Last week we talked about the truth that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. We correlated the Greek letters of Alpha and Omega with our English alphabet of A to Z.
We are going to continue our discussion and look at what exactly is the Aleph Tav.
The Aleph Tav
Now, let’s go back just a sec to Jesus being the Alpha and Omega. Remember I said that Alpha was the first letter in Greek and Omega was the last letter in the Greek alphabet.
Well, what if Jesus said this in Hebrew?
He would say, “I am the Aleph and the Tav.” Some may pronounce a little bit differently, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is to catch the revelation that Jesus is Aleph and Tav, or “The Aleph Tav,” the name of this entire series.
All right, everybody with me on this so far? Jesus declares He is the Alpha-Omega, the A-Z, and the Aleph-Tav. It just depends on what language you’re speaking.
Now, what is so super cool to me – or maybe it’s a tragedy, depending on how you see it – is that there are aleph-tav’s all throughout the Old Testament.
The translators of Hebrew didn’t translate most of these aleph-tav’s, or gave them simple translations, like the word “and” or “him” or “it.” But what’s being communicated by the original authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is that Jesus is involved in these verses!
I’ll give you an example in a minute, but one other thing to tell you about the Hebrew language. It’s not like English. Each letter of the Hebrew language has ancient meaning to it.
Hebrew Letter Meanings
Now, as a disclaimer, I don’t go into the evil Hebrew mysticism, or the Kabbalah Tree, or any of that stuff, which I believe is a satanic perversion of actual truth.
But what I do believe is that the ancient meanings of the Hebrew letters are accurate and helpful.
For example, the Hebrew letter aleph means, “strength” among other things. And the Hebrew letter beth means, “house, covering, or family.” If you put these two letters together, you get the word “Abba” for father. Abba means “the strength of the house” or “the strength of the family.” And now you know one of the purposes of a father. That’s the power of the Hebrew language.
So what does aleph tav mean? We already reviewed what the letter aleph means, “strength.” Tav is indicative of the cross or covenant. And so aleph tav can mean “strength of the covenant.” This is Jesus. Jesus is the Strength of the New Covenant, the New Covenant in his blood, as He says in Luke 22:20.
Genesis 1:1
OK, so back to Genesis 1:1. There are two untranslated aleph-tav’s in Genesis 1:1. The first is a standalone, and the second adds the Hebrew letter vav to it, which I’ll explain in a minute. Here it is again, this time showing the aleph-tav’s.
“In the beginning, God created [aleph tav] the heavens and [vav aleph tav] the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV, brackets mine)
By the way, we believe the Word of God is inspired in its original language. So Hebrew is the inspired language of the Old Testament.
So, God created through aleph tav, the strength of the covenant or through Jesus Himself.
So it could read this way:
“In the beginning, God created [through Jesus] the heavens and [vav aleph tav] the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV, brackets mine)
“In the beginning, God created [through the strength of the covenant] the heavens and [vav aleph tav] the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV, brackets mine)
We see Jesus is very present in the very first verse of the Bible during creation, and the covenant that God was making with humanity through the blood of Jesus was already in His mind, which leads me to the vav aleph tav.
The Hebrew letter Vav looks like a nail and can mean “to join together” and “a bridge.”
So let’s add that meaning into Genesis 1:1:
“In the beginning, God created [through Jesus] the heavens and [nailed them through Jesus to] the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV, brackets mine)
Or
“In the beginning, God created [through Jesus] the heavens and [bridged the heavens through Jesus to] the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV, brackets mine)
A bridge from Heaven to earth. What does that remind you of?
For those at the retreat, this may have reminded you of Jacob’s ladder, found in Genesis 28. We’re not going to read that again, but I showed that Jesus declares Himself to be Jacob’s ladder, the house of God, and the gate of Heaven. (By the way, this is also found at the end of John chapter 1.)
Jesus is the bridge from Heaven to earth. Jesus is the way to Heaven. Angels ascend and descend on Jesus. He is the gateway to Heaven, and we see this very same idea in the first verse of the entire Bible! This is the gospel in one verse!
If you’ll allow me, here’s a translation I made using these ideas and the revelation of Jesus Christ into Genesis 1:1:
“In the beginning, God, through the strength of the covenant through Jesus’ blood, created the heavens and made Jesus to be the bridge through that same covenant, nailing Heaven to the earth through Him.” (Genesis 1:1 Brett Aleph Tav Version)
This is the sort of revelation that the aleph tav can give you in the Old Testament. It shows Jesus all over the place. It points to Jesus through the lineages, by being placed in front of people’s names in the lineage of Jesus Christ. It shows where the covenant is in operation, and where it is not.
And we’ll be going over some of the examples through this series as well as just in general pointing out where Jesus shows up in the Old Testament. Some well-meaning yet ignorant Christians overlook the Old Testament because they see it as obsolete. But let me tell you, there’s so much richness in the Old Testament, especially when you look at it through the lens of the New Testament, which I encourage you to do every time you read from it.
Let’s look at a few other examples before closing out today.
We are going to pause here today. Next week we will conclude this discussion. I hope you will join me!
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