By Another Light

 

Teva

 "The history of religion and philosophy is really the history of the profound human belief that we have faculties capable of responding to orders of truth which, did we apprehend them, would change the whole character of our universe; showing us reality from another angle, lit by another light."

Evelyn Underhill

     God uses signs, symbols, and stories to speak to His people... imagery of the invisible for visual people.

      In Genesis 6:14, God speaks to Noah, "Make for yourself an ark of Gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch." The Hebrew word translated 'ark' is teva, and is used twice in the Hebrew Scriptures: regarding the 'ark' of Noah and the 'basket' of Moses (Exodus 2:3). A teva is a sacred container, a vessel designed to protect and carry its contents. 

     Teva also means word.

Teva

    
     The three characters in teva- tau, beth, hey- remind me of a night in the life of Moses, the night called Passover.

 

     God instructed Moses to place lamb's blood on the posts and lintels of every Israelite home... forming a cross.

     The Children of Israel were thus protected from the Angel of Death on the night called Pesach- the feast of freedom, by the blood of the lamb.

     As I meditate on teva today, July 4- Independence Day- the characters say to me: 

"Behold, the house whose doorway is covered by the blood of the Lamb who hung on the cross and is the Word; that house is free indeed!"