Like the Hebrew term ʽa·vadhʹ, the Greek verb la·treuʹo (Luke 1:74; 2:37; 4:8; Acts 7:7) and the noun la·treiʹa (John 16:2; Rom. 9:4) convey the idea of service or rendering service. And the Greek word pro·sky·neʹo corresponds closely with the Hebrew term sha·hhahʹ in expressing the thought of both obeisance and worship.

The term pro·sky·neʹo is used in connection with a slave’s doing obeisance to a king (Matt. 18:26) and the act, on the condition of which, Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. (Matt. 4:8, 9) Had he done obeisance to the Devil, Jesus would thereby have signified submission to Satan and made himself the Devil’s servant. But Jesus refused, saying: “Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘It is Jehovah your God you must worship [form of Greek pro·sky·neʹo or, in the Deuteronomy account that Jesus was quoting, Hebrew sha·hhahʹ], and it is to him alone you must render sacred service [form of Greek la·treuʹo or Hebrew ʽa·vadhʹ].’” (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 5:9; 6:13) Similarly, worship, obeisance or bowing down to the “wild beast” and its “image” is linked with service, for the worshipers are identified as supporters of the “wild beast” and its “image” by having a mark either on the hand (with which one serves) or on the forehead (for all to see). Since the Devil gives the wild beast its authority, worshiping the wild beast means, in reality, worshiping or serving the Devil.—Rev. 13:4, 15-17; 14:9-11.

Other Greek words associated with worship are drawn from eu·se·beʹo, thre·skeuʹo and seʹbo·mai. The word eu·se·beʹo means ‘to be pious toward,’ ‘to give godly devotion to’ or ‘to venerate, worship or reverence.’ At Acts 17:23 this term is used with reference to the godly devotion or veneration that the men of Athens were giving to an “Unknown God.” (See GODLY DEVOTION.) From thre·skeuʹo comes the noun thre·skeiʹa, understood to designate a “form of worship,” whether true or false. (Acts 26:5; Col. 2:18) The true worship practiced by Christians was marked by genuine concern for the poor and complete separateness from the ungodly world. (Jas. 1:26, 27) The word seʹbo·mai (Matt. 15:9; Mark 7:7; Acts 18:7; 19:27) and the related term se·baʹzo·mai (Rom. 1:25) mean ‘to stand in awe of,’ ‘to reverence, venerate or worship.’ Objects of worship or of devotion are designated by the noun seʹba·sma. (Acts 17:23; 2 Thess. 2:4) Two other terms are from the same verb stem, with The·osʹ, God, prefixed: the·o·se·besʹ, meaning ‘God-revering,’ ‘godly’ (John 9:31), and the·o·seʹbei·a, denoting ‘reverence of God.’ (1 Tim. 2:10) These two terms correspond somewhat to the German word for “public worship,” namely, Gottesdienst (a combination of “God” and “service”).

WORSHIP THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD

Jehovah God accepts only the worship of those who comport themselves in harmony with his will. (Matt. 15:9; Mark 7:7) To a Samaritan woman Christ Jesus said: “The hour is coming when neither in this mountain [Gerizim] nor in Jerusalem will you people worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know . . . Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.”—John 4:21-24.

The words of Jesus clearly showed that true worship would not depend upon the presence or use of visible things and geographical locations. Rather than relying on sight or touch, the true worshiper exercises faith and, regardless of the place or things about him, maintains a worshipful attitude. Thus he worships, not with the aid of something that he can see or touch, but with spirit. Since he has the truth as revealed by God, his worship is in agreement with the truth. Having become acquainted with God through the Bible and the evidence of the operation of God’s spirit in his life, the one who worships in spirit and truth definitely ‘knows what he is worshiping.’

WRATH

See ANGER.

WRITING

The first man, Adam, was endowed with the ability to speak a language. Initially, however, there would have been little, if any, need for him to write. Adam was then able to handle all communication by word of mouth and, as a perfect man, did not have to depend on a written record to offset an imperfect memory. Of course, Adam would have had no difficulty in devising some means of making a written record. But the Bible provides no direct proof that he wrote either before or after his transgression.

The thought has been advanced that the words, “this is the book of Adam’s history,” may indicate that Adam was the writer of this “book.” (Gen. 5:1) Commenting on the phrase “this is the history” (or, “these are the origins”), occurring frequently throughout Genesis, P. J. Wiseman notes: “It is the concluding sentence of each section, and therefore points backward to a narrative already recorded. . . . It normally refers to the writer of the history, or the owner of the tablet containing it.”—New Discoveries in Babylonia About Genesis, p. 53.

Brief reference to this view was made earlier in Aid to Bible Understanding (on page 393), but further examination of the contents of these histories casts considerable doubt on the correctness of the view advanced by Wiseman. For example, according to this view, the section beginning with Genesis chapter 36, verse 10, would conclude with the words of Genesis 37:2, “This is the history of Jacob.” However, nearly the entire record pertains to Esau’s offspring and makes only incidental reference to Jacob. On the other hand, the information that follows presents extensive information about Jacob and his family. Moreover, if the theory were correct, this would mean that Ishmael and Esau were the writers or possessors of the most extensive documents about God’s dealings with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This does not appear to be reasonable, for it would make those who had no share in the Abrahamic covenant the ones who had the greatest interest in that covenant. It would be hard to conceive that Ishmael had such concern about events associated with Abraham’s household that he put forth efforts to get a detailed record thereof, a record that spanned many years after his being dismissed along with his mother Hagar.—Gen. 11:27b–25:12.

Similarly, there would have been no reason for Esau, who had no appreciation for sacred things (Heb. 12:16), to have written or been the possessor of an account dealing extensively with events in Jacob’s life, events to which Esau was not an eyewitness. (Gen. 25:19–36:1) Also, it does not seem logical to conclude that Isaac and Jacob would have largely ignored God’s dealings with them, being content to have only brief records about someone else’s genealogies.—Gen. 25:13-19a; 36:10–37:2a.

WRITING BEFORE THE FLOOD

There is no way to establish definitely that some of the histories mentioned in the book of Genesis were committed to writing before the Flood, and the Bible contains no references to pre-Flood writing. However, it should be noted that the building of cities, the development of musical instruments and the forging of iron and copper tools had their start long before the Flood. (Gen. 4:17, 21, 22) Reasonably, therefore, men would have had little difficulty in also developing a method of writing. Since there was only one language originally (which later became known as Hebrew; see HEBREW, II; LANGUAGE) and since those who continued to speak that language, the Israelites, are known to have used an alphabet, this suggests that alphabetic writing could have existed before the Flood.—See ALPHABET.

Assyrian King Ashurbanipal spoke of reading “inscriptions on stone from the time before the flood.” But these inscriptions may have simply preceded a local flood of considerable proportions or could have been accounts that purported to relate events prior to the Flood. For example, what is known as “The Sumerian King List,” after mentioning that eight kings ruled for 241,000 years, states: “(Then) the Flood swept over (the earth).” Such record, clearly, is not authentic.

According to Bible chronology, the global flood of Noah’s day occurred in 2370 B.C.E. Archaeologists have assigned dates earlier than this to numerous clay tablets they have excavated. But these clay tablets are not dated documents. Hence the dates that have been assigned to them are merely conjectural and provide no solid basis for establishing a relationship in time to the Biblical flood. None of the artifacts that have been excavated are definitely known to date from pre-Flood times. Archaeologists who have assigned items to the pre-Flood period have done so on the basis of findings that, at best, can only be interpreted to give evidence of a great local flood.—See CHRONOLOGY (Archaeological Dating), pages 331, 332.

WRITING AFTER THE FLOOD

After the confusion of man’s original language at Babel, various systems of writing came into existence. The Babylonians, Assyrians and other peoples used cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script, which is thought to have been developed by the Sumerians from their pictographic writing. There is evidence that more than one writing system was used at the same time. For example, an ancient Assyrian wall painting depicts two scribes, one making cuneiform impressions on a tablet with a stylus (likely in Akkadian) and the other writing with a brush on a piece of skin or papyrus (possibly in Aramaic). Egyptian hieroglyphic writing consisted of distinct pictorial representations and geometric forms. Though hieroglyphic writing continued to be employed for inscriptions on monuments and wall paintings, two other forms of writing (first hieratic and then demotic) came into use. (See EGYPT, EGYPTIAN, page 491.) In nonalphabetic systems, a pictorial representation (or its later, often irrecognizable, linear or cursive form) could stand for the object depicted, an idea conveyed by the object or another word or syllable having the same pronunciation. By way of illustration, a simple drawing of an eye could be used in English to designate an “eye,” the personal pronoun “I,” the verb “see,” the noun “sea,” or the initial syllable of “season,” and so forth.

The alphabetic system employed by the Israelites was phonetic, with each written consonant symbol representing a particular consonant sound. The vowel sounds, however, had to be supplied by the reader, the context determining the word intended in the case of terms having the same spelling but a different combination of vowel sounds. That the absence of vowel sounds posed no real problem is evident from the fact that modern Hebrew magazines, newspapers and books omit vowel points almost entirely.

LITERACY AMONG THE ISRAELITES

Not only did Israel’s priests (Num. 5:23) and prominent persons, like Moses (Ex. 24:4), Joshua (Josh. 24:26), Samuel (1 Sam. 10:25), David (2 Sam. 11:14, 15) and Jehu (2 Ki. 10:1, 6), know how to write, but the people generally, with some exceptions, were literate. (Compare Judges 8:14; Isaiah 10:19; 29:12.) Though apparently figurative, the command for the Israelites to write upon the doorposts of their houses implied that they were literate. (Deut. 6:8, 9) And the Law required that the king, upon taking his throne, write out for himself a copy of the Law and read in it daily.—Deut. 17:18, 19; see BOOK; CODEX; COPYIST; SCRIBE.

Although Hebrew written material was evidently quite common, few Israelite inscriptions have been found. Likely this is due to the fact that the Israelites did not erect many monuments to extol their achievements. Most of the writing, including the books of the Bible, was doubtless done with ink on papyrus or parchment and, therefore, would not have lasted long in the damp soil of Palestine. The message of the Scriptures, however, was preserved throughout the centuries by painstaking copying and recopying. (See MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE.) The Bible’s history alone reaches to man’s very beginning and even beyond. (Gen. chaps. 1 and 2) While the records engraved on stone and inscribed on clay tablets, prisms and cylinders may be much older than the most ancient extant Bible manuscript, yet those records have no real effect on the lives of people today, many of them (like “The Sumerian King List”) containing outright falsehoods. Hence, among ancient writings, the Bible stands out as unique in presenting a meaningful message that deserves much more than passing interest.

[Chart on page 1675]

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THE ANCIENT AND MODERN HEBREW ALPHABET

ʼAleph (See publication for ancient alphabet.) א

Behth ב

Gimel ג

Daleth ד

Heʼ ה

Waw ו

Zayin ז

Hhehth ח

Tehth ט

Yohdh י

Kaph כ

Lamedh ל

Mem מ

Nun נ

Samekh ם

ʽAyin צ

Peʼ פ

Tsadheh צ

Qohph ק

Rehsh ר

(Sin) Shin ש

Taw ת

XI

[Ξ, ξ].

The fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding generally to the English “x.”

Xi represents the number sixty when the acute accent is added (ξ΄); with the subscript (,ξ), 60,000.