Every Hebrew word we will meet, in the order the story produces it. Each one goes on a card and stays on the wall all year.

1. A Small Place in a Big World

• erets
  land, earth, country — the same word for a field and for the whole world

2. Five Things That Unlock the Map

• alah
  to go up, ascend — the root behind the Psalms of Ascent, and behind 'making aliyah'

3. Reading the Land

• midbar
  wilderness — and notice how close it sits to davar, word

4. Thinking Differently

• rachamim
  compassion — from the word for womb
• panim
  face, presence — and what it means to lose it or be given it

5. Letters, Roots, and a Few Good Words

• El / Elohim / El Shaddai
  the God names
• YHWH
  the name itself — and what 'LORD' in small capitals is standing in for
• berit
  covenant
• hesed
  loyal, committed, covenant love — the one to keep
• emet
  truth, faithfulness, reliability
• qadosh
  holy — set apart, not merely very good

6. Little Words, Big Difference

• be- / le- / ke- / mi-
  the prefixed prepositions
• et
  the object marker that does not translate
• k-t-b / q-d-sh / sh-l-m
  three roots, and the word families that grow from them

7. Genesis 1–11: The World Behind the Story

• ruach
  spirit, breath, wind — all three at once
• tselem
  image — as in image of God
• balal
  to confuse, to mix — the pun hiding inside the name Babel

8. Abraham: A Man Called Out of Ur

• karat berit
  to cut a covenant — the idiom is literally cutting
• shem
  name, reputation — what Babel wanted and Abram was given
• mishpachah
  family, clan — plural mishpachot, the word tying Genesis 12 back to Genesis 10

9. Household, Land, and the Redeemer

• goel
  kinsman-redeemer — the relative obligated to buy back what the family lost
• bet av
  father's house — the household as an economic and social unit
• nachalah
  inheritance, patrimony — the family's share, not to be sold off

10. Egypt, Exodus, and a Firstborn Son

• zakar
  to remember — but as an act, not a mental state
• segullah
  treasured possession — a king's personal treasure

11. Sacred Time

• moed
  appointed time, festival — a meeting fixed in advance
• shabbat
  to cease, to stop
• yovel
  jubilee — the ram's horn, and the year it announced

12. From Tent to Temple to Exile

• melek
  king
• shophet
  judge — closer to deliverer or chieftain than to a man in a robe
• kavod
  glory — with a root meaning weight, heaviness

13. Between the Testaments

• An Aramaic sampler
  the everyday language of first-century Galilee

14. Rome, Herod, and the World of Jesus

• korban
  offering, that which is brought near
• talitha koum
  'little girl, get up' — Aramaic, preserved in Mark

15. The Rabbi from Nazareth

• talmid
  disciple — an apprentice, not an audience
• mashal
  parable, proverb, riddle

16. Feast, Cross, and Covenant

• kippur
  atonement, covering
• bikkurim
  firstfruits

17. Pentecost: Babel Undone

• ruach
  revisited — now doing something new

18. Reading the Bible Again

• abba
  father — the Aramaic word Paul keeps untranslated
• shalom
  peace — wholeness, completeness, nothing missing