mu' - Word

jIH ghaj hidden lIj mu' Daq wIj tIq, vetlh jIH might ghobe' yem Daq SoH.

I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11

(click for podcast version)

How can a word be more than just a collections of letters? How does that word, hidden in a heart (tIq) protect against sin (yem)?

Well, of course,it isn't just *any* word.

The believer, reading these words from Psalm 119 knows it's the Bible: a book of many books - made up of thousands of words, yet one we call simply "THE" Word.

In Klingon - or tlhIngan Hol, the word FOR word is "mu'" - it shows up almost 900 times in the Klingon Language Version. In the King James "word" represents 15 different Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words - the most common being dabar in Hebrew (over 400 times) and logos in Greek (almost 200 times). It can refer to something like a single dictionary word, speech, or a complete message. And as we use it here, it can encompass all of God's message to humanity.

One of the terms I've used in Klingon for this is mu''a' - (great word). That's why this podcast "A Klingon Word, from the Word" is called in tlhIngan Hol "mu''a'vo mu'" - from-the-big-word a-word.

In the next podcasts, I want to alter my course. Over the last years I've worked my way through individual psalms, and now, I'd like to shift to emphasize the KLINGON WORD part of this podcast, and work my way through the Klingon Alphabet with a Klingon word for each letter. For each word, I'll choose a verse or verses from the KLV Psalms and we'll look at that verse and word in the greater context of the Scriptures.

The Klingon alphabet, pIqaD (http://www.kli.org/tlh/pIqaD.html ), has 26 letters, just like the Roman alphabet we use for English - but they aren't the same 26 letters, as we'll see, even if you often see the English alphabet used to represent the Klingon. One difference - none of the letters are capitalized as we do in English, as in proper nouns and the beginning of sentences - though some (D,I, H, and S) are always capitalized. Q and q are two different letters. Also, several letters are represented with multiple letters (tlh, ch, and gh). And one letter is represented by the apostrophe - we'll see that one often, because a rule of tlhIngan Hol is that you never start with a vowel - so for the vowels we'll actually see a word that starts apostrophe + a vowel.

The mechanics of the alphabet are not what matter - what matters is the meaning OF the word depicted. That meaning has power - it's why the psalmist holds fast to the word and words of scripture to purify his life:

jIH ghaj hidden lIj mu' Daq wIj tIq, vetlh jIH might ghobe' yem Daq SoH.

I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11

We need to read, listen to, and hold fast to the Word. It is not hard to find passage after passage in the Bible that drive us to consider the Word as God's means of bringing light and power to the believer:

• 2 Samuel 22:31 As for God, his way is perfect: The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.
• Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD are flawless words, As silver refined in a clay furnace, purified seven times.
• Psalms 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light for my path.
• Mark 12:24 Jesus answered them, "Isn't this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God?
• Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God;

This shield, these precious words enlighten, empower and can pierce us through with the truth of God's love, and the salvation he offers each of us! Hang on to this!

The language we speak use, English, Spanish, French, German - any of the human tongues - or even tlhIngan Hol, Klingon, are not what matter. As we study the words of the Bible, my hope and prayer is that we'll move past the accident of the language we use to really read, really consider and as it says here in Psalm 119, take into our heart what God has given us in his most precious word. It will change your life.