QUESTION: Do the letters in YHWH compose a meaning?

[Rakovsky]

I am part of the Christian community, but would like to please understand what views there may be in the Jewish community on this question.

In ancient Egyptian and Cuneiform alphabets, in their first stage the letters began as words and then in the second stage of development they progressed into sounds that could be combined to form words. Chinese began like this too, but did not progress to the second stage.

In Chinese, the word for God is Shang Di, (Supreme Deity) (上帝). or Tien. Tien can also mean heaven and is written like a person with a hat or bar at the height of his head 天, to show his highness.

In ancient Egyptian pictograms, God was sometimes drawn to look like a flag (perhaps referring to the divine Asheroh poles) or like a sitting man. The word for God was NTR, which scholars commonly think meant "self-generating life", or "self-animated being". The three sounds were drawn as water, bread, and a mouth, which could be a reference to eating and drinking, which sustain life.

Of course, Hebrew is not Chinese or Egyptian, but the Hebrew scribes and rabbis had a longstanding practice of seeing special meanings in the letters and words of the Torah. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet at the time of writing of the Torah originally was much more pictoral, with Aleph looking much more like an ox's head than it does today. Another of the concept of hidden meanings in letters was the consistent repetition of the letters of TORAH throughout the Torah itself, and the way that Shin was sometimes written with four prongs (like on Tefillim) instead of three, or written with tiny crowns on top of the prongs.

The Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was especially important, to the point where God's name was replaced in writing either with Adonai (Lord) or simply called Hashem ("the name") in oral speech.

I know that the name YHWH itself means "I am", and that God related this name to Moses in the Torah, along with another name, "I am that I am". It suggests that God's name is "The existing one", or "Yah who is". Jeremiah refers to God as simply "Yah" at one point, and scholars say there was an ancient Near Eastern Semitic deity named "Yah", which could be related to the religion of YahWH.

Exodus 3 gives God's name this way:

13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
15 Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’

The Ancient Hebrew website explains how a name in Hebrew like Adam or Yhwh can have a root meaning:

... in English, a "name" is more of what we would call a "title," a word with meaning. An example is the "name" Adam [str:120] which is related to the Hebrew word adamah [str:127] meaning "ground." This link between Adam and ground can be seen in Genesis 2:7 - And YHWH formed the Adam of dust from the ground.

The Hebrew YHWH is the verb hawah meaning "to exist" with the prefix y meaning "he." Therefore, the word YHWH means "he exists." YHWH is the one who exists every where every time.
Biblical Hebrew Picture Dictionary

In the Middle Ages, there was a Jewish custom of inscribing amulets or seals with the Tetragrammaton for use in supernatural work (eg. magic).

My question is whether Judaism has given an explanation of the meaning of the pictoral letters themselves of the Tetragrammaton and tried to reach conclusions about a pictoral meaning, similar to what happens in other pictoral languages like Chinese, or like some mystical Jewish scholars have done with other letters or words in Hebrew.

Here is one list I found of early Paleo-Hebrew letters:

A big graph can be found here:

Spoiler: graph

Hebrew letters developed to the point where Proto Hebrew ones in "YHWH" were written like:

The bottom line is modern Hebrew (AKA Assyrian) script.

On the Ancient Hebrew proboard, there was this discussion:

Spoiler: excerpt

"The Ancient Hebrew Resources Center website encourages us to look at the ideograms if we want to get a deeper understanding of words. ...

I AM (Hebrew הָיָה) hayah is Strong word H1961 and means "to be", "become", "come to pass", "exist", "happen", "fall out"
Yähwè [YAHWEH] (Hebrew יָהוֶה) is Strong word H3068 and means "the existing One", "self-existent", "the proper name of the one true God"

according to this web site's ancient hebrew lexicion, the deeper meaning of that word... = "to exist or have breath." "

~Rama

Proverbs 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.

'Y'=to work (to manifest), 'H'=to breathe (figuratively, righteousness character), 'W'=to secure, 'H'=to breathe (figuratively, life).

~Dcinc

The meaning "become" [For the Hebrew "hayah"] is a very nice interpretation of the word. . .but the Hebrew word הֹוָה hōwāh--coming from the same root--means "destruction," so "become" can't really provide an answer to this usage. When we look into Aramaic and Arabic, the meaning of the word is fall out, thence we get the two usages come to be (as falling out of obscurity) and destroy (as life falling away). So I would suggest יַהְוֶה Yahweh is the Qal Imperfect 3rd person masculine singular, which would give the meaning "He falls out (or reveals), He creates, He destroys (i.e. evil ones), etc."

~Seeker of the Truth

Read more: Interpretation of YHWH? | Ancient Hebrew Forum

 

[Rakovsky]

The Hebrew Perspectives website says:

Spoiler: Hebrew Perspectives excerpt

The actual Hebrew letters have meanings.
Hey means behold.
Yud means hand.
Vav means nail.

The name of God can be found in The Priestly Blessing, (Hebrew: ‫ברכת כהנים‬‎; translit. Birkat Kohanim), also known in Hebrew as Nesiat Kapayim, (lit. Raising of the Hands)

It is based on a scriptural verse: "They shall place My name upon the children of Israel, and I Myself shall bless them." It consists of the following Biblical verses (Numbers 6:24–26):

May the LORD (YHWH) bless you and guard you -
‫יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה, וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ‬
("Yivorekhekhaw Adonai v'yishm'rekhaw ...)

May the LORD make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you -
‫יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ‬
("Yo'ayr Adonai pawnawv aylekhaw vikhoonekhaw ...)

May the LORD lift up His face unto you and give you peace -
‫יִשָּׂא יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם‬
("Yisaw Adonai pawnav aylekhaw v'yasaym l'khaw shalom.")

These hands, as in the Priestly Blessing, are divided into twenty-eight sections, each containing a Hebrew letter. Twenty-eight, in Hebrew numbers, spells the word Koach = strength. At the bottom of the hand, the two letters on each hand combine to form יהוה, the name of God.
The position of each hand in this image forms the Hebrew letter shin ( ש ), the first letter in Shaddai ( שדי ), the name of God that refers to Him as a protector.

There are other meanings for the letters, but the ones presented here today are traced back to Ancient pictographic Hebrew.
Nail, tent peg, add, hook, to secure, connect, Messiah for “vav.”
Look, Behold, The, Reveal, breath, man for “hey”.
Arm, hand, work, thrust, deed, make, throw, worship for “yud”,
A “yud” looks like an arm and hand, while a “vav” looks like a nail with an open tob like a small y, and the hey looks like a man with his hands raised.
Hebrew Perspectives: Behold The Hand, Behold The Nail

The "Priestly Blessing" referred to in bold in the Excerpt above can be seen here:

The Shefa Tal blessing
SOURCE: Priestly Blessing - Wikipedia

I see how Jewish thinkers over the centuries could have connected the idea of "behold" and the picture of the image with the man with the arms and hands raised (as in the Paleohebrew letter) to the priestly blessing where the priest holds up his hands.

Where might the nail (letter yod) come in?

Are there ideas in the Tanakh connecting looking, hands, nails, and God?

The JPS translation of Psalm 22 says:

• 17 For dogs have encompassed me; a company of evil-doers have inclosed me; like a lion, they [attack] my hands and my feet.
• 18 I may count all my bones; they look and gloat over me.
  
• 19 They part my garments among them, and for my vesture do they cast lots.

The Artscroll Tanakh version puts "attack" in brackets where I did above. It's true that a few Masoretic texts say that the enemies gouge (karu) the narrator's hands, but that is not the main Masoretic reading. The verb "karah" means to gouge like staffs and scepters are said to gouge the earth to make a well, earlier in the Torah.
So in Psalm 22 describes a gouging attack on the blessed narrator's hands and they, apparently the enemies, looking at the narrator, but there is no explicit mention of nails, besides driving weapons into the narrator like one drives staffs into the ground.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-11 talks about a shepherd giving nails (in the JPS version):

• Koheleth sought to find out words of delight, and that which was written uprightly, even words of truth.
• The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails well fastened are those that are composed in collections; they are given from one shepherd.

Here is the Hebrew, in case you might translate v. 11 differently:
יא דִּבְרֵי חֲכָמִים כַּדָּרְבֹנוֹת, וּכְמַשְׂמְרוֹת נְטוּעִים בַּעֲלֵי אֲסֻפּוֹת; נִתְּנוּ, מֵרֹעֶה אֶחָד.

What a shepherd might have to do with giving nails or words of wisdom is not immediately obvious. But in Psalm 23, God is described as a shepherd. It makes sense that God also supplies wise words, and that in Genesis 1, God's words are considered supernatural in power, as Psalm 33:6 does too:
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host."

So in Ecclesiastes 12, it is God supplying the wise words and the nails. It's true that if someone provides nails, they would typically give them using their hand. But what "nails" have to do with a shepherd (as opposed to a carpenter) seems a bit cryptic.

In Psalm 40:6-7, God gouges (karah) ears for the narrator, presumably to hear God's words, which in Eccl. 12 was compared to nails. Back in Judges 5, Jael killed Sisera by driving a "nail" through both temples. Psalm 40 has a similar idea with gouging holes in the narrator's head, but it's metaphorical and nails are not specifically mentioned. I guess you can apply that to Psalm 22 and say nails were gouged(karah) into the narrator's hands, but that all seems a bit tenuous, doesn't it?

This all leads back to my main question of whether there was a view in the Jewish community over the centuries as to whether the meanings of the letters themselves in the Tetragramaton combined to make a new meaning.

 

[Tumah]

This all leads back to my main question of whether there was a view in the Jewish community over the centuries as to whether the meanings of the letters themselves in the Tetragramaton combined to make a new meaning.

If there was, I have no seen it.
There's only a small passage in the Talmud that creates a mnemonic teaching based on a very loose meaning of the names of the letters. But in general, its much more common to find sources discussing the perceived shape of the letter in the Ashurite script rather than the name.

 

[Jedster]

If there was, I have no seen it.
There's only a small passage in the Talmud that creates a mnemonic teaching based on a very loose meaning of the names of the letters. But in general, its much more common to find sources discussing the perceived shape of the letter in the Ashurite script rather than the name.

In my early Jewish education I was taught that one of the meanings of the Tetragrammaton is "That which was, is and will be". A construct from the the verb
להיות (meaning : to be).

 

[Tumah]

In my early Jewish education I was taught that one of the meanings of the Tetragrammaton is "That which was, is and will be". A construct from the the verb
להיות (meaning : to be).

Right. That's a meaning based on a root. He's asking about a meaning based on the meaning of the names of the letters.

 

[Rakovsky]

If there was, I have no seen it.
There's only a small passage in the Talmud that creates a mnemonic teaching based on a very loose meaning of the names of the letters. But in general, its much more common to find sources discussing the perceived shape of the letter in the Ashurite script rather than the name.

Would you happen to remember the mnemonic?
What did it say about the perceived shape?

 

[Rakovsky]

Thanks to everyone for writing in.
If you click on the Spoilers in the two first messages, there are some excerpts.

 

[Tumah]

Would you happen to remember the mnemonic?

Its just a nice line about studying and doing good stuff. Nothing exciting.

What did it say about the perceived shape?

Nothing really relevant to your OP.

 

[RabbiO]

There is no meaning unless you want there to be meaning. I'm not into that sort of mysticism since it distracts from my real worship: loving others.

Reminder - This is the Judaism DIR.

 

[RabbiO]

It's OK to love.
But I could do without the unwanted touching.

Not that we don't love you, but this is the Judaism DIR.

 

[Tumah]

I see how Jewish thinkers over the centuries could have connected the idea of "behold" and the picture of the image with the man with the arms and hands raised (as in the Paleohebrew letter) to the priestly blessing where the priest holds up his hands.

The connection between the Priestly Blessing and the hands is because there are the same number of parts to the hand as there are words in the blessing. You have 3 segments on 4 fingers, two segments on the thumb and the palm. That's how many words are in the blessing.

 

[Tumah]

The JPS translation of Psalm 22 says:

• 17 For dogs have encompassed me; a company of evil-doers have inclosed me; like a lion, they [attack] my hands and my feet.
• 18 I may count all my bones; they look and gloat over me.
  
• 19 They part my garments among them, and for my vesture do they cast lots.

The Artscroll Tanakh version puts "attack" in brackets where I did above. It's true that a few Masoretic texts say that the enemies gouge (karu) the narrator's hands, but that is not the main Masoretic reading. The verb "karah" means to gouge like staffs and scepters are said to gouge the earth to make a well, earlier in the Torah.
So in Psalm 22 describes a gouging attack on the blessed narrator's hands and they, apparently the enemies, looking at the narrator, but there is no explicit mention of nails, besides driving weapons into the narrator like one drives staffs into the ground.

You haven't realized what you pasted. The non-Jewish translations don't have the word "like a lion". The word in question is "k'ari". Jewish translators translate that word as it is "like a lion". Non-Jewish translators understand that word to be a construct of the word to dig. They use this as a reference for Jesus as though to say that gouging out the hands and feet are refer to Jesus getting nailed to the cross in his hand and legs.

 

[Tumah]

Ecclesiastes 12:10-11 talks about a shepherd giving nails (in the JPS version):

• Koheleth sought to find out words of delight, and that which was written uprightly, even words of truth.
• The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails well fastened are those that are composed in collections; they are given from one shepherd.

Here is the Hebrew, in case you might translate v. 11 differently:
יא דִּבְרֵי חֲכָמִים כַּדָּרְבֹנוֹת, וּכְמַשְׂמְרוֹת נְטוּעִים בַּעֲלֵי אֲסֻפּוֹת; נִתְּנוּ, מֵרֹעֶה אֶחָד.

What a shepherd might have to do with giving nails or words of wisdom is not immediately obvious. But in Psalm 23, God is described as a shepherd. It makes sense that God also supplies wise words, and that in Genesis 1, God's words are considered supernatural in power, as Psalm 33:6 does too:
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host."

So in Ecclesiastes 12, it is God supplying the wise words and the nails. It's true that if someone provides nails, they would typically give them using their hand. But what "nails" have to do with a shepherd (as opposed to a carpenter) seems a bit cryptic.

The Talmud understands this verse to be a metaphor for Torah. Just like the goad causes the ox to till the ground to bring out sustenance (a metaphor for life), so to the Torah goads the person to travel the path to life. But a goad is movable so maybe the Torah is mutable as well. So the verse also compares it to nails which are immutable. But a nail itself causes a deficit where it is placed (by making a hole). So the verse adds plantings (your translation renders it 'well fastened'). Just like multiply, so too the Torah multiplies (and doesn't cause deficit). So its a metaphor for Torah where each successive word rectifies the issue with the metaphor in the word before it.

 

[Rakovsky]

You haven't realized what you pasted. The non-Jewish translations don't have the word "like a lion". The word in question is "k'ari". Jewish translators translate that word as it is "like a lion". Non-Jewish translators understand that word to be a construct of the word to dig. They use this as a reference for Jesus as though to say that gouging out the hands and feet are refer to Jesus getting nailed to the cross in his hand and legs.

Yes, I intentionally pasted the JPS rabbinical version, since am aware of the issue you have in mind.

There are also at least seven known traditional nonChristian Masoretic Jewish manuscripts that say in Hebrew not k'ari, but in some copies k'aru and in other copies karu ("they gouged").

Back in the 2nd c. AD, the Jewish nonChristian translator Aquila translated the Hebrew text he was given to say in Greek "they disfigure my hands", not "like a lion my hands". We don't have a copy of his Hebrew text, but it would not have said k'ari, a word that correctly translates to "like a lion".

My best guess is that the Psalm writer was using something like a double entendre. I heard that in ancient Hebrew writing (like in David's time), yods and waws were drawn the same way. Maybe you can confirm that about the script for me?
If so, he could have written k'ari or karu and hinted at the other word. That is, the full meaning I see is that the writer is implying that the enemies, armed with "the sword" and "horns" "gouge" his limbs "like a lion" would attack.
There are a lot of reasons why I think this is the implication ("like a lion they gouge my hands"), one reason being the Jewish textual variations I mentioned above (like a lion vs. they gouge), and another reason being the consistent pattern of verbs and nouns in that collection of verses in Psalm 22 (each phrase involves a harmful action + a body part or enemy).

 

[Tumah]

Yes, I intentionally pasted the JPS rabbinical version, since am aware of the issue you have in mind.

There are also at least seven known traditional nonChristian Masoretic Jewish manuscripts that say in Hebrew not k'ari, but in some copies k'aru and in other copies karu ("they gouged").

Back in the 2nd c. AD, the Jewish nonChristian translator Aquila translated the Hebrew text he was given to say in Greek "they disfigure my hands", not "like a lion my hands". We don't have a copy of his Hebrew text, but it would not have said k'ari, a word that correctly translates to "like a lion".

My best guess is that the Psalm writer was using something like a double entendre. I heard that in ancient Hebrew writing (like in David's time), yods and waws were drawn the same way. Maybe you can confirm that about the script for me?
If so, he could have written k'ari or karu and hinted at the other word. That is, the full meaning I see is that the writer is implying that the enemies, armed with "the sword" and "horns" "gouge" his limbs "like a lion" would attack.
There are a lot of reasons why I think this is the implication ("like a lion they gouge my hands"), one reason being the Jewish textual variations I mentioned above (like a lion vs. they gouge), and another reason being the consistent pattern of verbs and nouns in that collection of verses in Psalm 22 (each phrase involves a harmful action + a body part or enemy).

There's a wiki page that has more information than I do.
They have pierced my hands and my feet - Wikipedia
There it mentions that in Aquilas revised manuscript, he translates it as "they've bound my hands and feet".

I haven't heard that yods were drawn like vavs in early manuscripts. Looking at the DSS, although the yods are somewhat longer than we write them today, they're still shorter than the vavs. But that wouldn't solve the problem completely. There's still a problem of the additional alef that doesn't fit with the root for digging.

Although double entendres are often used, its usually given to present two different ways of reading the verse. I've never heard of using both meanings of a word to get out a single translation.

 

[Rakovsky]

There's a wiki page that has more information than I do.
They have pierced my hands and my feet - Wikipedia
There it mentions that in Aquilas revised manuscript, he translates it as "they've bound my hands and feet".

I haven't heard that yods were drawn like vavs in early manuscripts. Looking at the DSS, although the yods are somewhat longer than we write them today, they're still shorter than the vavs. But that wouldn't solve the problem completely. There's still a problem of the additional alef that doesn't fit with the root for digging.

You are right in what you say in the above paragraph. So I needed to consider what K'aru, in the DSS and 5 Masoretic manuscripts, could mean.

Adding an aleph to a word as a spelling variant was a practice taken from Aramaic.

Hebrew professor James Price gives examples from Hebrew of other word variants with an added “aleph”: " da'g, dag (fish) from the verb dug (fish for); la't, lat (secrecy) from the verb lut (be secret); q'am, qam (he arose); ra'sh," Keil and Delitzsch also note that Zechariah 14:10 and Daniel 7:16 have added alephs in the words ra’ama and ka’amaiya. (Keil and Delitzsch, "Commentary on the Old Testament", Volume 5, page 319).

Although double entendres are often used, its usually given to present two different ways of reading the verse. I've never heard of using both meanings of a word to get out a single translation.

Typically translators pick the word that they think is best when a word has two meanings and don't write out both meanings.
What can happen with poetry though is that in the original language, both meanings can be implied by an author depending on the context, and this would not show up in a translation in another language unless the translator adds a footnote.

So if I tell someone that "I was painting a stop sign over the daily newspaper, and read both at the same time", people would not pick up on the double entendre in the translation.

John Kselman writes in his essay Double Entendre in Psalm 59
The Book of Psalms

Spoiler: Two meanings of Kol HaNeshama

The phrase "Kol HaNeshama" comes from the last verse of Psalm 150, the Psalm that many of us know simply as "Hallelu", perhaps the most joyous of all the Psalms. ... The Hebrew spelling of "Kol" is K-L, Kaf-Lamed, meaning "all".

The root of Neshama, N-SH-M, Nun-Shin-Mem, means "breath" or "breathing", thus a "living thing". The simple meaning is: "Every living thing" (will praise God). Some have expanded this to "The breath of every living thing praises God." The translation in our prayer book, which just happens to be named Kol HaNeshama, is "Let every living thing Yah's praises sing".

Another translation would be "all that breathes" or "all of humanity", signaling a universality in Judaism that includes all of humankind as one entity.

If you change the first Hebrew letter, Kaf, to a Kuf, the pronunciation is identical, but the meaning changes to "the voice of" the living being. Many Jewish musicians play on this double entendre, since the rest of the Psalm is a description of the use of many musical instruments in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, culminating with the human voice (breath) in song and prayer.

Kol Haneshama - Translation or Definition
So Kol HaNeshama is a homophone containing a double entendre in Psalm 150 - the the breath of the living being or the voice of the living being, with the Psalm being a voice of singing about the breath of the being.

Another example, one you gave, was not a double entendre but the kind of tactic of interpretation I mean - you mentioned how the rabbis read in Ecclesiastes that the words like nails are like the Torah. Nowhere in that passage did it mention the "Torah". But it can still be an implication in the text. God makes wise words like nails for scholars, and the Torah has wise words for scholars. The author could have in mind the Torah without ever mentioning Torah.

I read about the words "gods" in Psalm 82:1 "God stands in the congregation of the mighty; he judges among the gods.":

Spoiler: Elliot commentary

He judgeth among the gods—i.e., He is among the judges as presiding judge. For “gods,” applied to men delegated with office from God, see Exodus 21:6, and, possibly, Exodus 22:8-9. (See also Note, Psalm 8:5, and comp. Exodus 4:16; Exodus 7:1.) The custom of designating God’s vicegerents by the Divine name was a very natural one. The whole point of Psalm 82:6 lies in the double meaning the word can bear.
Psalm 82:1 Commentaries: A Psalm of Asaph. God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.

Another example is Psalm 12:2 ► "They speak vanity every one with his neighbor: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak."
"Lips" are a doubled part of the human body, and the verse also talks about a double heart. But the expression "double heart" is also meant to imply hypocrisy or dishonesty.

Sometimes rabbis will read a passage and see two meanings for the same word or passage or will draw out a second meaning from the same word that they see implied in it. I read that Psalm 22 was one case in midrashic tradition where a rabbi saw both meanings in kari/karu, but my source didn't provide a citation, unfortunately.

So this is my best guess about Psalm 22, and I have different reasons for this. One reason is the context:
The enemies are compared to a lion's jaws twice, and so the implication is that they are "like a lion" in attacking. But the enemies are also described as wielding swords and horns, and in Psalm 59 the dog's jaws were said to be with swords. So the implication is that their attack is a "gouging" attack with their pointed "horns".
A second reason is the divergence in the tradition. The people had been reciting this Psalm as a community for many centuries. And yet there is a major divergence in the transmission, with a major part saying "like a lion", with another major part saying "karu", "kaaru", and "dug"(oruksan, LXX), and then a few non-Hebrew translations that involve action verbs of harm (disfigure, bind, hack).
I have other reasons too.

 

[Tumah]

You are right in what you say in the above paragraph. So I needed to consider what K'aru, in the DSS and 5 Masoretic manuscripts, could mean.

I'd suggest that maybe a slightly lengthened yod is more likely than an entire extra alef.

Adding an aleph to a word as a spelling variant was a practice taken from Aramaic.

Hebrew professor James Price gives examples from Hebrew of other word variants with an added “aleph”: " da'g, dag (fish) from the verb dug (fish for); la't, lat (secrecy) from the verb lut (be secret); q'am, qam (he arose); ra'sh," Keil and Delitzsch also note that Zechariah 14:10 and Daniel 7:16 have added alephs in the words ra’ama and ka’amaiya. (Keil and Delitzsch, "Commentary on the Old Testament", Volume 5, page 319).

I'm not familiar with all of these instances, but it was easy to find the first one and that will illustrate my point. The letters dalet alef gimmel spell the word for "worry". However, in this context, "worry" would not fit the verse in Neh. 13:16. Its talking about some type of wares that they bought and sold. You can't do that with worry. So we're forced to say that there's a textual variant here.
However, that's not the case with "k'ari". There is a meaning that can be understood with that word in the context that would fit the poetic nature of Psalms. So we'd need a compelling reason to drop the alef.

Typically translators pick the word that they think is best when a word has two meanings and don't write out both meanings.
What can happen with poetry though is that in the original language, both meanings can be implied by an author depending on the context, and this would not show up in a translation in another language unless the translator adds a footnote.

So if I tell someone that "I was painting a stop sign over the daily newspaper, and read both at the same time", people would not pick up on the double entendre in the translation.

John Kselman writes in his essay Double Entendre in Psalm 59
The Book of Psalms

Spoiler: Two meanings of Kol HaNeshama

The phrase "Kol HaNeshama" comes from the last verse of Psalm 150, the Psalm that many of us know simply as "Hallelu", perhaps the most joyous of all the Psalms. ... The Hebrew spelling of "Kol" is K-L, Kaf-Lamed, meaning "all".

The root of Neshama, N-SH-M, Nun-Shin-Mem, means "breath" or "breathing", thus a "living thing". The simple meaning is: "Every living thing" (will praise God). Some have expanded this to "The breath of every living thing praises God." The translation in our prayer book, which just happens to be named Kol HaNeshama, is "Let every living thing Yah's praises sing".

Another translation would be "all that breathes" or "all of humanity", signaling a universality in Judaism that includes all of humankind as one entity.

If you change the first Hebrew letter, Kaf, to a Kuf, the pronunciation is identical, but the meaning changes to "the voice of" the living being. Many Jewish musicians play on this double entendre, since the rest of the Psalm is a description of the use of many musical instruments in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, culminating with the human voice (breath) in song and prayer.

Kol Haneshama - Translation or Definition
So Kol HaNeshama is a homophone containing a double entendre in Psalm 150 - the the breath of the living being or the voice of the living being, with the Psalm being a voice of singing about the breath of the being.

Another example, one you gave, was not a double entendre but the kind of tactic of interpretation I mean - you mentioned how the rabbis read in Ecclesiastes that the words like nails are like the Torah. Nowhere in that passage did it mention the "Torah". But it can still be an implication in the text. God makes wise words like nails for scholars, and the Torah has wise words for scholars. The author could have in mind the Torah without ever mentioning Torah.

I read about the words "gods" in Psalm 82:1 "God stands in the congregation of the mighty; he judges among the gods.":

Spoiler: Elliot commentary

He judgeth among the gods—i.e., He is among the judges as presiding judge. For “gods,” applied to men delegated with office from God, see Exodus 21:6, and, possibly, Exodus 22:8-9. (See also Note, Psalm 8:5, and comp. Exodus 4:16; Exodus 7:1.) The custom of designating God’s vicegerents by the Divine name was a very natural one. The whole point of Psalm 82:6 lies in the double meaning the word can bear.
Psalm 82:1 Commentaries: A Psalm of Asaph. God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.

Another example is Psalm 12:2 ► "They speak vanity every one with his neighbor: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak."
"Lips" are a doubled part of the human body, and the verse also talks about a double heart. But the expression "double heart" is also meant to imply hypocrisy or dishonesty.

Sometimes rabbis will read a passage and see two meanings for the same word or passage or will draw out a second meaning from the same word that they see implied in it. I read that Psalm 22 was one case in midrashic tradition where a rabbi saw both meanings in kari/karu, but my source didn't provide a citation, unfortunately.

So this is my best guess about Psalm 22, and I have different reasons for this. One reason is the context:
The enemies are compared to a lion's jaws twice, and so the implication is that they are "like a lion" in attacking. But the enemies are also described as wielding swords and horns, and in Psalm 59 the dog's jaws were said to be with swords. So the implication is that their attack is a "gouging" attack with their pointed "horns".
A second reason is the divergence in the tradition. The people had been reciting this Psalm as a community for many centuries. And yet there is a major divergence in the transmission, with a major part saying "like a lion", with another major part saying "karu", "kaaru", and "dug"(oruksan, LXX), and then a few non-Hebrew translations that involve action verbs of harm (disfigure, bind, hack).
I have other reasons too.

I'm not really sure what you're referring to in some of the things you write here, but I think you misunderstood me. I was referring to where you wrote

If so, he could have written k'ari or karu and hinted at the other word. That is, the full meaning I see is that the writer is implying that the enemies, armed with "the sword" and "horns" "gouge" his limbs "like a lion" would attack.​

It seems as though you were suggesting that both the translation of karu and k'ari be used to formulate a single translation for the verse. I was pointing out that I don't think the rabbinical commentaries use both translations of a single word to formulate a translation of the verse. They'll usually come out with two different ways of understanding the text instead.

 

[Rakovsky]

My main question in the thread is about the pictographic meaning that someone might see in YHWH.
Hebrew did not work as a pictographic language, as I understand it.

Their contemporaries, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Chinese, did and gave special meanings to their written name for God. I found studying those pictographic meanings for God to be fascinating. For the Babylonians, their pictograph for God was an eight pointed star, thus associating God with the heavens. There was a similar association in the Israelites' religion, as God was said to be in the heavens (Psalm 115). Of course, I understand this doesn't mean that the Israelites were looking at YHWH's name pictorally.

The other thing is that rabbis and Jewish traditions did look at some words mystically like they had a secret inner meaning. And the word YHWH should have one too especially, since the "Tetragrammaton" was used in mysticism and on amulets. In calling it the Tetragrammaton, the four letters, it is calling attention to the letters themselves.

Further, in Jewish tradition, there was also special meaning attached to letters. One example that comes to mind is how one of the letters in the Tanakh was intentionally written in a broken way in one verse. Another example is how the Shin on Tefillim is written with four prongs, and in some places it's drawn with crowns.

The reason I brought up Psalm 22 is because as I understand it, the main meaning of those letters, YHWH, is: A. nail, B. to look / behold, C. hand/arm.

Psalm 22 is a Davidic prayer to God about salvation, and involves the narrator's C. hands/arms being attacked with A. sharp objects and then people B. looking at the narrator.

But "sharp objects" is not specific for "nails", and the only way to see that would be indirect, eg. when "karu" (they gouge), the verb is like something that could be done with nails, and then turning to verses like Psalm 40 that uses the same verb "karah" to open ears to hear the word, Ecclesiastes 12 (about the words being like nails), Judges 5 (where a lady drives nails into an eneymy's temples, kind of like opening ears in his head). But this is more tenuous and indirect a connection than I would like.

 

[Tumah]

My main question in the thread is about the pictographic meaning that someone might see in YHWH.
Hebrew did not work as a pictographic language, as I understand it.

Their contemporaries, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Chinese, did and gave special meanings to their written name for God. I found studying those pictographic meanings for God to be fascinating. For the Babylonians, their pictograph for God was an eight pointed star, thus associating God with the heavens. There was a similar association in the Israelites' religion, as God was said to be in the heavens (Psalm 115). Of course, I understand this doesn't mean that the Israelites were looking at YHWH's name pictorally. But I find those pictographic meanings for God to be fascinating.

The other thing is that rabbis and Jewish traditions did look at some words mystically like they had a secret inner meaning. And the word YHWH should have one too especially, since the "Tetragrammaton" was used in mysticism and on amulets. In calling it the Tetragrammaton, the four letters, it is calling attention to the letters themselves.

Further, in Jewish tradition, there was also special meaning attached to letters. One example that comes to mind is how one of the letters in the Tanakh was intentionally written in a broken way in one verse. Another example is how the Shin on Tefillim is written with four prongs, and in some places it's drawn with crowns.

The reason I brought up Psalm 22 is because as I understand it, the main meaning of those letters YHWH is: A. nail, B. to look / behold, C. hand/arm.

Psalm 22 is a Davidic prayer to God about salvation, and involves the narrator's C. hands/arms being attacked with A. sharp objects and then people B. looking at the narrator.

But "sharp objects" is not specific for "nails", and the only way to see that would be indirect, eg. when "karu" (they gouge), the verb is like something that could be done with nails, and then turning to verses like Psalm 40 that uses the same verb "karah" to open ears to hear the word, Ecclesiastes 12 (about the words being like nails), Judges 5 (where a lady drives nails into an eneymy's temples, kind of like opening ears in his head). But this is more tenuous and indirect a connection than I would like.

The thing is that you switched from talking about the special meaning of the shapes of the letters to a special meaning in the names of the letters. These are two different things.

I also wonder if you are taking into account the change from Paleo-Hebrew to Ashurite script.

 

[Rakovsky]

The thing is that you switched from talking about the special meaning of the shapes of the letters to a special meaning in the names of the letters. These are two different things.

I am interested in both, Tumah, in order to see whether either would form meaning.

I like how you have decent familiarity with the topic.

I also wonder if you are taking into account the change from Paleo-Hebrew to Ashurite script.

Yes, definitely, I want to take into account the change. As I understand it, the change occurred after the writing of the Torah and Psalms, but before the time of Zechariah.
I don't know if you clicked on the SPOILER tags in my messages above, but one of them was a graph showing the changes.