Gimel

(Redemption and Recompense)

This next Hebrew letter is a curiosity to me to say the least! What do you get when you cross a camel with a generous man, throw in some blessing and recompense, sprinkle it with the number three, and toss in the idea of weaning a child and ripening some fruit? Don’t get too freaked out, but that is the letter Gimel in a nut shell.

We’re going to take this very slowly and let the actual text guide us rather than simply a patchwork of various traditional interpretations of an ancient letter. Not that those interpretations and traditions can’t be helpful, but they can spiral and snatch the attention from the actual biblical text, getting overshadowed with mysticism if we’re not careful. That being said, I do research many different interpretations of the history and etymology of the Hebrew letters because with a proper perspective, they are very helpful in getting a feel for what we don’t see when we read in English.

My goal is to sort through what is murky mysticism and what is actual history, what is contested oral tradition and what interpretations have survived. And as a clearer picture emerges, I don’t have the final word on any aspect of the Hebrew lexicon, but my goal is to help you get a feel for each letter. Beyond that, I can’t help much since I am not an actual Hebrew scholar. But with those caveats aside, let’s go on an epic adventure into the world of Gimel.

Before we get into Psalm 119:17 which is the first verse of the Gimel section, I want to help you picture what the letter looks like, because for this letter, appearance is an important clue. 

First, let's take a look at it:

      ג

In the mind of a Hebrew scholar, it’s supposed to look like a man walking. If that’s hard to notice, try this. Think of the top horizontal line as the man’s head. The thin vertical line is his body, like a traditional stick man. The bottom two strokes are the legs. The back leg is skinny and the front leg has a big boot. The man is taking a big step to the left.

Many scholars say that the man is running. To understand why, you have to know the letters that come before and after Gimel. The Hebrew language is written from right to left. In English that would look like:  C, B, A

In the Hebrew alphabet, we have Bet, then Gimel, and then Daleth. We will talk about Daleth next week, but I have to give you a bit of a spoiler. The letter Daleth represents a poor man. So get this: Bet is beginning (we learned that last week) and in the minds of some scholars, beginning coincides with source and the source of all things is God. So the whole picture looks like this: God is represented by Bet as the source of everything good. Gimel comes next, rich with God’s abundance and reaching out, running after the next letter to extend the kindness. The next letter, Daleth, is the grateful recipient of the generosity.  

We know that the letter Gimel is associated with wealth because of a Jewish tradition of the dreidel. The dreidel is a game played particularly around Haunuka using something that resembles a spinning top. If you spin the dreidel and it lands on Gimel, you will get all the money. Gimel traditionally is associated with a camel because of the hieroglyphic it was borrowed from. Camels were symbols of wealth in the ancient world. 

So why is any of this important? Before we take a look at how some of these ideas connect, let’s dive into Psalm 119:17-24, the Gimel section.

Deal bountifully with your servant,

    that I may live and keep your word.

Open my eyes, that I may behold

    wondrous things out of your law.

I am a sojourner on the earth;

    hide not your commandments from me!

My soul is consumed with longing

    for your rules at all times.

You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,

    who wander from your commandments.

Take away from me scorn and contempt,

    for I have kept your testimonies.

Even though princes sit plotting against me,

    your servant will meditate on your statutes.

Your testimonies are my delight;

    they are my counselors.

The first thing to notice is the phrase “deal bountifully”. This is translated from the word Gamal which is derived from Gimel. So the essence of this section is instantly revealed as the psalmist is not the Gimel letter running to help others, but the poor man asking God to be the abundant supplier. God is linked to the letter Gimel because He is the generous One with vast resources. 

The request continues with, “open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). “Open” comes from Gala and again starts with Gimel. So God’s law (which we learned earlier means Torah - actually all of the first five books of the Bible including Genesis) is the treasure. You spin the dreidel, land on Gimel, and get all the treasure - that same excitement is like David getting access to the earliest parts of the Bible!

The next couple of verses take a more somber note. David calls himself a sojourner, a Gar (also starting with the letter Gimel). The word Gar is not just meaning someone who is not native to an area, but a person who lacks inherited rights. Think of Ruth the Moabitis when she came to Bethlehem with her widowed mother-in-law after her own husband had also died. She had little to no rights, except that she was allowed to glean in the fields from what was left over by the harvesters. The whole story is in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament. 

There were a number of terrible fates that could have befallen an unprotected widow in the time of the judges (a particularly immoral and chaotic time in Israel’s history). But Ruth found herself in the field of her mother-in-law’s relative, and by God’s providence, she gained favor in his eyes. This kindness on Boaz’s part emboldened Ruth to ask him to be her kinsman redeemer. 

This was a custom set out by God by which a relative would marry and provide for a widow who was facing destitution. The term for this was Goel - redeemer. Goel starts with Gimel, and has the same connotations. In fact, it is a very closely related word. The Gimel character is a kind of Goel, a redeemer, the one with the wealth and means necessary to help someone in distress.

David knew Ruth’s story very well. In fact, without Ruth, there would have been no David. Ruth was David’s great-grandma. David knew that she had been the Gar and his great-grandpa had been the Goel. And when he wrote Gimel, he saw himself just like his great-grandma had been, a vulnerable stranger at the mercy of a gracious redeemer. But in David’s mind, this redeemer was God.

But it gets even better. Jesus is our redeemer, our Goel. He is the one sent from God, the source (represented by Beth) to be the Goel (represented by Gimel) to rescue us, the poor strangers (represented by Daleth).

In verse 20, David says that his soul is “consumed with longing for Your rules at all times”. At first glance, this seems a little strange. Have you ever longer for more rules in your life? It gets even more bewildering when we realize that the words “consumed with longing” actually come from the word Garas (starting with Gimel) that truly means to be crushed as in teeth being broken. Can you imagine your soul being this disturbed, all because you want rules in your life?

Let’s look closer at the word “rules”. If something doesn’t make sense in the Bible, look closer because eventually, it will. There’s a tricky aspect to translation from Hebrew to English that can be hard to truly appreciate. For the most part, Hebrew people did not think in abstract terms. We are very comfortable with using abstract words like mercy, justice, grace, and kindness. In the Hebrew mind, these ideas are pictures represented by real world analogies. For example, when Psalm 103:8 says “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”, it’s not actually using those abstract words like mercy or even being “slow to anger”. For instance, “slow to anger” comes from the phrase “arek ap” meaning literally “long nose”. The long nose means God is slow to flare His nostrils, as in He is slow to get angry with us. But yes, instead of saying that God is slow to anger, David opted to say that God has a long nose because the word picture made more sense to him than an abstract idea about God’s temperament

So let’s keep this different mindset in mind when we read about David being crushed with longing for God’s rules. Of course, God’s rules are wonderful because they uphold goodness and truth. We were made for these guidelines. But it’s a little bit more than just that.

The word rules comes from the word Mispat. Mispat actually is closer to the word judgement or justice. David is longing for justice! That desire can crush someone, particularly someone who is a Gar, a stranger with no rights. So David is not just asking for riches even in the sense of having access to the Torah, but he is also asking for justice, for vindication. And with this, we need to pause to acknowledge a huge aspect of the letter Gimel.

Remember how it’s supposed to look like a man running to deal out blessing? Well, this image has a counter meaning. It’s also a man running to measure out recompense, justice. This dichotomy is a big deal in Jewish scholarly circles - blessings for obedience and recompense for wickedness. David is asking for God’s justice and we will soon find out why.

Verse 21 expands on this situation when it reminds God: “You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from Your commandments”. The word for commandments is misva - very closely related to mispat (which is justice or judgement). When misva (commandment) is broken, mispat (justice) comes to make things right. David has them poised right next to each other in his poem to hone in on this point, all wrapped up in the image of the Gimel running with swift retribution.

David then asks God to take away scorn and contempt from him. He argues that he has kept God’s testimonies, His eda - which have to do with a witness, a witness to truth and justice. And then, we get the full picture of the dire situation at hand as David says, “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on Your statutes” (Psalm 119:23).

So David is crushed with longing for justice because he has enemies. He calls himself a stranger, just like his great-grandmother. How could the future king of Israel, a native born Jew be a foreigner with no rights? Because he has enemies. He sees God as a Goel, a Redeemer who will Gamal (deal bountifully with him) and Gaar (which means to rebuke and be a recompense to his enemies. That’s right, once again, the letter Gimel is used, this time to form a word of correction.

David finishes Gimel by writing, “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors” (Psalm 119:24). David finds comfort in God;s testimonies, His eda, His witness. In the Greek, witness is God’s martus eventually translating to martyr. When you see testimonies in the Old Testament, you’re looking at the linguistic second cousin of the word martyr (so to speak). David delights in staying true to God, regardless of the cost.

In the previous verse, he has said that even though princes were plotting against him, he was meditating on God’s statues. The word statutes come from the word Hoq which means God’s ordinances - God’s decrees which are so much higher than earthly authorities. David is taking comfort in the fact that God’s authority is greater than that of any earthly power and that He will bring perfect justice - and redemption. God is the Goel who will Gamal and Gar (the Redeemer who will deal bountifully with us and rebuke our enemies). And all of this can be seen in Gimel, a letter that looks strangely akin to a very purposeful little stick man.

Works Cited:

1. "A Beginner's Guide to Hebrew Word Studies Lesson 1: Hebrew Words Paint Pictures." Excavating the Bible, www.excavatingthebible.com/p/courses/the-beginner-s-guide-to-hebrew-word-studies/3627180-default-section/11874503-lesson-1-hebrew-words-paint-pictures. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.

2. "Gimel (Psalm 119:17-24)." Christ Episcopal Church Eureka CA, uploaded by Christ Episcopal Church Eureka CA, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItLcstPHaE.

3. "Introduction to Biblical Hebrew - Class 1." uploaded by Dan McClean, 5 Aug. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwx_jJ-1NPw.

4. Levy, Gabriele. "The Letter Gimel." Alefbet - Hebrew Letters Made by Gabriele Levy, gabrielelevy.com/pages/the-letter-gimel?srsltid=AfmBOorJkN6O2Ase2j8KsYYkQIDoOpu1Fu17cvM1aBQugnhzsUX4206X. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.

5. Parsons, John J. "The Letter Gimel." Hebrew 4 Christians, www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/Gimmel/gimmel.html. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.

6. Pochtar, Israel Pastor. "Hebrew Word of the Week Go'el (גּוֹאֵל): Your Redeemer and Restorer." Voice of Judah Israel, vojisrael.org/hebrew-word-of-the-week-goel-your-redeemer-and-restorer/. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.

7. Raskin, Aaron L. Rabbi. "Gimel the Third Letter of the Hebrew Alphabet." Chabad, www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/137075/jewish/Gimmel.htm. Accessed 31 Jul. 2026.