Is God good? The dictionaries don't think so. GOD is made a cognate of GIDDY under the invented Indo-European root gheu (to call, invoke). The point of our Hebrewless dictionaries is that gods are things that giddy men make up. Neither will you find GOD at the source of GOOD and TOGETHER, a root called ghedh (to unite, join,fit). This root, however, is precisely what the Hebrew family of Gimel-Dalet words are about.

Hebrew AGooDa is a bunch (therefore an association); EGeD means union (and thus a Jerusalem bus company); the verb EeGaiD is to unite or tie together; and GeDeR is any fence or category that GATHERS TOGETHER any individual units. Just as TOGETHER means GOOD in Sixties slang, so GOD is the ultimate GOOD for uniting all forces and things. Good God! Why Biblical Hebrew GaD is a deity name and the word for GOOD fortune!

Sound is always sence, and the same GD sound echoes in Hebrew AKaiD (bound up together, as in the binding of Isaac) and the word for one, EKHaD. The most solemn line of Hebrew prayer states that God is EKHaD (one) and his name is EKHaD. While oneness is divine, isolation is bad. Thus BAD should be linked to BaDaD (isolate) and leBHaD (alone). God is in the details united, but never in non-related BITS and BYTES.

Reverse the Bet-Dalet badness to hear something like DIV[INE] goodness or Hebrew ToV (good). The Old English term Tiw is said to mean the god of war and sky, traced to the laboratory creation deiw (to shine... sky, heaven, god). This similarly sunstruck etymology is the recorded source of English DIVINITY, DEITY, ADIEU, and TUESDAY, as well as the Sanskrit devah (god). An etymologist is unlikely to care that God is referred to as ha-ToV (the Good) in Hebrew. Somehow, even the words JUPITER, JULY, JOVE (chief god of the Indo-European pantheon) and JOVIAL are linked to the Indo-European root above, rather than to the Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey Hebrew name of God (as eternal and benificent) favored by the JEHOVAH Witnesses.

Other Deity terms with clearer Hebrew meanings include the Norse chief god, ODIN. Hebrew liturgy is most often directed to the ADoaN (master) of the universe, while many Americans worship the spirit of ADONIS in their health clubs. The Dalet-Nun root of mastery, dominion, law and judgment may also be seen in words like DEAN (judge), DEEM (to judge), and DOOMSDAY (judgment day), Latin dominus (lord) in all it's forms, the honorific titles of DON, DOM or MADONNA in Italian and Spanish and, yes, the deity terms of nations like Rumania.

The most common root of deity words around the globe appears to be Hebrew Khet-Mem, as KHaM or HaM connotes warmth, love, passion and, too often, violence. Hot god terms of the world include the Shinto deity Kami (revealed in the Japanese KAMIKAZE) and India's Kama (of KAMASUTRA fame). English speakers will know the Latin descendants of this Edenic root in words like AMOROUS and AMITY. This KH-M root only finds its way into Hebrew liturgy as a sub-atomic particle in R-KH-M (womb, mercy), with an appellation of the good God that would mean "the Merciful One." Whether we pray to EL, ALLAH or the ALmighty, all human words are echoes of Eden.