Naphtali By Signs

This article explores how to identify the lost tribe of Naphtali using signs. The primary way is to understand a feature of the German language, and how it is called out prophetically in the text.

Jacob's Prophecies

Jacob's prophecy about Naphtali. The NIV does not catch the idea very well, so the KJV is included here too.

The key aspect of the prophecies about Naphtali is the language.

The modern German language is the least dense of all western languages taking on average twice the number of letters as Hebrew to express the same idea.

German Speakers

A group of us once had a visiting German speaker who read from Genesis chapter 1. The days of creation where evident even to us who did not know German. Everyone in the room was surprised by the pace of German, with many more pronounced syllables.

Space Budget

Years ago I worked on the computer interfaces that had to be translated from English into both German and Hebrew.

Our user interface guidelines warned us, German will usually be the longest and Hebrew will usually be the shortest after translation. We had to allow our translators room in non-scrollable panels to fit expanded text into these spaces.

All other phonetic languages fall at some point between Hebrew and German, with far more syllables pronounced in German, giving it a quality similar to music.