words that start with vav. Its primary use therefore is as a hook, a connector.

For a startling look at how this letter is used in God’s Holy name check out this post.