The Law, the Prophets, and the Epistles
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus
Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned,
and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:20ff (Spoke 1, Cycle 3)
The divine clarity and supernatural perfection of the detailed design of the Bible Wheel
is nowhere more evident than on the first Spoke, corresponding to Aleph. Early in the morning of May 14, 1999,
exactly four years and two days after I drew the first Bible Wheel (BW book, pg 23),
I was meditating on the first Spoke and noticed that it holds the first Books of three primary divisions of Scripture:
The conjunction of "the law" and "the prophets" immediately evoked the frequent self-description of the
Bible found in the Bible in passages such as Romans 3:21 quoted above. This prompted me to look at
the rest of the canonical divisions which in turn led to the discovery of the Canon Wheel later that same
day (BW book pg 32). It was an utterly astounding experience; I sat awe-struck for a week thereafter.
I had been fruitfully studying the basic black and white Bible Wheel for years with no particular interest in
the large-scale canonical divisions. My focus was on a much finer level of detail. For four full
years I was constantly discovering endless correlations of highly specific content from the three Books on
each Spoke with each other and the meaning of the corresponding
Hebrew letter. I had no idea that an entirely new level of divine design – aptly described as
sevenfold symmetric perfection – lay implicit in its structure. In a single day God opened my
mind to see this glorious new aspect of the unlimited perfection of His Holy Word, the surface of
which was barely touched in the 800+ pages on this website. Our task now is to review the first and last
Spokes of this theological tapestry to see how God supernaturally sealed His entire Word from
beginning to end, from Aleph to Tav.
Aleph: The Symbol God, Beginnings, and First Things
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts;
I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
Isaiah 44:6 (Spoke 1, Cycle 2)
As the first of the letters, Aleph is a natural symbol of first
things, beginnings, and origins.
This is how the Lord Jesus Christ used the first Greek letter when He said
"I am Alpha ... the beginning ... the first ..." (Rev 22:13, pg 39). God is the Creator of All and
so all things find their origin in Him. He also is the Sovereign Lord of Creation, and this is expressed
by the closely associated KeyWord alluph (see table) which denotes a sovereign ruler, master,
chief, or leader of thousands. Alluph is nearly identical to Aleph; it differs only in pronunciation
(vowel points, BW book pg 19). This is typical of how
KeyWords closely associated with a letter's name reveal its symbolic meaning.
In the KJV, alluph is translated as duke, which was the common word denoting a sovereign male ruler in the
European social structure dominant at the time of its translation. Others translate it as leader,
ruler, or chief. Its greatest density appears on Spoke 1 in Genesis 36 where it is used forty-three times
in the lists of the Dukes of Edom. These ideas will be explored in more detail in the Synopsis (BW book
pg 124).
In its ultimate sense, Aleph is a symbol of God, the
Sovereign Ruler of All who should be
first in every heart and who is literally First of All in that He existed before He created anything.
The first verse of the Bible amplifies these ideas: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
The word translated as God is the Aleph KeyWord Elohim, displayed in the third entry in the table.
It is based on the root El which denotes a mighty one, and so came to be applied to
God as the Almighty. And since Elohim is an Aleph KeyWord (it starts with Aleph), the first letter
is literally God's initial. This echoes His declaration that He is
the "Alpha" and adds symbolic depth
by linking it to the first divine name revealed in Scripture. Thus we see the symbolic meaning of
Aleph is based on its position in the Alphabet, the meaning of its name and associated KeyWords, and
God’s use of it (in the form of Alpha) in the text of Scripture. This exemplifies a few of the primary
methods we will use to discern the meaning of each of the twenty-two letters. The wonder of it
all is that everything is so simple, plain, and clear. There is no mistaking the essential meaning of the
first letter. Though a complete understanding of Aleph involves a full review of its use in the
Alphabetic Verses, Hebrew grammar, and elsewhere, the ideas touched upon above should be sufficient to
spark the requisite insight to perceive the divine wonder that is the first Spoke of God's
Wheel. The primary articles that give an overview of the three Books on Spoke 1 are listed below:
Read more from Chapter 3 of the Bible Wheel book.
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Law, Prophets, and Epistles
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