Messianic Insights from the Hebrew Alphabet

In the second part of this series on the Hebrew alphabet, we explore the letter beit—a testimony to the Word which was in the beginning. If we believe that every letter of the Torah is divinely inspired, many valuable lessons can be learnt and deeper understanding can be gained from the "hidden" meanings contained in the text.

The Hebrew Letter ב

"The Word of God is in the Bible as the soul is in the body" —Peter Taylor Forsyth

The name of the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet is beit (בית), which means "house". This word is found in several Hebrew names, such as בית אל (Bethel, "House of God"), and בית לחם (Bethlehem, "House of bread").¹ Even the shape of the letter depicts a floor, ceiling, wall and doorway of a house. Since the name and form of beit (ב) represent a house, we shall consider several ways in which it symbolizes a dwelling place. In this article we shall see how beit represents:

• Yeshua, in Whom the fullness of Elohim dwells
  
• The Tanach, in which dwells God's Word to mankind
  
• The Creation itself, the present dwelling place of mankind.²

The Scriptures and the Word

When the Bible uses the terms "Word" and "Scriptures" something specific and unique is intended by each. The Scriptures (literally "writings") are physical in nature in that they consist of ink on paper. They are God's words recorded in a physical way. Anything that can be done to a physical object can be done to the Scriptures. They can be bought, sold, burned, given away, or stored on a bookshelf. Although we are commanded to study the Scriptures, and may even memorize them from cover to cover, it is still possible to miss their purpose and be unaffected by their power.

The Word, on the other hand, is spiritual and alive. You can burn the Scriptures, but you can't burn the Word. You can take the Bible out of a man's hand, but you cannot take the Word out of His heart. The Scriptures are like a stained glass window that can be touched and admired for its intricate patterns and beautiful colors, but the Word is the sunlight which radiates through the glass. There is an important lesson for us in this illustration: We must be careful that when we approach the Bible it is not only to admire it from a literary viewpoint, but to also see the living God who reveals Himself through it. Thus, distinguishing between the Word and the Scriptures is crucial to our understanding of the letter beit (ב) and the lessons it holds for us; for ב is the house of Scripture and Yeshua—the Word—is its inhabitant.

The Scriptures, Home of the Word

Above is the first verse of the Bible as it appears in Hebrew.

Notice how the ב (beit) that begins this verse is printed oversized—the only oversized beit found in the Bible. This is just one example of the many anomalies that appear in the Hebrew Bible and have been faithfully reproduced by the Jewish scribes over the centuries. The Jewish sages see the beginning beit (ב) of Genesis 1:1 as a house which is closed at the top, bottom, and back, blocking from view all that comes before it. But, issuing forth from the door of the 'house' are the words of Torah in which are hidden all the secrets of God's wisdom. The remaining twenty letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet are seen as issuing from the ב, just as it, in turn, is considered as having issued forth from the א. This pictures the way that God communicates His word to the world—through the beit (ב) of His Son (ben, בן), and the beit which begins the Tanach.

Yochanan referred to those who were spiritually mature as "fathers" because "...you have known Him who is from the beginning."³ Thus, we see in the very order of the letters the proclamation of the Father first and foremost. The first two letters of the aleph-bet (א and ב) together spell the word אב (av, 'father'). How appropriate that this word is located here at the beginning of the Hebrew alphabet, since all good things issue from the Father.

In the next issue of Bikurei Tziyon we will have a closer look at how the letter aleph (א) represents God (Elohim—אלהים), our Father, and His attributes. Here, however, we see how beit (ב, which begins the word בן, ben, 'son') represents the attributes of Yeshua, the Son of God. And if we merge the words Father and Son, we discover something incredible.

The Rejected Cornerstone

As stated above, אב (av) spells 'father', and בן (ben) spells 'son'. Note that both words share the letter beit (ב). If we combine these two words so that they share the same beit (ב), we derive אבן (eh-vhen) 'stone'. The diagram below shows this more clearly.

This fact—of the unity between the Father, and the Son Yeshua—has been what has caused so many Jewish people to reject Yeshua's claims. When He called Himself God's Son, He was claiming unity with God. Paul cited Isaiah's prophecy (28:16) when he explained why many Jews rejected Yeshua as the Messiah:

...but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone". As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame."⁴

Even today people flounder over this "stumbling stone" because they cannot accept the fact that Yeshua is who He claimed to be—the Messiah, the Son of God. The Almighty Himself directed that His House, the Temple in Jerusalem, was to be built upon a special stone. In the same way, one whose eyes are no longer veiled does not stumble upon this precious 'Stone'—instead he builds his house upon it.

How ב (beit) Came First

According to Jewish tradition, the creation of the Torah parallels the creation of the world. The Midrash contains a story describing how beit (ב) was chosen as the letter through which God would create both. According to the story, the 22 letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet are inscribed around God's crown. When it came time to choose a letter with which to create the world, the letters leapt from God's crown to present themselves before Him to vie for this honor. Each letter, beginning with tav (ת), argued its case, describing why its attributes made it the most appropriate letter for this privilege. When beit (ב) finally stood before God's throne it said, "Begin with me, because all creation will use me to bless You." God immediately accepted the beit and said, "So shall the creation begin." The beit based its claim upon the fact that the Hebrew word for "bless" (ברוך, baruch) begins with ב. This word begins many Jewish prayers and blessings, as in:

ברוך אתה יהוה אלהינו מלך העילם
Baruch atah, ADONAI Eloheinu, Melech ha'olam.—Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe.

After beit (ב) was chosen, aleph (א) remained silent and did not contend for a right to state its claim. God asked it, "Why are you silent?" Aleph responded, "I cannot compete with the other letters, because they all represent plurality, and I am only one." God then said, "Aleph, do not fret, for you stand at the head of the alphabet like a King. You are one and I am One. It is My intention to create the world as a home for my Torah, and as I shall begin My creation with beit, I shall begin My ten commandments with aleph." And this is why the Ten Commandments begin with the word אנכי (anochi, "I [am your God]").⁵

Although this story is part of the Jewish oral tradition and not biblical in origin, it nevertheless expresses a Jewish tradition that is biblical. The rabbis teach that the Torah is spiritual in essence, and is merely clothed in parchment and ink. This truth is illustrated even in the way Torah scrolls were once prepared. When a lamb was sacrificed, its hide was saved and used for parchment upon which God's words would be inscribed. In the same manner, the Word was clothed in skin, the flesh of Yeshua, the Lamb of God.⁶ We know that Yeshua is the living Torah—the Word of God—clothed in human flesh.

Words Creative and Shocking

It is difficult for the English reader to appreciate the impact that some of Yeshua's words had on His Jewish listeners. There is no better example of this than what He said about the end of the world. The Jews believe that when God spoke the world into existence, His words were not merely commands that caused things to occur, but instead were words that continue to echo through the ages and a pulsate like a song through all creation. It is these vibrations from God's voice that continue to uphold the universe. They also believe that should God cease from speaking forth the existence of creation, it would cease to exist. There is reason to believe that this is possible when one considers that the Bible says He upholds all things "by the Word of His power…."⁷

Explaining Creation

"The heavens continues to exist because not an instant goes by without God continuing to say, in effect, "Let there be a firmament," otherwise they would return to the status that prevailed before God's will was uttered. So it is with every aspect of Creation. God's original Ten Utterances are repeated constantly in the sense that the Divine will of the original six days remains in force. Otherwise, everything would revert to the nothingness of before Creation."⁸

When we consider this ancient rabbinical teaching, that of God's original creative word continuing to uphold the universe in its present state, we can begin to appreciate how shocking Yeshua's words must have seemed when He said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away." ⁹ In essence He was saying to the Jewish scholars of His day that the word that He spoke was as powerful as that which was spoken by His Father. Those who had been trained in the oral tradition, upon hearing these words spoken by Yeshua, were faced with the choice of either condemning Him as a blasphemer, or embracing Him as the Messiah. There was no middle ground.

Two points about the beit,
and two words about the Son

Beit (ב) is always printed in Torah scrolls with two sharp points. One of these points is located at its base and points back to the aleph (א). The other is at the top and points upward toward God.

Another Jewish story explains these two points: If you should ask the beit, "Who made you?" it points up toward God. If you ask it, "What is His name?" it points backward toward the aleph. Truly, Yeshua also consistently did both of these—He pointed to God and proclaimed Him as both Creator and Redeemer.

In its account of the creation, the Bible uses two unique and similar Hebrew verbs: ברא (bara) and בנא (bana), 'create', and 'build'. Bara is always applied to God's ability to create but never to man's because it means to make something out of nothing--an impossible task for a mere human. The attributes of the great Architect and Builder, Yeshua, are embodied by both bara (ברא) and bana (בנא) in a stunning way. The Hebrew word for 'son' is בן (ben). But bar (בר, the Aramaic word for 'son') is also used frequently in the Bible.¹⁰ By simply distancing the aleph, t, from the first two letters of ברא (bara) and בנא (bana), we see the beautiful picture above emerging:

From this study we see in bara and bana two outstanding attributes of Yeshua, the great Creator and Builder. Abraham may have been aware of these truths, "…for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." ¹²

In closing, look again at Genesis 1:1 in the Hebrew. Do you recognize the first two words?

The first is bereshit ("In the beginning") and the second is bara 'create', or ("He created").¹³ In light of the hidden meaning of bara as "Son of א", we can read these two words as "In the beginning [was] the Son of א." John must certainly have seen this when he opened his gospel with: "In the beginning was the Word."¹⁴

Endnotes

1. Note that Yeshua, the "Bread of Life", was placed, after his birth, in a manger (literally a feed trough) in a town called Beit-lechem, the "House of Bread".
2. Beit has a numerical value of two, and on the second day of creation God made the oceans and the sky—"houses" for the fish and birds.
3. 1 John 2:13 (emphasis mine)
4. Romans 9:31-33
5. Exodus 20:2
6. There is also an important lesson here concerning our own bodies. Paul exhorted us to present our bodies as "living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God" (Romans 12:1). Though we are sacrifices, our "hides" are still alive and intact, and they, like the parchments, can be used to proclaim God's Torah through righteous and holy living.
7. Hebrews 1:3 (emphasis mine)
8. Rabbi Michael L. Munk. "The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet." Artscroll Mesorah Series. 1990.
9. Matthew 24:35 (emphasis mine)
10. The term bar mitzvah, means "son of the commandment."
11. Recall that ן (nun sofit) is the final form of the letter נ (nun).
12. Hebrews 11:1
13. Note also that the first three letters of bereishit (בראשית) spell bara (ברא).
14. John 1:1