Well enough sarcasm. What do you think Yahshua meant when he said, "...salvation is of the Jews?" What did Sha'ul mean when he said, "...all Israel will be saved?" And finally, what did Mattityahu mean when he told us that we were to call Him YAHSHUA; for He shall save His people from their sins. I can tell you what is the typical modern interpretation of this.

To the modern Christian, salvation is proclaiming out loud that Jesus is the Christ, confessing that you are a sinner and wearing a WWJD band around your wrist.

But true salvation is another concept that is assumed in the Brit Chadashah. The language frequently used in the Brit Chadashah is brought forth from its understood use in the Tenach.

When Mattityahu said that He would save us from our sins, the audience is not told what "save" means or what "sin" means. Why? Because there are 39 books, (or 24 books or 22 books, depending on which translation you are reading,) that have fully explained what these two words mean.

So let us go back to the New Testament dictionary (i.e. Tenach) to gain an understanding of the fullness of this very important word.

We are going to focus on two particular ways that this word "saved" is used. One is the root of the word salvation, which is the word "save" or "to save".

I have stated in a previous study that the word "Jesus" is an English translation of the Greek word `Iesou. This Greek word is a transliteration of the Hebrew word Yahshu`a.

The word in Hebrew for salvation is Yahshu`ah, which is feminine. Yahshu`a is the masculine form. When writing this word, I, as many others do, simply write it as Yahshua.

I am not one of those organizations that quibble over pronouncing His name the correct way. My point here is not HOW to spell it but WHAT this word means to YHVH's people. The root of the word salvation is yasha`, or SAVE.

As we have said before nearly all Hebrew nouns have verbal roots which set the foundation for all the cognates. The words 'save', 'deliver', 'preserve', and 'help' are how this word is usually translated. The word yasha` literally means 'to open', or 'to be wide'. You will see the application of this as we go.

One of the areas that I have not ventured into at this point is the divine deliverance of the letters of Torah. From the early patriarchs to the modern Jewish scholars, the individual letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet are considered to be divinely ordained and put in just the perfect order by YHVH.

Each meaning behind each letter of a word forms a complete meaning of the word when put together. I would recommend our tapes series "Aleph-Bet" for some elementary introduction to this exciting study. For further study I would recommend Rabbi Michael Munks' "The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet".

The word yashu`a contains three consonants which form the word. These consonants are the yod, the shin, and the ayin. Each of these letters has a primitive form and a primitive meaning behind each one. The primitive forms are not in use today. They formed the basis for the early round script which eventually became the modern more "square" look.

The early form of the yod looked like a hand, and it's meaning was a 'deed' or 'action'. The early form of the shin was teeth, and it's meaning was to 'consume' or 'destroy'. The early form of the ayin was an eye, and it's meaning was to 'cast your eyes' or to 'look upon'.

To the Torah observant early Hebrews, this order of the letters helped to form their understanding of the meaning of the whole word. To be saved was to begin with an action or deed, a rescue followed by a destroying of the thing you were rescued from, ultimately concluded by a devotion, or casting your eyes upon, that which delivered you.

I hope and pray that as we go you will see this order. I pray that you will see that in Hebrew thinking (Old Testament revelation), salvation always involved the whole person. The foundation of our trust never divided up the person into three parts. To the mind of the writers of scripture, the person is echad or one. I will elaborate on this later. So, let's go to the first occurrence of the word "save".

Sh'mot 2:16 - 17
"Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and HELPED them, and watered their flock."

Here is the first example of someone being "saved". The daughters of the priest of Midian had come to water their flock, but shepherds had come to not only take their water, but to drive them away. Moshe takes action and rises up against them and drives them away. This is implied from the use of the word vayyaqam which means to 'rise up' as in 'against'.

Moshe then gives the women what the thieves came to take. The result is that one of them is given to Moshe in marriage. Imagine a Hebrew man goes into the territory of the nations, drives off thieves (see Yochanan 10:10), gives his future bride water from the well, and takes her as his own! He then has the chutzpah to go back to his own people with her to a life contrary to her nature, and takes her out on a date to a Passover Seder. Hmmmm.

Let's look at another use of this word.

Sh'mot 14:13 - 14, 27 - 31
"And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, stand still, and see the SALVATION of YHVH which he will show to you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. YHVH shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace . . . And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and YHVH overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. Thus YHVH SAVED Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel SAW the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. And Israel SAW that great work which YHVH did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared YHVH, and believed YHVH and his servant Moses."

Now, according to Sh'mot 3:17, YHVH told Moshe that HE would deliver them OUT of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey. We just learned that in between these two events He would destroy their enemy. This was concluded with Israel seeing or casting their eye on what YHVH had done.

We are just beginning to scratch the surface of this wonderful word. I pray that this particular study will profoundly change your view of what salvation really is.