Program Transcript
Episode 16: The Hebrew Letter Shin.
Heather M R Olsen

Greetings, Friends.

For Christmas this year, my husband Karl gave me a lovely pendant with the Hebrew letter, “shin” on. I know exactly why he did it, and it was touching. It’s a commemoration to the work I am doing here with Illumination, sharing biblical interpretation, and tireless research with you all. Karl is one of my greatest cheerleaders.

But you may need a bit of explanation. The double-u looking logo that I am using for Illumination: Hebrew Insights is the Hebrew letter “shin.”  Anyone one from Israel or anyone Jewish would know this. The rest of the western world, not so much.

Most basically, the “shin” is the 21^st letter of the 22 letter Hebrew “alefbet,” or alphabet.

This “shin” is also the first letter of one of God’s many Names, “Shaddai,” meaning “Almighty.” The letter is placed on important Jewish religious items like the Mezuzah or the Tefillin, again indicating “Shaddai,” or “Almighty.”

You may know “Shaddai” from an 80’s Amy Grant song, El Shaddai. And now, since you have hopefully been following along since the start of the podcasts, you also know the translation of the Hebrew word, “El”, so by putting those two words together, we just said, “God Almighty,” “El Shaddai.”

The Mezuzah is “a small parchment scroll, in a container attached to each of the doorposts at the entrances to a house, and often to the rooms inside.”[i] This small scroll contains words of a twice daily prayed Jewish prayer, entitled the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:13-21.

The Tefillin, or Phylacteries, are “leather boxes containing scriptural verses inscribed on parchment.”[ii] Two separate items of the Tefillin are first bound by straps onto the arm and then the head during the weekday prayer.  The straps around one’s arm are in the pattern of a “shin” and the “shin” is written on a box on the forehead, again depicting the following verses:

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

But back to the letter “shin.” If there is a dot above the left branch of the three-pronged letter, it is pronounced as an “s” sound, “sin.” When there is a dot above the right branch of the letter, it is pronounced with a “sh” sound, “shin.”  I asked my favorite Hebrew tutor what the dot is called, and after a bit of research on both of our parts, we settled on “dot.” Even my biblical Hebrew textbook calls it a dot over other designated Hebrew “dots” such as “niqood” or “daghesh”s.  There I go, Hebrew name dropping.

The “shin” can also be found in an aerial view of the Old City of Jerusalem. There are branches of three valleys: left to right are the Hinnom Valley, the Central Valley and the Kidron Valley. The Temple Mount, which sits at the top of Mount Moriah, is between the Central Valley and the Kidron Valley, with the Mount of Olives to the east of the Kidron Valley. These three valleys form the three branches of the “shin.” Some believe this is a manifestation of God’s words to King David in 1 Kings 11:36, that Jerusalem is the city where God chose to put His Name.

In ancient semitic pictographs, the “shin” means “teeth” or “destroy.”

Again, with the three branches of the “shin,” we know the number three is significantly represented in Scripture: in the Trinity, 3 days, the patriarchs, just a couple amongst hundreds. This three can represent completeness, but also that something great and miraculous is happening or going to happen

Anyhow, back to the basic question: Why did I choose the “shin” as my logo?

I wanted the Almighty’s Hand on this podcast and my teachings. The “shin” logo reminds me daily that this is the Almighty’s podcast, and that my words are those of El Shaddai. My continual prayer is that Shaddai gives me the words to speak to you and approves of all I teach. When He stops giving me words to teach, this podcast will be finished.

Consequently, my favorite verse to pray aloud when I teach is from,

 Psalm 19:14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Amen.

Shalom, friends.

**Heather!

©2025 Heather M R Olsen, Illumination: Hebrew Insights. All rights reserved. 

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[i] Buxbaum, Yitzhak. Jewish Spiritual Practices. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005, pg 724.

[ii] Ibid., pg 726.