The Beginning of Wisdom

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10 (Spoke 20, Cycle 1)

The name of the Twentieth Letter is a variation of the common Hebrew word for the head (rosh). This coheres with its shape – – in the ancient script, a picture of the head atop the neck. When reversed, it became the Greek P (Rho) which evolved into the Latin R by having a leg added. Scripture attests to its name; God used it in the last Resh verse of Psalm 119, the great Alphabetic Psalm praising His Word from Aleph to Tav (BW book, pg 17):

• AV Ps 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning (rosh): and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

As often happens, the original word order was lost in translation. In Hebrew, the opening clause reads "Rosh davarkah emet" which literally means "the head (or beginning) of thy word is truth." But just as sum relates to summit and amount to mountain, so rosh denotes the top, sum, total, or amount of something, as in "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum (rosh) of them!" (Ps 139:17). Many translations, such as the NASB, use this to render the verse as "The sum of thy word is truth." This conveys an important aspect of its meaning and preserves the proper word order. God used a closely related KeyWord in the Resh clause of AV Psalm 111, where again the KJV reversed the original word order which begins with the phrase reshith chokmah in Hebrew:

• AV Ps 111:10a The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

In all the Bible, the key phrase reshith chokmah appears in one and only one other verse – Proverbs 4:7 on Spoke 20 – where reshith is translated as principle thing and linked with rosh as head:

Wisdom is the principal thing (reshith chokmah); therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to hon-our, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head (rosh) an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Proverbs 4:7ff (Spoke 20, Cycle 1)

This passage sums up the heart and soul of the Twentieth Book. Of the 234 references to wisdom in the Bible, nearly half (113) appear in the Five Wisdom Books, as shown in the graph on page 95 of the Bible Wheel book. And of those 113, nearly half again (54) appear in Proverbs. It is the premier Book of Wisdom set as a jewel in the exact center of the Five Wisdom Books. We have here an extremely dense set of converging lines all focusing on one theme. It begins with the Alphabetic KeyLink from the Resh verse of AV Psalm 111 to Proverbs 4:7. The KeyLink phrase – the beginning of wisdom – points to the central theme of the Book to which it links. The KeyWord itself – reshith – is based on the literal meaning of the Twentieth Letter – rosh (head) – thereby signifying the Seat of the Mind and Center of Wisdom in we who bear the Image of God. And as if this were not enough, the linked passage in Proverbs reiterates its own connection with rosh, saying that wisdom "shall give to thine head (rosh) an ornament of grace." This is beyond anything anyone could ever have imagined. The order and content of the Books track exactly with the order and symbolic meanings of the Hebrew Letters as presented by God Himself in the Alphabetic Verses, and all of this is locked in place with an unbreakable multifaceted KeyLink!

Yet there is still more. God amplified the connection between Resh, Wisdom, and the Twentieth Book in another verse – Proverbs 9:10 – quoted at the head of this section. It contains the only other occurrence of the English phrase "the beginning of wisdom" in the KJV. The underlying Hebrew is different but the idea is the same and is faithfully rendered as such. This means that we have two distinct Spoke 20 KeyLinks – one in Hebrew (Prov 4:7) and one in English (Prov 9:10) – to the Resh verse of AV Psalm 111. The significance of this cannot be overstated. We now have a double Spoke 20 Alphabetic KeyLink based on a Resh KeyWord that expresses the central theme of the Twentieth Book and all of this is implicit in the meaning of Resh as a symbol the Head, the Seat of the Mind!

This is an extraordinary convergence of multiple independent lines onto a single point. It reveals, yet again, the full Divine integration of the order and meaning of the Hebrew Letters with that of the Books in the Christian Canon. Such is the limitless glory and detailed perfection of God's Wisdom revealed in the structure of His Holy Word.

This article is essentially identical to pages 337-338 of the Bible Wheel book. It is one of the premier examples of an Alphabetic KeyLink which proves the Divine design of the whole Bible on the pattern of the Hebrew Alphabet.

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