Why It’s Called Hebrew
The word Hebrew, according to etymological sources, is a transliteration of the word Ivri, which is a descriptive term used for Abraham in Genesis 14:13: “And there came one [from the captives of Sodom] that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew...” Some commentators suggest that Abraham is called Ivri because he was a descendant of Eber (Genesis 11:14), who, together with his own great-grandfather, Shem, was an early monotheist. (In Hebrew, Ivri and Eber share the same root letters.) Others see the term Hebrew, or Ivri, as related to Abraham’s physical locale. Ivri technically means “one who has crossed over.” Abraham had been raised in Ur, which was the great city of the time. The Midrash suggests that Abraham interacted with Nimrod, the powerful despot of the era, and thus must have been in the center of the Mesopotamian civilization. However, Abraham left that land (at God’s behest) for the Land of Canaan, and, in so doing, he crossed the Jordan River. More than reflecting his pla...