Hebrew Roots · letter 4 of 22

Dalet

The door, and the letter that hangs on a single stroke.

How the shape travelled: three historical stages

How sure we are of this ancient picture

Likely

Original sign

A door-leaf on its hinge, the slab that swings.

Paleo-Hebrew

A closed triangle with a tail dropping from one corner.

Modern square

The letter as every printed Hebrew Bible sets it.

On the picture: Minority reading: a fish.

Stage 1 has no Unicode encoding, so it stays a drawing, simplified from the copies published by the scholars who studied the inscriptions themselves: Gardiner, Cross, Naveh, Hamilton. Ancient scribes varied, and no two carvings cut a letter exactly alike. Stages 2 and 3 are real Unicode text.

Sounds like

A plain d as in "door."

Written d in scholarly books.

Its number

letters carried number values from the Hellenistic era on

Its name means

door

Final form

none

this letter does not change at the end of a word

Dalet is the fourth letter and the doorway of the alphabet. Its name is nearly the ordinary Hebrew word for a door, delet, and the earliest form of the sign looks like a door-leaf: the slab that swings on the hinge.

This is also the letter that shows most clearly how carefully the Hebrew text has been kept. In the square script, dalet (ד) and resh (ר) differ by one tiny corner at the top right. Confuse them and a word becomes a different word. Jewish scribes built whole rules around not confusing them, and Jesus made an argument out of exactly that kind of stroke.

Two of the Bible's heaviest words begin here: davar, "word," and dam, "blood." That is not a secret in the letter; plenty of ordinary words start with dalet too. It is simply where the language happened to put them.

Where Scripture itself plays with this letter

The stroke that Jesus mentioned

"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law." The "jot" is the Greek name for yod, the smallest Hebrew letter. The "tittle" is a word meaning "little horn" — the minute stroke that separates near-identical letters. Dalet and resh are the classic pair: one small squared corner is the whole difference between them. This is the one place where Jesus argues from the shape of letters, and the argument is not about hidden meaning at all. It is about preservation: the text is kept down to the stroke.

“For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
Matthew 5:18→

The large dalet in the Shema

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One." In the Hebrew manuscripts, two letters in that verse are written oversized: the ayin that ends the first word, shema ("hear"), and the dalet that ends the last word, echad ("one"). Put those two large letters together and they spell ed, the Hebrew word for "witness." This is a real feature of the manuscripts, catalogued by the Masoretes (the Jewish scribes who preserved and annotated the text) and printed in Hebrew Bibles to this day. Why the scribes did it, they did not say; that the ink is oversized on the page, anyone can see.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.”
Deuteronomy 6:4 — the Shema→

The dalet stanza of Psalm 119

Verses 25 through 32 are dalet's block. It opens at the lowest point in the psalm: "My soul cleaveth unto the dust" — and climbs, eight verses later, to "I will run the way of thy commandments." The stanza is a small rescue in miniature, and every line of it begins with this letter.

Dalet's fourth line in the alphabet poems

In Psalm 25 the dalet verse is the prayer "Show me Your ways, O LORD" — derakheykha, a dalet word for roads or paths. In Psalm 34 it is "I sought the LORD, and He answered me." The poets are keeping the alphabet and praying at the same time.

Words that begin here

דָּבָר

davar — word, thing, matter

One Hebrew word covers what English splits: a word spoken and the thing it brings about.

Open the word→

דָּם

dam — blood

"The life of the flesh is in the blood" — the word under the sacrifices and under the cross.

The Blood→

דֶּלֶת

delet — door

The letter's own name, still in everyday use: the door-leaf that swings on its hinge.

Open the word→

דֶּרֶךְ

derekh — way, road

The road you walk and the way you live: the psalms use it for both at once.

Open the word→

The eight verses that are Dalet’s own

Psalm 119 is the alphabet walking down the longest chapter in the Bible. Every letter gets eight verses, and every one of those eight verses begins with it. Verses 25–32 are the Dalet stanza — eight lines that all open on ד. Every line stands open below, with one preacher’s comment on it directly underneath.

“My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word.”
Psalm 119:25→
“Now the very faithful emperor came boldly within the holy temple but did not pray to his Lord standing, or even on his knees, but lying prone upon the ground he uttered David's cry, "My soul cleaves to the dust; you give me life according …”
Theodoret of CyrusECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 5:17 (458)on Psalm 119:25→
“I recounted my ways, and You answered me; teach me Your statutes.”
Psalm 119:26→
“For what he was by himself, he confesseth in the following words: "I have acknowledged my ways, and Thou heardest me" (ver. 26). Some copies indeed read, "Thy ways:" but more, and the best Greek, read "my ways," that is, evil ways. For he seemeth to me to say this; I have confessed my sins, and Thou hast heard me; that is, so that Thou wouldest remit them. "O teach me Thy statutes." I have acknowledged my ways: Thou hast blotted them out: teach me Thine. So teach me, that I may act; not merely that I may know how I ought to act. For as it is said of the Lord, that He knew not sin, and it is understood, that He did no sin; so also he ought truly to be said to know righteousness, who doeth it. This is the prayer of one who is improving. ...”
Augustine of HippoExposition on Psalm 119 (430)on Psalm 119:26→
“Make clear to me the way of Your precepts; then I will meditate on Your wonders.”
Psalm 119:27→
“My soul melts with sorrow; strengthen me according to Your word.”
Psalm 119:28→
“My soul melteth - Margin, “droppeth.” The Hebrew word here employed - דלף dâlaph - means to drop, to drip, to distil, spoken of a house, as when the rain drops through the roof, Ecc 10:18; then, to shed tears, to weep, Job 16:20 - and this seems to be the meaning here. The idea of melting is not properly in the word, and the term weep would better express the meaning. His soul seemed to drop tears. It overflowed with tears. Yet there is an idea of abundant or constant weeping. It is not a gush of emotion, as when we say of one that he is “bathed in tears;” it is the idea of a steady flow or dropping of tears - slow, silent, but constant - as if the soul were dripping away or dissolving. Thus the idea is more striking and beautiful than that of melting. It is quiet but continuous grief that slowly wears away the soul. There are two kinds of sorrow: (a) the one represented by floods of tears, like fierce torrents that sweep all away, and are soon passed; (b) the other is the gentle dropping - the constant wearing - the slow attrition caused by inward grief, that secretly but certainly wears away the soul. The latter is more common, and more difficult to be borne than the other. The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, “My soul slumbereth.” For heaviness - This word means grief, sorrow, vexation. Pro 14:13; Pro 17:21. It is here silent grief; hidden sorrow. How many thus pine in secret, until life slowly wears away, and they sink to the grave. Strengthen thou me - Give me strength to meet this constant wearing away - this slow work of sorrow. We need strength to bear great and sudden sorrow; we need it not less to bear that which constantly wears upon us; which makes our sleep uneasy; which preys upon our nerves, and slowly eats away our life. According unto thy word - See Psa 119:9, Psa 119:25.”
Albert BarnesNotes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)on Psalm 119:28→
“Remove me from the path of deceit and graciously grant me Your law.”
Psalm 119:29→
“"Take Thou from me the way of iniquity" [Psalm 119:29]. And since the law of works has entered in, that sin might abound; [Romans 5:20] he adds, "And pity me according to Your law." By what law, save by the law of faith? Hear the Apostle: "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works. Nay: but by the law of faith." [Romans 3:27] This is the law of faith, whereby we believe and pray that it may be granted us through grace; that we may effect that which we cannot fulfil through ourselves; that we may not, ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish our own, fail to submit ourselves unto the righteousness of God. [Romans 10:3]”
Augustine of HippoExposition on Psalm 119 (430)on Psalm 119:29→
“I have chosen the way of truth; I have set Your ordinances before me.”
Psalm 119:30→
“He who loves truth, and never utters a false word with his mouth, may say, "I have chosen the way of truth." Moreover, he who always sets the judgments of God before his eyes, and remembers them in every action, will say, "Thy judgments have I not forgotten." And how is our heart enlarged by trials and afflictions! For these pluck out the thorns of anxious thoughts within us, and enlarge the heart for the reception of the divine laws. For, says he, "in affliction Thou hast enlarged me."”
Hippolytus of RomeFragments from Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture - On Psalm CXIX. 30-32. (235)on Psalm 119:30→
“I cling to Your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame.”
Psalm 119:31→
“I have stuck unto thy testimonies, —or I have cleaved, for the word is the same as in Psa 119:25. Though cleaving to the dust of sorrow and of death, yet he kept fast hold of the divine word. This was his comfort, and his faith stuck to it, his love and his obedience held on to it, his heart and his mind abode in meditation upon it. His choice was so heartily and deliberately made that he stuck to it for life, and could not be removed from it by the reproaches of those who despised the way of the Lord. What could he have gained by quitting the sacred testimony? Say rather, what would he not have lost if he had ceased to cleave to the divine word? It is pleasant to look back upon past perseverance and to expect grace to continue equally steadfast in the future. He who has enabled us to stick to him will surely stick to us. "O LORD, put me not to shame." This would happen if God's promises were unfulfilled, and if the heart of God's servant were suffered to fail. This we have no reason to fear, since the Lord is faithful to his word. But it might also happen though the believer's acting in an inconsistent manner, as David had himself once done, when he fell into the way of lying, and pretended to be a madman. If we are not true to our profession we may be left to reap the fruit of our folly, and that will be the bitter thing called "shame." It is evident from this that a believer ought never to be ashamed, but act the part of a grave man who has done nothing to be ashamed of in believing his God, and does not mean to adopt a craven tone in the presence of the Lord's enemies. If we beseech the Lord not to put us to shame, surely we ought not ourselves to be ashamed without cause. The prayer of this verse is found in the parallel verse of the next section (Psa 119:39): "Turn away my reproach which I fear."”
Charles SpurgeonThe Treasury of David, Vol. 6 (1882)on Psalm 119:31→
“I run in the path of Your commandments, for You will enlarge my heart.”
Psalm 119:32→
“We then run the way of our duty, when we are ready to it, and pleasant in it, and lay aside every weight, Heb. xii. His dependence upon God for grace to do so: "I shall then abound in thy work, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. " God, by his Spirit, enlarges the hearts of his people when he gives them wisdom (for that is called largeness of heart, 1 Kings iv.”
Matthew HenryCommentary on the Whole Bible (1710)on Psalm 119:32→

How readers have meditated on this letter

✧The door and the poor mana devotional reading

Two readings have followed this letter for a long time. In Jewish teaching, dalet is heard as dal, the poor man, standing at the door with gimel running toward him: kindness pictured as one letter leaning toward another. In Christian devotional writing, the door-sign has been read alongside Jesus' "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." Both are readings laid on the shape. The Gospel was written in Greek and its word for door has nothing to do with the Hebrew letter; the resonance is homiletical, and it is worth having on those honest terms.

Read this way by: Rabbinic tradition, b. Shabbat 104a; and the Christian devotional tradition on John 10:9