The Two Letters of Witness

If “until” and “witness” are spelled the same, what is Scripture saying every time it uses them?

Introduction: Two Letters, Three Words

Old Hebrew was written with no vowels. Only the letters were on the page. The reader filled in the sounds from the sense of the sentence.

Two Hebrew letters, ayin (ע) and dalet (ד), set side by side, spell עד. Those same two letters make three different words. Read as ad, they mean “until” (H5704). Read as ad again, they mean “forever” (H5703). Read as ed, they mean “witness” (H5707). A fourth word, eduth, means “testimony” (H5715). It comes from a verb that means to bear witness, or to say again (H5749). A witness is someone who tells again what he saw and heard.

English Bibles use a different word for each one, so the English reader never sees the link. The Hebrew reader saw it every time. Where the English says “until” or “forever,” the letters of “witness” are sitting right there on the page.

Part I: The Witness in the Torah

The first clear use comes when Jacob and Laban part ways. They pile up stones and give the pile a name.

Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed.

Galeed means “heap of witness.” Stones cannot talk, but they stay put. Anyone passing by would see the pile and remember the promise made there.

Joshua does the same thing at Shechem.

Joshua 24:27

Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of Yahuah which he spake unto us.

Then Moses gives the Law itself that same job.

Deuteronomy 31:26

Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of Yahuah your Elohim, that it may be there for a witness against thee.

The two stone tablets are called the “tables of testimony” (Exodus 31:18). The ark that held them is the “ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:22). The Law is more than a list of rules. It is the standing witness of the covenant. It sits in the holiest place and tells what Yahuah said and what Israel agreed to.

Part II: Witnesses to One

Isaiah tells exactly what the witness is for.

Isaiah 43:10–11

Ye are my witnesses, saith Yahuah, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no El formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Yahuah; and beside me there is no saviour.

Israel is called ed, witness. The very next words say what they witness. No El came before Him. None will come after Him. “I, even I” is one speaker saying it twice for weight, not three persons speaking. The witness is not to a team or a council. The witness is to one.

The next chapter says it again.

Isaiah 44:8

Ye are even my witnesses. Is there an Eloah beside me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.

Yahuah says He knows of no other. The Trinity asks the witness to testify to something Yahuah Himself says He does not know. Isaiah leaves no room for it.

Israel speaks the same truth every day in the Shema.

Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear, O Israel: Yahuah our Elohim is one Yahuah.

In Hebrew copies of this verse, two letters are written larger than the rest: the ayin at the end of the first word, shema (hear), and the dalet at the end of the last word, echad (one). Put together, they spell ed, witness. This study treats the large letters only as a fact of the old copies. The meaning comes from Scripture itself. Isaiah has already said it: Israel is the witness, and what is witnessed is that Yahuah is one.

Part III: Sealed Until

With these two letters in view, Daniel’s sealed book reads with new weight.

Daniel 12:9

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

In Hebrew the phrase is ad et qetz: until (ad), the time (et), of the end (qetz). The word “till” is the same עד. “Until” is the right reading, and it stays. But a Hebrew reader would notice that the hinge word is spelled with the letters of witness. The book is sealed up to a set point. At that point the witness comes forward and the words are opened.

Daniel 12:4 says it the same way: “seal the book, even to the time of the end.” Again the word is ad. Sealing is not losing. It is safekeeping, like the tablets in the ark: out of sight, but still in force, waiting for the set time.

Part IV: Why Two Letters Matter

In English, “until” and “forever” look like plain time words. In Hebrew they share letters with “witness,” and that fits. A witness is something that lasts. The heap of stones, Joshua’s stone, the book beside the ark, and the tablets inside it all stay put and keep testifying until the matter is settled. What lasts forever (ad) is what never stops bearing witness (ed).

One verse in the Psalms puts both ideas side by side.

Psalm 89:37

It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.

The moon comes back every month on its set path. Scripture calls it ed ne’eman, a faithful witness. What is faithful keeps coming back, and what keeps coming back is a witness.

Seen this way, these verses keep their plain meaning and gain depth. The Law is the witness of the covenant. Israel is the witness that Yahuah is one. Daniel’s words are sealed until the set time, and then the witness is opened.

Conclusion: The Testimony Opened

Revelation picks up every thread. Yahushua is called “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5) and “the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14). That is the same title the Psalm gives the moon, which shines with a light that is not its own. The saints at the end “keep the commandments of Elohim, and have the testimony of Yahushua Messiah” (Revelation 12:17). The Law and the testimony are held together, just as the tablets and the book were kept together at the ark.

What Daniel saw sealed, John sees opened.

Revelation 11:19

And the temple of Elohim was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.

The ark of the testimony, hidden for centuries, is seen again. The witness kept until the end comes forward at the end. Its message has not changed from the first word of the Shema to the last: Yahuah is one, and His covenant stands as a witness forever.