Yesterday we talked about the number 10, and how Yah made everything that exists through the expression “God Said”–used 10 times in a row in Genesis 1. He similarly laid the foundation for his latest creation, Israel, by delivering—directly from His mouth to their ears—10 Words. To make this connection, we had to look past bad English translations and even more distracting religious traditions. Once the connection is finally made, however, we see a deeper truth to the opening words of the Gospel of John.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”
So let’s look at the word for “word”—in Hebrew it’s debar (Strongs H1697).
Three Hebrew letters: dalet, bet, resh
Dalet is a picture of a door
Bet is a house
Resh is a man’s head
Dalet seems appropriate, as we have seen numerous times that a ‘door’ is directly connected to Pesach—the only way to begin our walk as Israelites. Messiah makes it clear that this was always the case, and certainly didn’t change with his arrival on earth.
John 10:1-11, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”
So Messiah is “The Word”—He is the vehicle by which the entire earth was created, as well as the vehicle through which the 10 words were delivered. Messiah is “The Door”, the opening that saved Noah and his family, as well as the opening that protected Lot and his family. Abraham met with Yah while sitting in the door of his tent. The door shows the sign of the Blood of The Lamb, the proof that we are Israel.
So let’s look at the other two letters. They form a crucial root of several Hebrew words, all of which form the core of what it means to be redeemed out of the world. Bet and Resh form the word bar (Strongs H1250). It seems like an innocent and powerless word at first glance, which is lines up perfectly with it’s meaning. Bar is the seed-head of a stalk of grain. Like the image on this post, it’s a “house of heads”—a family of seeds, that has the potential to grow into a field of a similar kind. Bar becomes a consistent allegorical theme which specifically points to Israel as the true ‘Bar‘ that Yah is eventually going to be planted in the Land. The English word ‘barley’ comes from the Hebrew word bar, as does ‘barn’ and even ‘beer’.
The allegory doesn’t begin here, but during Joseph’s period of preparing for Egypt’s famine is where it’s the most obvious. The word ‘bar’ is used 7 times in Genesis 41, as Joseph collects ‘bar’ until it cannot be measured. The narrative then instantly makes the connection to Joseph’s direct descendants who become known as “The House of Israel”. Read all of Genesis 41 yourself, but here’s an excerpt:
“During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up BAR [grain] in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured. Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him.”
That phrase “like the sand of the sea” is the key phrase linked to Abraham and Yah’s promise to him. The name Abraham begins with the letter ALEPH (primary, strongest, #1) plus Bet and Resh—Bar! In other words, Abraham is the father of multitudes. According to the letters in his name, Abraham is the first ‘Bar’. He’s the head grain, the chief seed, that will eventually turn into seeds too numerous to count. These bar will continue to multiply and will planted around the earth as a blessing to the nations—eventually there will be a harvest and the seeds found worthy of replanting will be permanently planted in the land.
Oh…yeah.
When we REALIZE (ayin) that we are bar we’ll truly REALIZE that we are the word spelled: Ayin, Bet, Resh. HeBRew. Hebrew means “those who cross over”. This realization of our true identity is what motivates us to “cross over” from death into life—from being merely a human to being set apart as a chosen seed—not the seed of a weed or worse–a seed of a tare. True to his name, ABRam (the father of all bar) is also the first HeBRew. He “crossed over” the waters from the traditions, ways, and land of his ancestors, and had the faith to listen to Yah and enter the Land of Promise. HeBRews, once we realize we are bar, simply follow that same path. It’s our new nature.
A covenant is made with Abraham and his descendants. In Hebrew, the word for “covenant” is berit. It’s spelled bar with the letter tav added to the end. Tav is a picture of a mark or a sign. A “covenant’, therefore, is the “sign” of a bar, such as the mark on the foreskin of a Hebrew male’s “seed-planter”. Every future Hebrew “crosses over” (in seed form) through that mark—even if they end up being a female Hebrew baby. When they grow up, choosing to rest on the Seventh Day Sabbath is added as a second “sign” of a bar—the next sign of being in covenant.
If that’s not enough:
The first two letters of the entire bible are bet and resh. And as a second witness—the second word, bara (which means to fill up or fatten) also starts with bet and resh. BeReshit bara Elohim— “In the beginning, created God…” The seed was planted in the first two letters, and then ‘fills up’ creation from the second word onward.
But wait, there’s more:
The word for “blessing” is baruch—the letters paint the picture of a bar being lifted up—like a handful of grain. Abraham is the first to get a blessing and a promise of a blessing for his descendants.
The word for “grave” or “bury” (not ‘sheol’, the other word) is kebar—whose letters mean ‘to gather bar’. John 12:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a “grain” falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
Even in Aramaic, the word for ‘son’ is bar. Messiah’s self-proclaimed title comes from the Aramaic term in Daniel’s book. “Bar Enosh” – The Son of Mankind.
This is just the beginning of the beauty of this concept—but I’m trying to stick to the word for ‘word’—Debar”. Messiah himself was trying to explain this exact allegory in Matthew 4:1-20.
Here it is in its entirety:
“Again, he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty fold and sixty fold and a hundredfold.”
And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’” And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows The Word [Debar]. And these are the ones along the path, where The Word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away The Word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear The Word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of The Word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear The Word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke The Word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear The Word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
Regarding the mysterious allegorical parable of bar, and by extension debar [the Word], baruch [blessing], berit [covenant], and most certainly Hebrew [those that cross over] these words of Yeshua fit perfectly:
“Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”
Do you see why the 10 Commandments are better understood as The Ten Debar? YHWH is casting seeds, like the sower He is. Our hearts may or not receive it, unless the soil is right. The Way to Shavuot was meant to prepare that soil, so that here at the mountain His Words might actually take root and grow.
We’ve got one more week to Shavuot, and there’s still a lot of scriptural ground to cover—despite our Israelites ancestors long-term campsite at Yah’s Mountain Home.