God The Father
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 (Spoke 1, Cycle 3)
The first word of the Hebrew language is
אב (Av, Father). It is first in the alphabetical sense, coming first in any
Hebrew dictionary. It is
cognate to the Aramaic Abba, which was
transliterated (as opposed to translated) in the verse above from Romans.
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
אב (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.
In general, 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:
אב (Av, Father) = א (Aleph, Leader/Guide) & ב (Beyt, House)
Until recent times, the obvious implications of this simple analysis would have met
little or no opposition. The timeless teaching is that the Father is the Head of
the House. It is encoded in the intrinsic structure of the Hebrew language. This
coincides almost exactly with Dr. Frank Seekins analysis.
On page 1 of his Hebrew Word Pictures, he analyses Av as meaing "the leader of the house", using
exactly the same words as I, though neither of us new of the other when we wrote these words!
And as if that weren't enough, on page 12 in his explanation of
the meaning of Aleph, he used exactly the same verses, and almost the same language as I in the
section below under the heading of Aleph. The convergence was so strong, he was certain that I had
been drawing from his work, when in fact I had not seen it. This is, of course, a very strong witness
of the objective validity of our study.
The idea of the Father as the Leader of the House 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?)"
The theme of the Father manifests distinctly on Spoke 1 with the election of Abraham,
whose name means "father of a multitude", in the book of Genesis (cf.
Abraham, the Father of the Faith).
The Meaning of Aleph
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.
Matthew 11:28
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, cited above.
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.)
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