“The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God”. That is what we usually find when we flip our bibles to Proverbs 9:10. The same statement rendered in Ge’ez from a Greek translation of a Hebrew original, ቀዳሚሃ ለጥበብ ፈሪሃ እግዚአብሔር (qedameeha leTibeb fereeha igzeeabihér), was plastered on many a school front in Ethiopia during the time of the absolute monarchy; which of course was of an afroasiatic christian flavor.
I sent the above image as a text to my friend who is a መሪጌታ (lead cantor), in our Ge’ez rite tradition, expressing interest in picking up Biblical Hebrew. The first row is Biblical Hebrew written in the Aramaic script they picked up in Babylonian captivity. The second line is Biblical Hebrew written in the Ge’ez script. The third line is a mishmash intended to ease someone who knows Ge’ez and Amharic into Hebrew.
I have nothing profound to say about the word tekheelat which is interpreted here as the beginning. I will simply point out that the first word of scripture is berashyt, and that too is often interpreted as beginning, and yet these are two distinct terms. The next Hebrew word is kheekmah (wisdom). Its cognate in Arabic gives us Amharic speakers the loan-word hakeem. Hakeem originally means wise man, and in Amharic came to mean doctor. Many modern speakers abandoned this after American hegemony set-in, and began saying doctor with an accent (perhaps dokter?). I, along with those who are not allergic to literature, prefer to say baile medhaneet (the one with medicine) when referring to a doctor or physician. It fits the grooves of the language far more smoothly. If I have to choose a loan-word, I prefer the Arabic over the English. At least it’s a Semitic cousin. Whichever language we interpret kheekmah into, we must remember that contextually it means the grounded instruction of the lord, and not the ghastly abstractions of Greek philosophers or any other strange, foreign, and unauthorized concepts.
Yeer’at looks very similar to the Ge’ez re’ad, but it is not quite the same. I bet there is a connection. Psalm 2:11 uses re’at (with the aléf) and re’ad (using the ayn), and they are often interpreted as fear and trembling. Maybe firhat and yeerat have a connection too. Who knows? Fear works, but should not be interpreted as Zeus cocked-back with a lightning-bolt ready to show that smite makes right. Instead, thinking of the sublime is helpful. Awe. That feeling you get when you recognize you are smaller than the plains, mountains, seas, cosmos, and author of the cosmos.
Finally, let us never forget that where the interpretations in our hands oft have the lord, we find that tetragrammaton which perpetually eats at the flesh of men of letters.
