Tuesday, January 25, 2011

YHWH in the Tzitzit

In Numbers 15:38 the Israelites were instructed to attach tzitzit (zeet zeet[h]), tassels, containing a blue thread, on the four corners of their outer garments.

Yahshua wore them (Matt 9:20; 14:36).

Modern day tzitzit often are composed of 10 wraps, followed by 5, then 6, then 5, which in the numerology system of the Hebrew alef-bet refers to the letters Y,H,W,H.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Kent ... I am blown away.

You can knock me over with a straw right now ... I had no idea you called on Yahweh through Yahshua. See, I never brought it up to you; and, you never brought it up to me either - soooo, seeing you are searching, I am really taken aback here.

I was doing a search on getting me and my children tzit tzits and I clicked on your site ... Wow. See, I am Al-Yahnai Hawkins. I have been seeking Yahweh through Yahshua for over half my life and I am like 53 or 54 now.

I am just blown away Kent ... blown away ... do you know anyone locally that makes tzit tzit with YHWH and not YHVH deceptions???

Wow ... I am just blown away here and need to get my composure straightened up ... wow.

Hey, I don't have a gmail.com account - my email is alyahnai at yahoo dot com ...

Kent West said...

Hey Big Al!

It's good to hear from you.

Yes, my allegiance is to YHWH through Yahshua of Nazareth, (supposed) son of Joseph (but really, offspring of YHWH).

I am imperfect in this allegiance, sometimes through weakness, sometimes through ignorance, sometimes through outright rebelliousness. I trust YHWH to grant me, however, the right-ness of Yahshua, simply on the basis of His grace toward me, trusting that He has adopted me as His own. I don't trust in my own right-ness; my best right-ness is as used tampons (the meaning of the phrase "filthy rags" in Is 64:6).

So whereas I try to be accurate in my understandings of the things of God, I don't trust myself that I've always gotten it right. Still, I rest assured that the "right" is granted to me through Yahshua.

Accordingly, I'm not consistent in how I refer to YHWH, Yahshua, etc. I think replacing the name YHWH in our printed Bibles with the substitution of "the LORD" is a violation of the command to not change Scripture. But minor dialectical differences, such as YHWH vs YHVH or JHVH don't bother me too much (although adding in the vowels of a completely different word, "lord" (Heb, adonai), to create the man-made mish-mash "Jehovah" does bother me).

In fact, just recently I've read that there was no "W" sound in ancient Hebrew (I am not a Hebrew scholar, by any means), so YHVH is probably closer to the correct pronunciation than is YHWH. But I consider that no more of an error of translation than to fuss about a European speaking in English and saying he would like to visit "Havaii" or for him to say "You're velcome".

I don't know of any local sources of tzit tzit, but I have heard, from a third party, of the interest in such things by a young man named Trini (Trinidad?), who is part of the family that owns/runs the Monterrey Mexican restaurant on E.N. 10th between Mockingbird and Willis, across from Westgate Church of Christ and Fountaingate Fellowship.

Again, it's good to hear from you. May the blessing of Yah be on you and yours.