Even the Letters Declare Him
“You alone are HaShem;
You have made heaven,
The heaven of heavens, with all their host,
The earth and everything on it,
The seas and all that is in them,
And You preserve them all.
The host of heaven worships You.”
Nehemiah 9:6
Introduction
- As we dig in, remember our parable: Is Scripture a 'Museum' or a 'Ballroom'?
- Last week we learned that the ‘glow’ on Moses’ face was the visible representation of what G-d had spoken [karan].
- Now we will start at the beginning – literally, and with the Hebrew letter bet.
Scripture’s First Letter: Bet
- The first letter of Scripture is the letter bet. It is an over-sized letter in a Torah scroll. It is the preposition ‘in’. Bet is also a word that means ‘house’ – and was used for the Temple in Jerusalem.
- The ancients considered that all those things to the right (i.e. the rest of Scripture) to have come from the letter bet. They postulated that an invisible letter, pey (which fits around the letter bet) represented the mouth of the Almighty – and that the bet itself is the instrument, the Words, the Voice, of the Almighty.
Messiah in the ‘Bet’
- Ps 33:6: By the ‘Word’ and ‘Breath’ of His mouth, G-d created the heavens.
- Ps 104:24; Prov 8:22-36: Who is the ‘Master Craftsman’?
- Amon [alef-mem-vav/cholam-nun sofit] – only once in Scripture, and sages
debated this word’s function here. From the root aman [believe,
establish] literally, faithful one.
- xRef: Prov 8:30 to Is 11:2
- xRef: Prov 8:32-33 to Deut 18:15
- xRef: Prov 8:35 to John 5:40
- Neh 9:6: Made by none other than G-d Himself.
- Targum Oklelos Deut 33:27: “… made by His Memra…” Greek counterpart = Logos. These were words used by pagan Greeks and by others to establish an ‘intermediary’ between the infinite G-d and His creation. xRef Neh 9:6. Rhetorical: Can Memra/Logos be an ‘intermediary’?
- John 8:1-18: The Logos/Memra/Wisdom:
- Was in the beginning
- With G-d
- Was G-d
- All things made by ‘Him’
- Became flesh – and dwelt among us
- Only begotten
- Eph 3:9; Heb 1:2: All things created in and through Messiah
- Heb 1:8-10: Of the Son – quotes Ps 102:23-27
- Heb 11:3: “By faith..” xRef Prov 8:30 – worlds framed by the Word [rhema = spoken word] of G-d.
- 2Pet 3:5: By the Word [Logos] of G-d the heavens were of old.
- 1John 1:1-2: the Word of
Life [Logos]:
- From the beginning
- We have heard
- We have seen
- He have handled
- Manifested
Messiah in Alef-Tav
- Another two letters in the first sentence of Scripture caught the eye of ancient sages. The letters alef and tav. They are grammatical and do not come into English.
- Judaism has long enjoyed
guessing about these two letters. They are a grammatical device, but it is
striking that within the phrase, “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and
the earth” there are these two letters that some say represent:
- All of Scripture (first and last letters).
- All truth (emet = truth, from the root aman xRef Prov 8:30) emet = alef-mem-tav, the first, middle, and last letters.
- The mark of complete and total Torah-faithfulness (b. Shabbat 55a on Ezk 9:4).
- Comparable to ‘alpha-omega’ (b. Shabbat 55a).
- Let’s take these somewhat
mystic meanings behind the letters and see how they bear up.
- Rev 1:7-13: First and Last, Alef-Tav. John 1:1, John 17:17; Rev 19:11
- Rev 22:12-16: First and Last, Alef-Tav. Ezk 9:4, Heb 4:15 – compare to Is 44:6
- Zech 12:10 also has the alef-tav in it.
Summary
- As we have seen, from three Hebrew letters in the first verse of Scripture, we can see Messiah.
- We see that in and by Messiah, were all things that were created.
- We saw that the Apostle John has no difficultly using words like Logos. Nor does he have a problem using the letters Alef-Tav, or the associated phrase, ‘First and Last’ and applying them to Messiah.