My Bible time yesterday found me in Rev. 1. In verse 8 we read, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." God is the Alpha and the Omega, meaning he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Interestingly, the Hebrew reads "I am the Aleph and the Tav."
These, of course, are the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which makes perfectly good sense. The English equivalent would be, "I am the A and the Z."
Now, when we look at the Greek here, we see something very interesting. The Greek reads (basically), "I am the Alpha and the O." In other words, the letter Omega is not spelled out. To make things even more interesting, in some Greek editions (including the Textus Receptus), the Greek says "I am the A and the O." Here neither the Alpha nor the Omega are spelled out. This may well explain why Luther rendered this verse, "Ich bin das A and das O," without spelling out the two letters in view. This idiom is still found in German in such expressions as:
Gerade bei Allergien ist Sauberkeit im Haushalt das A und O.
Especially with allergies, cleanliness in the home is the Alpha and Omega.
"The Alpha and the Omega" here means, "essential."
Oddly enough, when John Wycliffe published his English version of the Bible, this is how he rendered Rev. 1:8:
"I am Alpha and oo." It's anyone's guess why subsequent English versions didn't follow this rendering. I think it makes perfectly good sense!
You say, "Dave, does any of this matter?" Probably not. This is just how my mind works! 😅