Every time the word love comes up in church, the preacher goes to the Greek. Agape, phileo, eros, storge — four words, four shades of meaning, and English only has the one. Greek is more descriptive, they tell us. And they’re right — as far as it goes.

But have you ever noticed? Nobody ever mentions the Hebrew.

That’s strange, because the Hebrew came first. The Old Testament — the Scriptures the Messiah read, the ones He quoted every time He opened His mouth about love — was written in Hebrew. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18) — that’s Hebrew. When the Messiah named the second greatest commandment, He was quoting Moses in Hebrew.

So how many words for love does Hebrew have? More than one. Let me show you the family:

Ahava (אַהֲבָה) — the general word: love as devoted action. The root is hava, to give, to offer. And the greatest commandment itself uses it: “Thou shalt love [ahava] the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Love isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you do — with everything you have.

Chesed (חֶסֶד) — steadfast love, covenant loyalty. The love that shows up and keeps showing up. “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 136:1) — that word “mercy,” twenty-six times in one psalm, is chesed.

Rachamim (רַחֲמִים) — tender compassion, from the word for womb. The way a mother loves the child she carried. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13) — that pity is rachamim.

Dod (דּוֹד) — romantic love, the love of the Song of Songs. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2) — that love is dod, all through the book.

Chashaq (חָשַׁק) — to cling to, to delight in, to set your love upon. “The LORD did not set his love [chashaq] upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people… but because the LORD loved [ahava] you” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Chashaq is the love that chooses.

Five words. A whole family, each with its own shade — same as the Greek. English flattens them all into “love,” and we lose something every time.

Now here’s the part nobody tells you. Those Greek words the church loves to quote? They didn’t fall from the sky. Centuries before the New Testament, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek — the Septuagint. When they came to the Hebrew words for love, they chose the Greek ones. Ahava became agapao. Chesed shaped eleos. The Greek precision everybody admires was translated from Hebrew foundations.

So the next time someone tells you the Greek is more descriptive, ask them: descriptive of what? The Greek writers were thinking in Hebrew. The Messiah thought in Hebrew. The love chapter — 1 Corinthians 13 — is Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, describing ahava in Greek clothing: “Charity suffereth long, and is kind… seeketh not her own.” That’s ahava. Action, not emotion.

One more thing, since we check everything around here: preachers list four Greek words — agape, phileo, eros, storge. Open your New Testament and find eros. Go ahead, I’ll wait. It isn’t there. The Greek word for erotic love never appears in the New Testament — not once. So much for “the Greek says it all.”

Don’t skip the Hebrew. It was there first, and everything else was translated from it.