³ Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

⁴ Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.           Isaiah 35:3-4

Today, we will continue with our exploration of the meaning of the letters that form the word, torah.

Today we examine the spiritual meaning of the reish, (pronounced ray’sh).

We are getting into the deeper things of GOD. At the deeper end of the pool you have to let go and float. If you start thinking too hard and begin to struggle with the physicality of it all, you will drown yourself. Nobody has to drown you. You can do it all by yourself.

I need to give you a disclosure here, before we continue…

The Bible is not directed to our physical nature. It was never meant to communicate with the flesh. The flesh can’t comprehend it anyway. For all intents and purposes, the only help we need with the flesh, is to tame it with the spirit.

The Bible was NOT given for the purpose of helping us to figure out, how to maneuver in the physical realm.

The Bible/torah was given to teach us how to maneuver in the spiritual realm, to teach us spiritual matters.

The Bible/torah was given to strengthen the weak hands. To teach us torah. Isaiah 35:3-4

³ Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

⁴ Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

We are studying torah, so that we can wield both hands with equal strength and power, in the spirit. The power of what we learned from our Christian Heritage and what we are learning from our Hebrew Heritage, will make us a triple threat!

I pray that you become Mightier Men and Women of Valor through your torah heritage!

RECAP:

Above are the 4 Hebrew consonants that create the word, torah. The modern Hebrew letters lay directly beneath the Paleo Hebrew Letters that give the impression of a halo above.

Torah is spelled with the, tav (t), vav (v), reish (r), hei (h).

THE VAV FUNCTIONS AS A CONSONANT AND A VOWEL:

The vav represents a consonant and the sound of 2 vowels in Hebrew, the ‘o’ as in doe, and the ‘u’ as in blue. The vav in torah has the ‘o’ sound. That little dot above the vav is our indication that the vav is pronounced with the ‘o’ sound as well. That little dot is called a nikkud.

The 3rd letter in Torah, is the reish, (pronounced ray’sh –roll the ‘r’ a little)

In the Ancient Paleo Hebrew , the letter reish takes the shape of the head, the back of a man’s head.
It is acceptable to pronounce it reish or rosh. Both pronunciations refer to the ‘R’ in Hebrew. But, why does the Hebrew Language use the back of a man’s head to express the ‘R’ sound?

There are many ways to see this. The curve at the back of the head symbolizes turning your back to the word of GOD, fighting against the things of GOD. With your back to GOD, there’s a willingness to accommodate the world, allowing one’s evil inclinations to run rampant and unrestrained. In this mode, man bends toward idolatrous values, he becomes a reish – dalet. (Remember: dalet is a Door, and the Door represents access in and out /in or out).

Seeing RED in Scripture

The reish – dalet (pronounced ‘red’) is an actual word in Hebrew. (Ref: Strongs #3381, yaw-rad). ‘red’ in Hebrew means, to go down, to descend.

“And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves“

“Get thee down” is the word, ‘red’ in Hebrew. Red, is when your evil inclinations have taken over and man has succumbed to his baser instincts. Red, is a spiritual descent into a lower level. A descent from greatness.

Turning Your Back to GOD

Do you remember when Orpah showed Naomi the “back of her head”? (Ruth 1:14, 16) [This has also been referred to as ‘the back of her neck’]. Verse 16 employs the word, shuv, which means to turn back, or return. Orpah returned back to her country, her kindred and her fathers house, back to the ways of Moab. Ruth, on the other hand, implored Naomi to let her stay with her. Ruth attached herself to GOD and rejected the ways of Moab.

Going back to Moab was a spiritual descent. Staying connected to the GOD of Heaven, The GOD of Ruth, was a spiritual ascent. The word ‘red’ in Hebrew indicates that spiritual descent.

While speaking of this, I can’t help but think of that expression we have , “He/She was seeing red.” It just connects with what is going on spiritually with an angry person...seeing red. I think most of us have known this place, and for the most part, nothing good is happening spiritually! Clearly, seeing red, is a spiritual descent into darkness.

ROSH is the Head

Symbolically, Rosh represents the head, a person, being first. Reish is the Highest, the Repentant Man, The Beginning, a moral choice, Right or Wrong/ or Wickedness.

• 

Remember, the word is a 2 edged sword. We make choices. Reish is a choice between greatness or degradation. Between, standing before GOD as the Head, the Leader, or being comfortable in compromise.

In the Ancient Hebrew, the reish asks the question, “What is the Highest?, What is the Most Important?” The scripture asks, that we do more than it is our duty to do! “If it is in your power to do good, do it!” (Ref: Eph 3:20, behavior in the image and likeness of GOD, Micah 6:8, Prov 3:27). This is the duty of the reish. Lead.

When reish is operating in it’s authority and headship, the reish draws strength from the covenant. The covenant has your back! (look at the word picture). The reish is the 20th letter of the aleph-bet and as you are learning, the letters carry numerical value, i.e., in this case, a gematria of 20.

Earlier, I said that the reish means beginning. Reish understands and thrives in beginnings and knows how to begin again. The reish is going to bring torah to the world. The 1st word in scripture is beh’rey’sheet, Genesis 1:1, In the Beginning. The word ‘Rey-sheet’ contains the reish. (reish is the root word in rey-sheet).

TORAH BEGINS WITH THE LETTER BEIT –b

Look closely and see, that GOD began the torah with the letter beit (B), which is the Hebrew word for ‘In’. (In (beh) – rey-sheet, = in the beginning).

GOD could have begun the torah with any word He wanted, any letter. He could have began the torah with an Aleph, representing who He is. Nevertheless, He chose a beit and GOD stands outside of the beit, before it, but hidden. In Hebrew, the beit represents the tabernacle. Let’s see what GOD is doing here behind the scenes.

GOD begins the very 1st teaching with the letter beit, with the tabernacle. If we are looking at this with our spiritual eyes, we see all of torah beginning with the tabernacle. And the beginnings of everything, the rey-sheet, flowing out of the tabernacle. (In (beh) – rey-sheet, = in the beginning).

GOD, THE TABERNACLE AND THE REISH

The rey-sheet is born by the Tabernacle. The rey-sheet is formed by the tabernacle. Only a reish can step out of the tabernacle. When we look back at the word torah, we see a similar pattern.

tav – vav- reish – hei

THE COVENANT, THE MESSIAH AND THE REISH

The vav is symbolic of the man, who steps out into the earth, in covenant with GOD and becomes the reish, the leader, the Head and not the tail, the Repentant Man, who is no longer willing to accommodate the world or his/her evil inclinations. The reish takes his/her position of authority and headship, and the reish leads us to…. the hei.

Amen.

God Bless You,

Posts Included in This Series:

• The Message In The Letters of Torah…beginning with the tav
• The Message In The Letters of Torah… Part 2, the vav

In order to access more teachings of this kind on the Hebrew Letters:

• Because Mother’s Untangle the World
• The Undiscovered Adam and the Unexplained Man, Part 2
• If God Told You A Secret, Could You Keep It?
• Make A Window In The Ark

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