Last Saturday I was invited to a Bible study of a few people, and with gratitude for the inspiration I received, I’d like to explain something about God’s name here. One of the key passages we talked about was the following.
Mat 7:21 - Not all who call me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father, who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 - Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 - And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The question was raised when the people “fell away” from the Lord. I said, it started with Seth. And it took me quite some time to explain. But many insights can be derived from this. So, I hope it will be beneficial to expound on it here as well.
First, I’d like to note that there is something strange about the usage of the word “Lord” in the Biblical account. If you read the KJV, you will find the word “Lord” in the OT is spelled as “LORD” with capitals. This always means that the underlying word is the Tetragrammaton YHVH or Yuwd-Hah-Vav-Hah, i.e., God’s name, which some pronounce as Yahweh. But it is more honest to say that nobody knows how to pronounce it. The knowledge how to pronounce it fell away with the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD.
Who spoke this name first? Many will say Moses, or some will say Abraham. But, surprisingly, it’s Eve, see Gen 4:1. Note that the Tetragrammaton first occurs in Gen 2:4. (As a matter of fact, in Gen 2 and Gen 3, YHVH always occurs in conjunction with Elohiym, the word translated as “God”; after Gen 3:23, the Tetragrammaton is used by itself, i.e., without Elohiym, until much later with Noah and Abram.)
Of course, if anybody is saying a name, then we must assume that not only do they know how to pronounce it, but that they know whom they mean. In other words, the names that they are saying represent entities they know. The alternative would be that they have pronounced a sequence of sounds, which “as by coincidence” turn out to constitute God’s name, or without them knowing whom they mean, but this is absurd. Therefore, Eve knew how to pronounce God’s name and she knew that God’s name was what it is, as written in Gen 4:1. The biblical account does not answer this question: “Who told Eve God’s name?” Did God introduce himself? Did she learn it from Adam? The fact of the matter is, that knowing God’s name and pronouncing it, is very much an enlightened act.
I will make the point here that Gen 4:1 gives us a clue as to what God’s name means.
But first, I want to ask why Jesus would tell us that not all people who call him Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven? Well, because those who call him Lord, are not calling him by his name, neither do they know what his name means. But more importantly, the same applies to God’s name. As I said, everywhere you read the word “LORD” in the KJV, that is where the Tetragrammaton, God’s four-letter-name, should be read. Out of veneration for this name, the term “LORD” is inserted. This stems from the Hebrew word “Adonai” (My Lord), which is read in stead of God’s name. Now, Adonai, is a term which is related to dan, meaning “judge” (such as appears in Dan, son of Jacob, see Gen 30:6, and Daniel, the prophet, whose life is recounted in the eponymous book).
So, let’s look at Gen 4:1 - And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man from the LORD”.
In this verse, there are many things going on that by looking at the translation are not obvious.
In Gen 2:9, the tree of Knowlege (da’at, Dallet-Oyin-Tav) of Good and Evil is mentioned. (See a previous article about the significance of reading this passage in Hebrew.) This same kind of “knowing” (from yada‘, Yuwd-Dallet-Oyin, meaning “to know”, “to perceive and see”) is used in Gen 4:1. Note that this “knowing” has to do with using the hands Yuwd-Dallet yad to touch that which you see; Oyin means “eyes”. It’s the hands-on experience that gives you knowledge. So, it’s clear that Adam and Eve were intimate, and she conceived, and she bare Cain.
Now, before we continue, it is important to realize that all names mean something. Here we stumble upon Cain (or Qayin), spelled Quph-Yuwd-Nuwn. This name is no accident. First of all, it is related to the word for “female”, which is spelled neqebah Nuwn-Quph-Beyt-Hah. Qayin shares the first two letters with neqebah. Nuwn (50) means “seed”, Quph has value 100 and denotes a transcendence and unification of Aleph (1, creative power) and Yuwd (10, creation, manifestation), or simply the unification of opposites, such as male and female, or spirit and flesh, or Heavens and Earth, or God and man [note the correspondences with the visible and the invisible here.] Beyt (2) means “house”. It is the container of the creative energy originating from Aleph (1). Finally, Hah (5) means “breath” or “life”, and when placed at the end of a word indicates a female gender of that word. Clearly, the Hebrew word for “female” indicates the ability to form a life (Hah) from incubating seed (Nuwn), by the unifaction of opposite (sexual) energies (Quph) and manifest it internally as a separate body (Beyt).
So, we are told that the male and female energies, Adam and Eve, come together (Quph) and produce a son (Yuwd), himself a seed (Nuwn), i.e., of the human race, and male. This is already the rudimentary meaning of the Tetragrammaton Yuwd-Hah-Vav-Hah. Yuwd (10) is the fist of manifestation: picture the assertion of a baby “coming through” (e.g., see Gen 38:28, the birth of Zarah, third son of Judah). The first Hah represents the inner life, or the male life, as it is invisible, like the (inner) rib of Adam taken to make the (outer) woman out of it (Gen 2:22). The Vav (6), meaning “hook”, is the male copulative action. Vav is the letter signifying a copy, a link, a connection, a penetration. This Vav fertilizes the female energy, the final Hah. In fact, the mutual fertilization of these male and female energies, manifests in a Yuwd, a “son”. So, at this point what we have is this: YHVH is the manifestation of the mutual fertilization of the male and female energies.
Now, the revelation comes with what Eve says. Caution: the translation you read in your Bible is awkward, if not wrong. In Hebrew, there are only 4 words. “Qaniytiy ’ish, ’et YHVH”. First, the verb qaniytiy, translated with “I have gotten” again addresses that the Quph and Nuwn are placed as a cosmic resistance (Tav, 400) between two Yuwds. (Incidentally, the name Yuwd-Yuwd is an ancient name for God as well: The Eternally Existing One). Eve asserts that her female nature has manifested a resistance to the eternal (void), i.e., that she was fertile. The second word ish means “man”: not baby, not boy, but “adult” man. And then there is only the last two words, et and YHVH. Now, the word et, written as Aleph-Tav, remains untranslated in most cases, but is here translated with “from”. This is a grave error! Compare with Gen 1:1, where the word et occurs twice: once before Heavens, and once before Earth. These words et indicate that what follows (Heavens and Earth) is what God had created and put together from all that it consists of, from Aleph (1) to Tav (400), the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet Aleph, and the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet Tav, spanning the continuum. Now, when Eve is saying she has obtained a man, she is next asserting that this man is “et YHVH”, or that he is “all that YHVH consists of”. In short, Qayin is a manifestation of YHVH. And, sure enough, Qayin is the first such a man.
Eve’s intuition is right on the mark. With her statement, she has revealed the meaning of God’s name. Yet, the translators have us believe that she had help “from the LORD” or “with the LORD” or any such things. Note that the word et is far from a preposition and YHVH is not “helping” or “providing”. No, the process itself—the conception and birth of Qayin—is a description of YHVH, and Qayin is a manifestation of YHVH.
So, we learn quite a lot about the meaning of the name YHVH. And we may infer that Qayin is the prototype of a man who is in every way a manifestation of YHVH. If we recall Gen 1:26-27, we see that “God” (Elohiym, not YHVH) created Adam as male and female (this is also repeated in Gen 5:2, they were both called Adam, apparently referring to a hermaphrodite). Conversely, YHVH is the process by which the male and female energies fertilize each other and produce a son identical to YHVH.
Qayin never dies (see Gen 4:16-24), while all the other descendants of Adam, and Seth die (Gen 5:5,8,11, etc.) This is another indicator of his eternal destiny, as his name starts with Quph (100).
Now, what happened to Seth is this. It says in Gen 4:26 - And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos (“common man”): then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
I’d like to draw attention to the ending of this verse: “then men began to call upon the name of the LORD”. First note that the word “men began to call upon” is a translation of only two words in this Hebrew sentence: huchal laqara, the first from challal, “to profane” or “to polute” and the second from qara, “to call out” or “to recite”. So, it is better to translate it with: “then the profanity (started) of reciting God’s name YHVH”. Also note the strange thing, that if men would honestly praise God, they would not praise “God’s name”, but they would simply praise God by mentioning his name in their praise, so instead of saying “Praise the name YHVH” or “The name YHVH be praised”, they would say “Praise YHVH”, “YHVH be praised”. In other words, to explicitly mention that the people were profanely reciting God’s name, rather than praising God, is another indication that the people had forgotten what God’s name in fact means, unlike Eve and Qayin who knew.
“He who can rightly pronounce it, causeth heaven and earth to tremble, for it is a name which rusheth through the universe.”
The only thing ever happening is that same process divine, where the complementary opposites of a thing come together in that thing. And that thing, once manifested, is a looking glass through which one can see the whole universe. This thing is also called “consciousness”, which science has not yet a defined: it’s immeasurable, it’s elusive, it’s foremost subjective and it’s mysterious. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-method-to-measure-consciousness-discovered/ for an article on the current status of research, and note how the article comes to an end:
“No matter how sophisticated our tools, consciousness is still a core mystery with ample scope for conceptual breakthroughs and creative thinking."
Mat 7:21 - Not all who call me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father, who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 - Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 - And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The question was raised when the people “fell away” from the Lord. I said, it started with Seth. And it took me quite some time to explain. But many insights can be derived from this. So, I hope it will be beneficial to expound on it here as well.
First, I’d like to note that there is something strange about the usage of the word “Lord” in the Biblical account. If you read the KJV, you will find the word “Lord” in the OT is spelled as “LORD” with capitals. This always means that the underlying word is the Tetragrammaton YHVH or Yuwd-Hah-Vav-Hah, i.e., God’s name, which some pronounce as Yahweh. But it is more honest to say that nobody knows how to pronounce it. The knowledge how to pronounce it fell away with the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD.
Who spoke this name first? Many will say Moses, or some will say Abraham. But, surprisingly, it’s Eve, see Gen 4:1. Note that the Tetragrammaton first occurs in Gen 2:4. (As a matter of fact, in Gen 2 and Gen 3, YHVH always occurs in conjunction with Elohiym, the word translated as “God”; after Gen 3:23, the Tetragrammaton is used by itself, i.e., without Elohiym, until much later with Noah and Abram.)
Of course, if anybody is saying a name, then we must assume that not only do they know how to pronounce it, but that they know whom they mean. In other words, the names that they are saying represent entities they know. The alternative would be that they have pronounced a sequence of sounds, which “as by coincidence” turn out to constitute God’s name, or without them knowing whom they mean, but this is absurd. Therefore, Eve knew how to pronounce God’s name and she knew that God’s name was what it is, as written in Gen 4:1. The biblical account does not answer this question: “Who told Eve God’s name?” Did God introduce himself? Did she learn it from Adam? The fact of the matter is, that knowing God’s name and pronouncing it, is very much an enlightened act.
I will make the point here that Gen 4:1 gives us a clue as to what God’s name means.
But first, I want to ask why Jesus would tell us that not all people who call him Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven? Well, because those who call him Lord, are not calling him by his name, neither do they know what his name means. But more importantly, the same applies to God’s name. As I said, everywhere you read the word “LORD” in the KJV, that is where the Tetragrammaton, God’s four-letter-name, should be read. Out of veneration for this name, the term “LORD” is inserted. This stems from the Hebrew word “Adonai” (My Lord), which is read in stead of God’s name. Now, Adonai, is a term which is related to dan, meaning “judge” (such as appears in Dan, son of Jacob, see Gen 30:6, and Daniel, the prophet, whose life is recounted in the eponymous book).
So, let’s look at Gen 4:1 - And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man from the LORD”.
In this verse, there are many things going on that by looking at the translation are not obvious.
In Gen 2:9, the tree of Knowlege (da’at, Dallet-Oyin-Tav) of Good and Evil is mentioned. (See a previous article about the significance of reading this passage in Hebrew.) This same kind of “knowing” (from yada‘, Yuwd-Dallet-Oyin, meaning “to know”, “to perceive and see”) is used in Gen 4:1. Note that this “knowing” has to do with using the hands Yuwd-Dallet yad to touch that which you see; Oyin means “eyes”. It’s the hands-on experience that gives you knowledge. So, it’s clear that Adam and Eve were intimate, and she conceived, and she bare Cain.
Now, before we continue, it is important to realize that all names mean something. Here we stumble upon Cain (or Qayin), spelled Quph-Yuwd-Nuwn. This name is no accident. First of all, it is related to the word for “female”, which is spelled neqebah Nuwn-Quph-Beyt-Hah. Qayin shares the first two letters with neqebah. Nuwn (50) means “seed”, Quph has value 100 and denotes a transcendence and unification of Aleph (1, creative power) and Yuwd (10, creation, manifestation), or simply the unification of opposites, such as male and female, or spirit and flesh, or Heavens and Earth, or God and man [note the correspondences with the visible and the invisible here.] Beyt (2) means “house”. It is the container of the creative energy originating from Aleph (1). Finally, Hah (5) means “breath” or “life”, and when placed at the end of a word indicates a female gender of that word. Clearly, the Hebrew word for “female” indicates the ability to form a life (Hah) from incubating seed (Nuwn), by the unifaction of opposite (sexual) energies (Quph) and manifest it internally as a separate body (Beyt).
So, we are told that the male and female energies, Adam and Eve, come together (Quph) and produce a son (Yuwd), himself a seed (Nuwn), i.e., of the human race, and male. This is already the rudimentary meaning of the Tetragrammaton Yuwd-Hah-Vav-Hah. Yuwd (10) is the fist of manifestation: picture the assertion of a baby “coming through” (e.g., see Gen 38:28, the birth of Zarah, third son of Judah). The first Hah represents the inner life, or the male life, as it is invisible, like the (inner) rib of Adam taken to make the (outer) woman out of it (Gen 2:22). The Vav (6), meaning “hook”, is the male copulative action. Vav is the letter signifying a copy, a link, a connection, a penetration. This Vav fertilizes the female energy, the final Hah. In fact, the mutual fertilization of these male and female energies, manifests in a Yuwd, a “son”. So, at this point what we have is this: YHVH is the manifestation of the mutual fertilization of the male and female energies.
Now, the revelation comes with what Eve says. Caution: the translation you read in your Bible is awkward, if not wrong. In Hebrew, there are only 4 words. “Qaniytiy ’ish, ’et YHVH”. First, the verb qaniytiy, translated with “I have gotten” again addresses that the Quph and Nuwn are placed as a cosmic resistance (Tav, 400) between two Yuwds. (Incidentally, the name Yuwd-Yuwd is an ancient name for God as well: The Eternally Existing One). Eve asserts that her female nature has manifested a resistance to the eternal (void), i.e., that she was fertile. The second word ish means “man”: not baby, not boy, but “adult” man. And then there is only the last two words, et and YHVH. Now, the word et, written as Aleph-Tav, remains untranslated in most cases, but is here translated with “from”. This is a grave error! Compare with Gen 1:1, where the word et occurs twice: once before Heavens, and once before Earth. These words et indicate that what follows (Heavens and Earth) is what God had created and put together from all that it consists of, from Aleph (1) to Tav (400), the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet Aleph, and the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet Tav, spanning the continuum. Now, when Eve is saying she has obtained a man, she is next asserting that this man is “et YHVH”, or that he is “all that YHVH consists of”. In short, Qayin is a manifestation of YHVH. And, sure enough, Qayin is the first such a man.
Eve’s intuition is right on the mark. With her statement, she has revealed the meaning of God’s name. Yet, the translators have us believe that she had help “from the LORD” or “with the LORD” or any such things. Note that the word et is far from a preposition and YHVH is not “helping” or “providing”. No, the process itself—the conception and birth of Qayin—is a description of YHVH, and Qayin is a manifestation of YHVH.
So, we learn quite a lot about the meaning of the name YHVH. And we may infer that Qayin is the prototype of a man who is in every way a manifestation of YHVH. If we recall Gen 1:26-27, we see that “God” (Elohiym, not YHVH) created Adam as male and female (this is also repeated in Gen 5:2, they were both called Adam, apparently referring to a hermaphrodite). Conversely, YHVH is the process by which the male and female energies fertilize each other and produce a son identical to YHVH.
Qayin never dies (see Gen 4:16-24), while all the other descendants of Adam, and Seth die (Gen 5:5,8,11, etc.) This is another indicator of his eternal destiny, as his name starts with Quph (100).
Now, what happened to Seth is this. It says in Gen 4:26 - And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos (“common man”): then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
I’d like to draw attention to the ending of this verse: “then men began to call upon the name of the LORD”. First note that the word “men began to call upon” is a translation of only two words in this Hebrew sentence: huchal laqara, the first from challal, “to profane” or “to polute” and the second from qara, “to call out” or “to recite”. So, it is better to translate it with: “then the profanity (started) of reciting God’s name YHVH”. Also note the strange thing, that if men would honestly praise God, they would not praise “God’s name”, but they would simply praise God by mentioning his name in their praise, so instead of saying “Praise the name YHVH” or “The name YHVH be praised”, they would say “Praise YHVH”, “YHVH be praised”. In other words, to explicitly mention that the people were profanely reciting God’s name, rather than praising God, is another indication that the people had forgotten what God’s name in fact means, unlike Eve and Qayin who knew.
“He who can rightly pronounce it, causeth heaven and earth to tremble, for it is a name which rusheth through the universe.”
The only thing ever happening is that same process divine, where the complementary opposites of a thing come together in that thing. And that thing, once manifested, is a looking glass through which one can see the whole universe. This thing is also called “consciousness”, which science has not yet a defined: it’s immeasurable, it’s elusive, it’s foremost subjective and it’s mysterious. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-method-to-measure-consciousness-discovered/ for an article on the current status of research, and note how the article comes to an end:
“No matter how sophisticated our tools, consciousness is still a core mystery with ample scope for conceptual breakthroughs and creative thinking."