Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Rebekah explains Gematria

It's time to get back to Luther's Baggage...


Later on, as the evening mellowed before the fire, Heinrich asked Rebekah, “You mentioned that you would tell us more about Gematria; could you do that now?” Rebekah turned her gaze from a dying ember and responded, “First of all, the only people who can engage in this are those who have access to Hebrew scrolls and a lot of time and patience, so that immediately limits it to just a few people. This is clearly beyond the reach of the average person – but that is an audience that the network was apparently interested in. I need to emphasize too, that, in my opinion, there is a group within Judaism that has taken this phenomenon too far in the wrong direction. It is a classic case of Satan taking a good thing and twisting it for his own ends. In other words, what I am about to tell you is not to be confused with the mystical interpretation known as Kabbalah. The idea of Gematria is that each letter in Hebrew, and Greek for that matter, has a numerical value; this is needed because there are no numbers in the Hebrew alephbet. Therefore, each word has a numerical value when we add up the values from its individual letters. The rabbis noticed that certain words have a relationship to other words when they shared the same value. Things get more interesting, however, when we look below the surface. If we select a letter in the text and skip by a constant amount either left to right or right to left, it can spell out meaningful words. This by itself is not so significant but if we see that the location of the word is in the midst of a particular passage and that this word is related to the meaning of the passage, we have an interesting “coincidence” that God has weaved into the text. The rabbis have found several examples of this over the centuries.

For example, Torah is spelled Tav-Vav-Resh-Chet.  If we start at the beginning of Genesis, or Berasheet, and look for the first Tav and then skip 49 letters from right to left (Hebrew reads from right to left) we find Vav. Skipping another 49 letters takes us to Resh. Skipping another 49 letters takes us to Chet. 49 is notable because it’s 7 squared and we all know that seven is an important number in the Bible. The same pattern is revealed in Exodus, or Shemot. Starting with the first occurrence of Tav, the rest of the letters (Vav-Resh-Chet) occur with a skip sequence of 49, going from right to left. The pattern occurs again in Numbers, or Bemidbar, but this time it is spelled backwards. Starting with the first occurrence of Chet, the rest of the letters (Resh-Vav-Tav) occur at a 49 letter skip, going right to left. Deuteronomy, or Devarim, does the same thing: Chet-Resh-Vav-Tav at a 49 letter skip.

What about Leviticus (Vayikra)?  It’s almost as if Genesis and Exodus have arrows pointing at Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy have arrows pointing at Leviticus. It is the book where the sacrificial system is detailed.  But Leviticus does not have the TORH pattern; instead the ineffable name YHVH occurs at a skip sequence of 7. Everything points to YHVH. But what about Yeshua? Does His name occur in the text? Yes it does. Finding this in the text was instrumental in bringing several Jewish rabbis to faith in Yeshua, and this is why the network is interested.  

The Hebrew text has been faithfully copied for hundreds of years thanks to the discipline of the scribes. They have even copied known errors from one scroll to the next, for one never knows why an error is there. And here is an area where there is a hint of Yeshua. The Hebrew alephbet has 22 letters with five of those letters having a different appearance when they occur at the end of a word. These letters are Tsade, Fey, Nun, Khaf,and Mem. The Hebrew text follows this rule of grammar in all cases, except for one notable place, and it has come to be known as the mystery of the closed Mem. Do you have a pencil and paper?” Heinrich replied, “Sure,” as he got up, searched, and brought them to Rebekah, who then picked up a book, placed the paper on it, and wrote as she spoke, “This is the letter Mem – notice how it is open on the bottom. And this is Mem sofit, as it is called, that appears only at the end of a word. Notice that it is closed at the bottom. There is one place in the Hebrew text where Mem is used incorrectly. It is in Isaiah 9:7 in the passage where the coming of the Messiah is prophesied.  The word is marbeh, which means increase and its Mem uses the type of spelling that occurs at the end of the word. At this point she drew a simple representation of a baby within the void of the Mem and then added, “The letter Mem is often thought of in Hebrew as a picture of the womb. An open Mem shows the birth channel from the “belly” of the letter. A closed Mem is a closed womb. Yeshua was conceived in the closed womb of a virgin. This letter has been copied by the scribes for centuries, but it took Hebrew believers to link it to Yeshua as the Messiah. These are just a few examples, but it hopefully gives you an insight into what’s going on.” 

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