λόγος and דבר — A Lexicographical Study
I was asked in a recent interview about scripture’s use of λόγος logos — word, saying in conjunction with how it was used by various Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic period. I explained that part of the difficulty in answering a question like that is simply the wide range of connotations that word has, even amongst the philosophers. As with anything, a good place to start with a word study is to look into how it was used “originally” and then trace its evolution through the ages as it was co-opted for different purposes.
Greek
Λόγος is the nominalized form of the verb λέγω legō, which by the first century, meant “I say” or “I speak”. However, originally, this verb had more the connotation of I choose, assemble, gather, account, measure etc. The verb more typically used for speaking was ἔπω epō— I speak/ say. It is from this verb whence we get the “epic” which referred to a story being transmitted via the vocal recitation. In this sense it is analogous to the Semitic construction, قرأ/ קרא qara— to read aloud, cry, call etc. In Koine Greek, ἔπω in its present tense construction was mostly obsolete and was replaced in the present and imperfect tenses with λέγω and ἔλεγον elegon — I was saying. In the aorist, however, ἔπω replaced λέγω entirely with the verb εἶπον eipon — I said. The Greek word εἴρω eirō, of a similar functional value, referred to both speaking and arranging.
While Koine Greek uses λέγω strictly for the purpose of “speaking”, the older function of that word is still present in some of its derivatives. The word ἐκλέγω eklegō literally means to “pick out”. It is usually translated simply to “I choose”. The past participle derived from this construction is ἐκλεκτός eklektos, the “chosen” or “elected”. It is from this sense of assembling and gathering that λόγος was used in the philosophical tradition to describe the “rational principle” behind the universe. Eventually too, the word λόγος started being used to describe “reason” and “rationality” for the simple reason that human beings are the only creatures who speak. This can be illustrated in the common word for a “beast” at the time which was ἄλογον alogon, literally “without speech”.
Latin
In a fascinating way, this same root in Latin was used in a slightly different but parallel way. The basic verb legō has the same function as its Ancient Greek counterpart, save for the added meaning of “I read”, as in the English word “legend”. Here, it appears to be co-opting the same function that ἔπω had in Ancient Greek and could explain why the two constructions converged in the Koine literature. Thus, we have the word lēctiō in Latin which refers to a “reading”. Notice how the change from a verb to a participle in both languages renders the letter γ/g into κτ/ct. In a similar way, ēlēctus is simply the participle form of ēligō — I choose/ pickout. Again, it is virtually identical to the Greek ἐκλέγω and ἐκλεκτός.
A similar word from this same root is lēx, meaning “law”. The connection becomes obvious when taking a look at the other case endings of this noun. The genitive, for example, is lēgis. This is where we get the words “legal”, “legislature”, and “legitimate” in English parlance. If the jump from g to x seems striking, this same pattern also happens in Greek. The future tense verb λέξω lexō means “I will say” and features the same consonantal transformation of the gutteral sound. Clearly, there is a correspondence happening here between the Latin legō and the Greek λέγω. Latin appears to retain the “older” sense of the word in Greek, but free from the philosophical and theological connotations that it carried in the following centuries.
Hebrew & Arabic
Interestingly, the overall usage of that root in Latin and Greek is also reflected in Hebrew and Arabic. The triliteral root دبر/דבר d-b-r is actually analogous in many ways to λέγω and legō. In Hebrew, this root as a noun refers to a thing, matter, or spoken word. When used as a verb, it means “to speak”. In Arabic, the verb refers to “following” after someone on the one hand and “managing” or “controlling” on the other. This sense of the word can be seen prominantly in the Qur’an, namely 10:3, 10:31, 13:2, 32:5, and 79:5.
How do these interact? I would argue that they do so in a similar way to how the Greek and Latin interacted with each other. Whereas Greek and Latin connected the actions of speaking, reading, and choosing around the topic of “organization”, the Hebrew seems to do so based on the action of “leading” as a bedouin shepherd leads his flock. This is reflected in Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon.
An interesting feature of shepherdism in the Levant is how the shepherd will lead his flock via his voice as this Youtube video captures. This age old tradition was almost certainly in the purview of the Old Testament’s authors, and was likely the reason why the דבר functions as it does in Hebrew. In other words, the reference for דבר is not an abstract idea of “speech” but the very audible reality of bedouins managing (expressed in Arabic as دبر) their flock in the Syrian wilderness. As such, the most common word for desert or wilderness in the Hebrew Bible is מדבר midbar from the same root. The mem (מ) at the front of the word signals nominalization and sometimes, a locality, and thus refers to a “place” where the דבר occurs. Thus not only is דבר emblematic of shepherdism, the word for “wilderness” is as well. It is simply the place where the “voice of the shepherd” is heard.
A Caution for Biblical Exegesis
As I alluded to in the intro, I’ve been thinking about these words ever since I did that interview. Many theologians and other philosophers have been quick to read into scripture the use of λόγος as it was understood by Heraclitus, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Namely, many theologians have been tempted to link the underlying, generative principle of natural law (the metaphysical λόγος) with the God of scripture. In a future post, I plan on outlining the use of λόγος and its derivatives within the New Testament. Before we look for answers outside of scripture, we must first exhaust the terminology from within scripture so as not to impose anything foreign onto the text.
