Daily Devotions: Spock, Yeshua, and the Meaning of “Shin”

Bible Readings for Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
– The Week of The 10th Sunday After Pentecost

*Click on each bible passage to expand the text.

Psalm 18:1-3, 20-32

1. [To the leader. A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD, who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:] I love you, O LORD, my strength.
2. The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, so I shall be saved from my enemies.
20. The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.
21. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22. For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me.
23. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt.
24. Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25. With the loyal you show yourself loyal; with the blameless you show yourself blameless;
26. with the pure you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.
27. For you deliver a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.
28. It is you who light my lamp; the LORD, my God, lights up my darkness.
29. By you I can crush a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.
30. This God– his way is perfect; the promise of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
31. For who is God except the LORD? And who is a rock besides our God?–
32. the God who girded me with strength, and made my way safe.

Deuteronomy 32:18-20, 28-39

18. You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19. The LORD saw it, and was jealous he spurned his sons and daughters.
20. He said: I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.
28. They are a nation void of sense; there is no understanding in them.
29. If they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern what the end would be.
30. How could one have routed a thousand, and two put a myriad to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, the LORD had given them up?
31. Indeed their rock is not like our Rock; our enemies are fools.
32. Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter;
33. their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.
34. Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries?
35. Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; because the day of their calamity is at hand, their doom comes swiftly.
36. Indeed the LORD will vindicate his people, have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, neither bond nor free remaining.
37. Then he will say: Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38. who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!
39. See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand.

Romans 11:33-36

33. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
35. “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?”
36. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

• This God– his way is perfect; the promise of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him. – Psalm 18:30
• See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand. – Deuteronomy 32:39
• For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. – Romans 11:36

From, Through, and To God Are All Things

God… is.

It’s almost impossible to imagine, but when I really stop to ponder this First Great Truth, my soul rejoices at the simplicity of its glory, and it’s infinitely intricate consequences.

Romans 11

36. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

God… is!

Which inevitably brings me back to the Tetragrammaton, the First Great Name of God, which to my heart, soul, and mind perfectly inculcates The First Great Truth:

Exodus 3

13. Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

15. God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, (YHWH/יְהֹוִה) the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

From Wikipedia:

YHWH (יְהֹוִה), As a qal (basic stem) verb inflection, it could mean “he who is, who exists“.

The First Great Name of God contains it all: “I AM who is, who exists.”

All things are from, through, and to I AM who is, who exists.

However, as I said above, the infinite consequences of thie First Great Truth are dazzling. These are but a few of the obvious ones:

• All evil is contained within God.
• All good is contained within God.
• All hate is contained within God.
• All love is contained within God.
• All sorrow is contained within God.
• All joy is contained within God.
• All death is contained within God.
• All life is contained within God.

And now we perhaps have more insight into our passage from Deuteronomy today:

Deuteronomy 32

39. See now that I, even I, I AM he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand.

The vastness and completeness of our human reality which is contained within the identity of God is awe inspiring, and terrifying.

If God is all things, then how are we to know the will of God?

Yeshua: The Identity of Truth Within the Infinity of God

Thank God for Yeshua the Anointed. Through him, God made known his perfect will, and the full truth of God’s nature:

Luke 10

25. On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit the Life of the Age?”

26. “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27. He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

28. “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live in God.”

Matthew 5

43. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighborh and hate your enemy.’ 44. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45. that you may be Children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47. And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 12

12. “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

God may be all things, but God’s will for us is love and equity. Through Yeshua, we may know the Heart of God.

 Yehoshua: The Heart of God

I get Goosebumps when I think about this next part: the symbolism of the belief that through Yeshua we may know the heart of God can be found in the name of Yeshua itself.

From Wikipedia:

“Jesus” is the English of the Greek transliteration of “Yehoshua” via Aramaic. In the Septuagint, all instances of the word “Yehoshua” are rendered as “Ἰησοῦς” (Iēsoūs/Jesus), the closest Greek pronunciation of the Aramaic “Yeshua” (Hebrew word #3443 in Strong’s, Neh. 8:17).

The English name Joshua is a rendering of the Hebrew language “Yehoshua”, meaning “Yahweh is salvation”, (YHWH is the Hebrew God), “salvation”, “to deliver/be liberated”, or “to be victorious”. The vocalization of the second name component may be read as Hoshea – the name used in the Torah before Moses added the divine name (Numbers 13:16).

Yehoshua, the original Hebrew spelling of the Aramaic “Yeshua”, means “YHWH is Salvation“! My God, this is really, really cool!

Now let’s really get into the symbolism of the same, visually:

If we take the name of God, YHWH in Hebrew (יְהֹוָה) and write them vertically, we get this:

Look familiar to anyone?

God created man in God’s image, indeed!

I AM… man.

My hands are your hands.

My heart is your heart.

 

Next, let’s examine a less common way to spell the Hebrew name “Yeshoshua” (יְהוֹשוּעַ):

To create a visual word pun, we will insert the Hebrew letter “Shin” (ש) into YHWH (יְהֹוִה) creating יְהֹשוִה , or YHShWH (Yaheshua).

Then if we spell YHShWH vertically (as our example above), and use the letter Shin (ש) as the heart of the word, we get this:

And the fact that Shin (ש) is “in the heart of the word” is significant:

(From Soul-Guidance.com) “Shin is the twenty first letter, and symbolizes the Spirit, the Spiritual Fire, The Flaming Sword. It is said that when Shin (ש) is not in the middle of a word it turns to anger and resentment. When in the middle of a word, it is the central equilibrating fire.

It is the influx of the Holy Spirit that flowed into the heads of the Apostles, shown as a flame above each of their heads. The body has taken in the Fiery Spirit.”

Can you see? Can you hear?

Yeshua (YHShWH) allows us to know the divine, equilibrating fire at the heart of our Lord, I AM (YHWH). It is the symbol of our incarnation of the Holy Spirit, the Christ within.

Glory be to God!

*The concept of a “divine fire”, or “refining fire” is central to Christian Universalism. For more on this key topic please read: “How Jesus’ Furnace of Fire Confirms Universal Salvation“.

Symbolism in Ritual

The oldest known biblical text in the world is the Priestly Blessing (in Hebew it is the Nesiat Kapayim, or the Raising of Hands). What is significant about this prayer in the context of our discoveries here, is the shape the hands are raised in is none other than our key Hebrew letter, Shin (ש)!

Nesiat Kapayim, or The Raising of Hands*

24. “Yahweh bless you, and keep you.

25. Yahweh make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.

26. Yahweh lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.”

*Yes, Leonard Nimoy (Spock from Star Trek) got his inspiration for the Vulcan greeting from this sign.

Our hands, the hands of God, are raised in the form of Shin (ש) to bestow upon us our portion of the divine fire, the heart of God, the great love of God.

Amen.

*A very grateful thanks to Timothy Hogan for the insights I “borrowed” from his book “The 32 Secret Paths of Solomon“. He manages to make Qabbalah seem approachable and provides amazing insights to wet your esoteric whistle.