---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Brookbank, Thomas W.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 5
published: 1910-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Brookbank, Thomas W., "Hebrew Idioms and Analogies in the Book of Mormon. IV," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 5 (March 1910): 418–420.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera135unse
start_page: 418
end_page: 420
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse
  publication_year: 1910
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Hebrew Idioms and Analogies in the Book of Mormon. IV


<!-- page:418 -->

Hebrew Idioms and Analogies in the Book
of Mormon.

BY THOMAS W. BROOKBANK.

IV.

The following sacred names occur in the Book of Mormon and
are made:

(Class No. 3.)

Almighty                       Lord God Omnipotent
Almighty God                   Lord Jesus Christ
Beloved                        Lord of Hosts
Christ                         Lord Omnipotent
Comforter                      Maker
Creator                         Mediator
Eternal Father                  Messiah
Everlasting Father              Mighty God
Father                          Mighty One
God                             Most High
God of Israel                   Most High God
'

King                            Only Begotten
Holy One                        Prince of Peace
Holy One of Israel              Redeemer
Holy Ghost                      Savior
Holy Spirit                     Shepherd
Holy Messiah                    Son
Lamb                            Son of God
Lamb of God                     Son of Righteousness
Lord                            Spirit
Lord God                        Wonderful Counsellor
Lord God Almighty

The next group includes words       that,    though common some-

<!-- page:419 -->

HEBREW ANALOGIES IN THE BOOK OF MORMON.                                             419

times,    or generally, have, for one reason or another, been                            made
proper nouns in the Book of Mormon:

(Class No. 4.)

Bountiful                               Great Spirit              Priesthood
Chief Judge                             High Priest               Scriptures
'
Cherubim                                Judge                     Teacher
Desolation                              New (Jerusalem)           Tower
Gentiles                                Priest                    Twelve
Governor

Finally, a special list of names or parts of names, reserved for
particular notice,               is   found in

(Class No. 5.)

Alpha                         Christ             Omega              Tower
Anti                          Jew                Red Sea            Twelve
Arch                          Hebrew             New                Wonderful
Bible                         Mary

This     last        list      shall be subdivided into (a) Those that are           of
Greek origin          as,        Alpha, Omega, Christ, Bible, Anti and Arch,
(b)   Those that are common translatable terms as New, Tower,
Twelve, Wonderful, and Red Sea.                            (c)   Gentile    forms of certain
proper names as Jew and Hebrew.
In Class No. 1 of the general list there are several names that
are compounded with the Greek "Anti," which in one or two in-
stances was changed to "Ante," perhaps through a typographical
error,    or     it   may be             the result of the substitution of one vowel
sound for another, thus causing a variation that seems to have
been quite common among the ancient Jews, and which grew out
of    their system               of writing only the consonants of words, as, for
example, b-r-d, which,                      in    English might stand for bard, beard,
bird, board, broad,                   brad or bred.       Now, the presence of these few
Greek words            in    the Book of             Mormon instead of discrediting its
authenticity in any degree, serves only to confirm its claims as                            a
true historical record.                     When the colony under Lehi left              Jeru-
salem, Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Israel were all hoary with age,
though Rome was still in her swaddling clothes. The Greeks had
taken Troy 684 years, and Homer had lived two centuries at least

<!-- page:420 -->

420                      IMPROVEMENT ERA.

before the first line of the Book of Mormon history was written.
Pour hundred years before Lehi's departure from his native land
the people of God had attained to world-wide fame by the building
of their fiist magnificent temple under Solomon, and by the wis-
dom of their greatest king.        The Jews and the Greeks were not
very remote neighbors, and some traces of Greek in the Book                     of
Mormon are to be expected.          Indeed, if we found nothing what-
ever of that language, in that book, it would be hard to explain
how it transpires that the learned founder of the Nephite people
knew no Greek; knew nothing of a people with whom they doubt-
less had more or less literary and commercial intercourse.

Thus the occurrence of these Greek words              in   the   Book    of
Mormon are perfectly consistent with what the record should dis-
close. In the Nephite name "Ziff, " we find a Babylonian name
copied outright, and this fact seems to link these two people also
together at some time in neighborly association.             In this connec-
tion it is worthy of remark that the Nephite name"Antionah" is
apparently compounded from   the Greek  "Anti,"   the Egyptian
name "On," and the Hebrew termination "Ah."       "Antiparah,"
another Nephite name, easily separates into the Greek "Anti,"
and "Parah" of the land of the Jews.               Anti-on-um is doubtless
derived from a Greek, an Egyptian, and a Hebrew source.                     The
names Christ, Bible, (and Mary may be included here) were                       all

given to the Nephites by direct revelation; and the sacred use                  of
the Greek Alpha and Omega was introduced among them by the Savior
himself.
[to be continued.]
Flagstaff, Ariz.

The Dignity of Labor.

"We shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify
common labor and put brains and skill in the common occupations of
life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the

superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the
useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in
tilling a field as in writing a poem."   — Up from Slavery.
