Three Letters, So Much Meaning

You all know my passion with regard to water.

(For those of you new to my blog, you can simply use the search at the top of my blog to find other posts on the subject.)

In short, I see the three atoms of a single molecule of water as a symbol of the Christian Trinity. There are so many attributes of these three atoms that reflect God and I’m constantly in awe of finding more. But I am also fascinated with the idea that in Genesis 1:2 says: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Does this mean that water existed before God created the earth?

The premise I’d like to follow in is post is that the word water in Hebrew shows yet another piece of Trinitarian philosophy.  

Judaism believes there is much wisdom in each letter of their 22 letter alphabet, hence one of my favorite books is The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet by Rabbi Michael L. Munk (I’ll refer to it as WHA in this post.)

The word for water in Hebrew is mayim, which contains three Hebrew letters, two mem’s (even though below they look different) and one yud. (Here’s the Google piece that I found that shows the letters—remember that Hebrew goes from right to left.)

 

Mem can be written closed or open, representing both the revealed and concealed. Study the picture included here.  

 

The first mem is open in the word, mayim. According to WHA, “The open mem points to the obvious, openly revealed glory of God’s actions.”

Then WHA goes on to explain, “The closed (final) mem alludes to that part of the Celestial rule which is concealed from man and to which man submits instinctively and with perfect, innocent faith. I take this to mean that God is the First Causality from which all creation flows and that we are not privy to everything related to how and why He created this reality.

“Taken together, the open mem and closed mem harmoniously glorify the Kingdom of the Almighty with the words of King David: Your kingdom is a kingdom spanning all eternities, and Your dominion is throughout every generation (Psalm 145:13).”

The other letter in water is the yud. It is the smallest and most humble letter according to WHA. Also, WHA says, “…is barely larger than a dot and cannot be divided into component parts. It alludes to Hashem who is One and Indivisible…” (Hashem meaning “the name” which is to the Jewish people, the name of God since they do not say the name of God or even write it.)

The yud is smallest letter of the Hebrew Alphabet as well, representing humility (which Christ humbled himself for us), but it also represents the metaphysical according WHA. It goes on to say, “In smallness lies essence…which is devoid of such physical ballast as space, time or matter…this implies that greatness is achieved through humility.”

Go back now to the word mayim:

Two of the same letters with the smallest letter in between. Three letters, great and small.

Two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom – three atoms all together. Water binds with all other substances but never forces a bond—like God. 

Water came before any other Divine utterance in Genesis. Why might this be important? How is water important to us? It sustains life—all life. It washes us. We are made up of 2/3 water. And these are just a few of the outward symbols. Is God trying to tell us that He sustains us? Are we even listening?

More to come next time with atomic numbers of these three atoms that make up water…