Hebrew Word Study – One – ‘Echad – Aleph Cheth Daleth

Leviticus 19:18: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of the people, but thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.”

It is curious that this verse ends with “I am the Lord.”  Why does the verse add this?  The meaning of the verse is obvious, one is supposed to love his fellow exactly like himself.  And the same is with the other person.  He is supposed to love him completely.   The word for love ‘ahava actually indicates this.  

The sages point out that the word ‘ahava has the same gematria as the Hebrew word for one ‘echad.  The gematria is the process of finding the numerical value of a word and comparing it to another word to find a deeper meaning to the word or verse. In this case the word ‘ahava totals 13.  The word ‘echad also totals 13.  There is a New Testament Scriptural basis for doing this.  Check out Revelation 13:18: “Here is wisdom, Let him that hath understanding calculate the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.” Note that the wisdom is to know that if you calculate the number of the beast you will discern its identity.  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God and He will give it James 1:5.  Just as you will need wisdom to know how to identify the beast, so too do we need wisdom to know when to use the gematria, or the prime roots, or representation of the Hebrew letters.  Once Godly wisdom leads you to use these tools, you will then need an understanding of the gematria, the prime roots, or the representation of the Hebrew letters. Once you have the wisdom to know to use these tools, then you need to understand how to use these tools.  Just as the passage in Revelation tells us that you then need an understanding of the gematria to unlock the mystery of the identity of the beast.  Perhaps as we come into the last days the deep secrets of the sages will be given to the believers.  Maybe, that is how many believers will survive in the last days, because they will have wisdom from God, and understanding from God’s people to examine the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures.  Just a thought.

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Here we face a mystery.  Why does this verse end with “I am the Lord.” The sages believe they were given the wisdom to search out the number or the gematria of the word ‘ahava. They had the understanding of how to apply the gematria and in so doing discovered ‘ahava corresponded with the word ‘echad.  Thus, they concluded that each person is to love his fellow completely as if they were really one person.  The word ‘echad is a collective one like one team, one class.  In other words, we are to love each person because we have a connection with that person as we have with God.  God is the source of all things and every person and thus as part of His creation, we have a connection not only to Him but all His creation. As to the nature of this connection that is something that we may not be able to fully understand in this physical realm as this connection is spiritual. 

If we love our fellow person as one and they love us as one or ‘echad then we have made the name Jehovah (YHWH) as this is because two times 13 (ahava 13 + ahava 13) equals 26.  26 is the numerical value for YHWH.

What the gematria is telling us is that when we love our fellow person and they love us in return we have completed the name of God -YHWH and God is our midst.

This then gives us a deeper understanding of Genesis 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.  The word one is ‘echad which corresponds to the gematria of ‘ahava (love). Thus, man and woman become one flesh through love, but that love is loving this person as you love yourself, and the two love each other create the gematria for YHWH.   The love relationship between a man and woman was meant to create a picture of the love of God Jehovah.   Any wonder why the enemy wants to destroy and pervert the marriage relationship?

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