Genesis, Isaiah, Romans

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis 1.1

As the first of the letters, Aleph was designed to refer specifically to God Almighty. It is the first letter of the first Divine Name given in the first verse of the Bible, Elohim (, God). It is literally God's Initial.  It corresponds to the Greek Alpha , which the Everlasting God used to identify Himself, saying "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."¹

Aleph also is the first letter of the words Echad (, One) and Ahavah (, Love), and all three of these words (or cognates of them) appear as primary words in the Greatest Commandment:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

This verse is the basis of the Unity Holograph which mathematically integrates these Hebrew words for One, Love, and God.

These ideas strongly cohere with the ancient Rabbinical teachings about the meaning of Aleph, which was summed up by Rabbi Munk who said "The symbolizes the One and Only, the Eternal, the Omnipotent God."²  

The name Aleph relates to a number of Hebrew words, such as ox, tame, teach, guide, chief, ruler, and thousand. Though this set may appear somewhat diverse at first glance, these ideas actually cohere quite compactly. The natural object that gave rise to Aleph’s name is the ox, which also gave rise to the modern form of the Latin letter A, which is an inverted hieroglyph of the head of an ox (). While certainly the root of Aleph’s name, this is by no means the primary meaning of the triliteral root as revealed by Scripture and the Hebrew language, especially in light of aleph, in the sense of ox, occurring but twice in the Old Testament. A much more significant word, which itself gave rise to aleph as the word for ox, is alluph , meaning tame, docile, or trained to bear a yoke. Rabbi Ginsburgh, in his explanation of the Aleph’s inner meaning¹, takes up this image and explains that the modern shape of Aleph “pictures the yoke of the ox” symbolizing the “yoke of heaven” that we take upon ourselves when we sincerely submit to the leadership and teaching of God. This familiar similitude reflects the words of the Lord Jesus Christ who said: 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

These words of Christ echo the etymology of the Aleph’s name. Domesticating an ox is a special case of the more general concept of teaching, and just as one who cooks is called a cook, so alluph denotes both the act of teaching and the one who teaches. Thus, a teacher, leader, or guide is also called alluph, and this word is used by the Jews to refer to Rabbis who have attained great knowledge of the Torah. God applied it to Himself when he called Israel to return unto Him, asking “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide (alluph) of my youth?”

The leadership of the father, as head of a family or tribe, is one of the primary uses of alluph in the Bible. In Zechariah, this word is translated thrice as governor. The greatest density of alluph occurs in Genesis where thirty-two “dukes of Edom” are listed, duke being a Middle English word derived from the Latin dux, denoting a leader, ruler, or commander. This root appears in many English words such as induce (to lead on, urge), produce (bring forth for display, exhibit), and seduce (to lead astray). Most modern versions of the Bible translate alluph in these verses as chief, an exception being the NRSV which translates it as clan because the ruler of the clan or tribe was also called the ruler of thousands. This accords with the division of the people established by Moses when he “chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” Here, as everywhere else in the Old Testament, the word translated as thousands is (elephim), the plural of (eleph,  a thousand.)

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Romans 8.15

The Bible consistently reveals the triune nature of God as a progressive sequence of Father (1), Son (2), and Holy Spirit (3). Paul wrote "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." Jesus amplified this to include the Holy Spirit, saying, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." This same sequence manifests in the history of the Universe, with the progressive revelation of God as the Father Who sent the Son, and then as the Son Who sent the Spirit. Simple as ABC, 123.  

The primacy of God the Father is encoded in the Aleph theme word (Av, Father). Most Christians are familiar with it through its Aramaic cognate Abba which is transliterated (as opposed to translated) in a few verses, such as the verse from Romans quoted above. Generally speaking, Av signifies the idea of the founder, author, source or origin of something. No more fitting word could be set as the fountainhead of the alphabet. Like the Bible itself, the alphabet begins in the beginning, and it bears the title of its Author, God the Father. And just as God the Father is the First Person of the Trinity, so Av is the first word of the Hebrew language. Being composed of an Aleph and a Bet, it encodes the ultimate purpose of the Alphabet. It was designed to guide us to our Aleph Bet – Av – our heavenly Father. This is the wisdom of the divine ABCs. It is the alphabet created by the everlasting God, the Alpha and Omega, the Aleph and Tav, to reveal Himself to us. Glory to God in the highest!

Yet there is more. Analyzing the symbolic force of the elements of word Av yields a deeper meaning of the design:

Father (, Av) = Aleph (, Leader/Guide) & Beyt (, House)

Until recent times, the obvious implications of this analysis would have met little or no opposition. The timeless teaching is that the Father is the Head of the House. This applies equally to the natural as to the spiritual. Just as the heavenly Father rules the House of Faith, so the earthly father, made in the image of God, should rule his own house, as it is written, “A bishop then must be ... one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)” This theme of the Father manifests distinctly on Spoke 1, as discussed in the following section.

As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

Genesis 17.4

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

Romans 4.16

With the election of Abraham and God's promise to make him the father of many nations, the great paternal theme now moves from the divine to the human. Two Aleph-Theme words governing this aspect of the Wheel are (Abraham) and ( Amunah, Faith). The name Abraham, (or more properly Avraham), means the father of a multitude.  This is the name God chose for the patriarch of the House of Faith. Obviously, He intends His house to be well-filled.

The two verses quoted above are the only two verses in the Bible that speak of Abraham as "a father of many nations". These verses therefore form a unique KeySet linking Genesis to Romans:

Genesis - KeySet("a father of many nations") - Romans

The dominance of the theme "Father Abraham" on Spoke 1 clearly manifests in the distribution of verses throughout the Bible that contain the words Abraham (or Abram) and Father. As seen in graph below, 53% of all occurrences of these verses are found on Spoke 1.

As with the distribution of the creation words, the structure of the Wheel is verified by the global distribution of words. 

We also see the correlation between Genesis and Romans in the follow partial list of common elements that appear in Genesis and Romans and no where else in Scripture. In other words, these verses, which are linked by uniquely shared content, are geometrically correlated when, and only when, Genesis and Romans reside on the same Spoke.

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

Isaiah 64.8

If there is any lesson to be learned from the Wheel, it is that God can accomplish His purpose without any knowledge, let alone consent, on the part of the people He uses in the process. Of course, this can be quite offensive the human ego which easily rises to such heights as to teach that human freedom is so great that it actually limits what God is able to do! The Lord leaves no doubt about His thoughts on such matters. When Scripture addresses the question of God’s sovereignty, not only does it present God as the absolute ruler over all the affairs of men, great and small, but it goes on to chastise those who pose the question in willful ignorance that they are mere creatures, clay in the hands of the Potter. The classic example is found in Romans 9.20, where Paul responds to the question of how God can find fault with anyone if no one is able to resist His will:

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

In all the Bible, only four other verses speak of God as the Potter and we as the clay. In a vision given to Jeremiah, the Lord shows him a potter who reforms a marred pot into “another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” The Lord then asks:

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

The other three are all from Isaiah. One is quoted at the head of this section. Another is found in Isaiah 29.15:

Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?

The third is found in Isaiah 45.9f:

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?

The three verses from Romans 9, Isaiah 29, and Isaiah 45 differ from the others in that they present the clay as posing questions to the potter. They form a KeySet, a unique set that links these two great books, Isaiah and Romans, on Spoke 1. The parallelism is striking:

These questions deal with three different aspects of God as Creator. The questions are:

1. Did God create me?
2. What did God create me as?
3. Why did God create as He did?

As difficult as it may be to accept, the plain teaching of the text of Scripture which also is amplified in the geometric structure of the Wheel, is that we must submit unequivocally to the absolute Sovereignty of God. Of course, the ironic mystery is that once we do fully submit, we enter in to the "glorious liberty of the Sons of God!" So be it. Amen.