Sonya

Whose Slave are You

I always find it strange just how many Hebrew slave tattoos are out there. I could make tattoo a gallery, all slave themed. Slave, for god's sake. People, what is your deal?

All those slave tattoos are inked on Christians. The Jewish people sing at Passover, "We were slaves and now we're free", remembering a millennia old slavery. Christians, however, seem all too eager to label themselves as slaves.

But well, if you are going to label yourself a slave, at least do it right. Today's victim, she did it all wrong...


This girl wanted a Hebrew tattoo that says "Servant's Heart" inside a heart of thorns. Instead, her tattoo can barely be recognized as "Slave of the Heart".

Barely, because she managed to get her letters wrong.

We've been over it before. Hebrew letters often look similar to each other. This is the case with AYIN and TSADI. Can you tell which appears on the tattoo?


Slave, in Hebrew, is "Eved". It is written with the letter AYIN. However, you can see that the tattoo is featuring a TSADI instead, rendering the word as "Zeved", which is meaningless gibberish. Luckily, you can still guess that it was meant to be "Slave".

Aside from the letter mix-up, the expression's meaning got switched around because in Hebrew the word order should be reversed. That's how it turned into a "Slave of the Heart".

In Hebrew, first comes the "Heart" - Lev, then the "Slave" - Eved. You can't just take an English phrase, translate each word separately and hope it'll end up okay. It never does.


This is the correct way to write "Slave's Heart" in Hebrew:

I won't even attempt to do "Servant's Heart" as the tattoo owner intended. Servant (Msharet), in Hebrew, by itself isn't a word that has anything to do with God. You wouldn't want to pledge your heart to a Butler...

Anyway, today's victim is stuck with "Slave of the Heart". People who can read it will probably think she sleeps around a lot. Not the desired effect of your oh so Godly tattoo, yeah?