While studying the bitter and sweet contrasts and Mormon's good and bitter water in Moroni 7:11, I had a look at the possible Hebrew roots for these words. I'm interested in learning more Hebrew and posting what I learn as I study. Sorry for the Hebrew lesson if you are not that interested, but there is a point or two in here as well.
The Hebrew word for water is "mayim". It is also symbolized by the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet corresponding to the English 'm'. In Hebrew it looks like this: מַ. We saw in my previous post that bitter is "mar" or "marah". The Hebrew word for sweet is "mathoq", another m-word. A similar word in Hebrew, "mattanah", means "gift" (they share the first two letters, mem and taw). There is a lot of talk about gift in Moroni 7:6-10 before the verse about good and bitter water. It is mentioned 4 times. I wonder if there is some sort of wordplay here.
6 For behold, God hath said a man being cannot do that which is good; for if he a gift, or unto God, except he shall do it with real it profiteth him nothing.
7 For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness.
8 For behold, if a man being giveth a gift, he doeth it ; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.
9 And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
10 Wherefore, a man being evil cannot do that which is good; neither will he give a good gift.
11 For behold, a bitter cannot bring forth good water; neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water; wherefore, a man being a servant of the devil cannot follow Christ; and if he Christ he cannot be a of the devil.
An obvious argument against this, is that the term, "good water" is used, not "sweet". But when discussing the bitter/sweet contrast in previous posts, we note that "sweet" and "good" are used interchangeably. For instance, the Moses quote in this post uses "bitter" and "good", whereas the D&C quote uses and "bitter" and "sweet". James, who wrote the epistle in the New Testament, has no direct connection to Mormon that we know of, but he wrote
Doth a send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? (James 3:11)
Notice the same analogy, but sweet water instead of good water. Of course, the epistle of James is not written in Hebrew so the original word translated to sweet is Greek. We also don't know how much the Hebrew had been changed at Mormon's time but at least he must have understood the kind of Hebrew that Nephi wrote in Egyptian characters on the plates since he abridged the large plates of Nephi. There is always a bit of speculation and my very limited knowledge of Hebrew doesn't help.
Still, I find it interesting how Mormon and Moroni play around with the word, "gift". It certainly has a role in these bitter/sweet or good/evil contrasts sometimes symbolized by fruit or water. There is a connection between the "good gift", the "good water/fountain" and "Christ" in these verses in Moroni 7. Let's also consider Moroni 10:30, where Moroni writes:
And again I would exhort you that ye would unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good , and the evil gift, nor the .
I think the good fountain/water represents this "good gift". Similarly, the "evil fruit" in Jacob 5 or 3 Nephi 14:17 and the fountain of filthy water in 1 Nephi 12:16 represent the "evil gift" and the "unclean thing" that we are exhorted not to touch.
Side note: When I read about the Hebrew word for gift, "mattanah", I thought I remembered one of the 12 disciples having a similar name. Sure enough, in 3 Nephi 19:4, where their names are listed, there is someone called "Mathoni". I looked it up here and it confirmed what I thought. The name is based on the Hebrew word for gift. There are similar names in the Bible coming from the same root, but not with the "i" ending that in Hebrew would indicate the additional "my". So the disciple, Mathoni, had a name meaning "my gift" and he had a brother, also one of the twelve, named Mathonihah, probably meaning "gift of Yahweh". Sounds like there is an intriguing backstory here that perhaps was contained on the plates of Nephi.
So regardless of speculations about underlying Hebrew roots for specific words in the Book of Mormon, there are obvious Hebrew traces and lots of reasons to believe in its ancient Israelite origins. Joseph Smith had no knowledge of Hebrew at the time when he translated the Book of Mormon. If he were making this up, it would be very risky to invent a name that was not found in the Bible but that still needed to sound Hebrew (or Egyptian). Even a name like Mathoni, being close to a Biblical name but not quite, was risky. Small differences (like the "i" at the end) could have completely ruined the plausibility of a Hebrew origin, but it didn't. If you try to argue that Joseph Smith just guessed and got lucky each time or had help from Hebrew experts in the translation process, you won't get very far with me. He really did translate by the gift and power of God (pun intended)!
