That Speak of Me
The Paleo-Hebrew text is not primarily narrative. It is not primarily predictive. It is identity. The pictures declare who he is. Everything that follows is what that identity looks like when it enters the creation.
Document 13 of 13
Yeshua (Jesus) said it plainly in Yochanan (John) 5:39. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me. And in Luke 24:27, beginning from Moshe (Moses) and from all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. And in Luke 24:44, everything written about me in the Torah of Moshe and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
These are they that speak of me. Not, these are they that predict events that will happen around me. Not, these are they that contain typologies and foreshadowings that point in my direction. These are they that speak of me. The subject of the entire covenant testimony, from the first letter of the first word to the last vision, is not a sequence of events. It is a person. And everything else in the testimony is what that person looks like when he enters the creation and completes what his own nature has always been declaring.
This is the hermeneutical key, the principle for reading the text, that the tradition has consistently missed. Not because the tradition was careless. Because the tradition was looking for the wrong thing. It was looking for predictions. Typologies. Events pointing forward to other events. Stories foreshadowing later stories. And in doing so, even with the greatest reverence and the most careful scholarship, it turned an identity declaration into a narrative about what would happen. The text was not primarily saying what would happen. The text was primarily saying who he is. And what would happen can only be understood after you know who he is.
The tradition looked for predictions and found a story. The text was declaring an identity. Everything in the covenant testimony, every letter, every word, every event, every name, every covenant moment, is speaking of him. Not about what would happen. Who he is.
The place this is most visible, and most commonly missed, is in the Paleo-Hebrew (the pictographic script Moshe used when he first wrote the Torah, where every letter was a drawn image before it became an abstract stroke). The tradition has engaged with the Paleo-Hebrew pictures as a way of enriching the narrative. The Aleph is an ox head, strength. The Bet is a house, dwelling. The pictures add meaning to the words. The pictures illustrate the stories. The pictures foreshadow the events. This is how the Paleo-Hebrew has been taught wherever it has been taught.
But read through the key Yeshua himself gave, these are they that speak of me, the pictures are not primarily enriching a narrative or illustrating a story. The pictures are declaring his identity. The letter is not a symbol that adds meaning to a word. The letter is a declaration about who he is. And the most direct evidence of this is in the name YHWH itself, the four letters that the entire covenant text places at the center of every declaration about the divine nature.
Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. Four letters. Four pictures. In the Paleo-Hebrew script that Moshe used when he first wrote the name, four drawn images, each one a declaration. Not a narrative. Not a prediction. Not a story about what would happen. An identity.
The name YHWH is not a story. It is not a prediction. It is four pictures declaring who he is. Read through the key Yeshua gave, these are they that speak of me, and the name is not about events. The name is him.
Yod י — A Hand
Not, a hand will be involved in what happens. I am the hand. The acting, creating, reaching, making presence of the divine nature. The hand that made the house. The hand that breathed the neshamah (breath of life) into the tzelem (shadow or image). The hand that held both sides of the covenant while Avraham slept. The hand that drove the nail by its own willing hand at the cross. The hand is not a symbol pointing to an event. The hand is him. YHWH declaring his own identity in the first picture of his own name.
Heh ה — Behold — A Man with Arms Raised
Not, here is something worth beholding that is coming. I am the behold. The one worth seeing. The revelation itself. The command to look is not pointing away from the letter toward something else, the command to look is pointing at the one whose name contains it. He is what the behold is calling attention to. The Heh that YHWH gave to Avraham and to Sarah from his own name was the gift of the behold, the letters that say look, placed in the names of the covenant people so that the world would look toward the one whose name the behold comes from.
Vav ו — A Nail
Not, a nail will be used in what happens. I am the nail. The connector, the fastener, the one who holds both sides together. The letter at the center of the entire Torah, the enlarged Vav of Leviticus 11:42, preserved in every Torah scroll ever written, the nail at the heart of the covenant text. The same letter in the third position of the divine name. The same nail in the first word of the Torah. The same nail in the name of David, Dalet Vav Dalet, two doors and a nail. The nail is not a foreshadowing of what would happen at the cross. The nail is who he is. YHWH declaring his own identity in the third picture of his own name.
Heh ה — Behold — Again
The name closes as it opened, with the behold. Not, look at what will happen. Look again. Look still. The behold that opens the name and the behold that closes it are the same declaration from both directions simultaneously. He is worth beholding at the beginning and at the end. The Aleph and the Tav, the first and the last. The one who was and is and is to come. The behold at both ends of the divine name declaring that the identity declared in the hand and the nail between them is the one the entire covenant testimony is calling the reader to see.
Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. I am the hand. I am the behold. I am the nail. I am the behold. This is not a story. This is not a prediction. This is YHWH declaring who he is, in four pictures, in the name that appears six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times across the covenant text, in the name that was removed by the Sopherim (scribes) who replaced it with Adonai (Lord) thinking they were protecting the sacred, and in doing so covered the most foundational identity declaration in the entire testimony with a title of authority that says nothing about who he is.
The hand is him. The nail is him. The behold is him. And when you know that, when you read the covenant text through the key Yeshua gave, the key that says these are they that speak of me, everything in the testimony becomes a different kind of reading. Not, here is what will happen. Here is who he is. And here is what that identity looks like when it enters the creation.
The Bet of Bereshit (the enlarged house in the first letter of the Torah) is not primarily the prediction of a building project. It is the identity of the one whose name is a house, the builder declaring himself before the creation begins. The tzelem (shadow or image) and the demut (likeness) are not primarily the description of a creation event. They are the identity of the one whose shadow humanity was cast in, the builder declaring the shape of the house he would inhabit. The covenant sealed while Avraham slept is not primarily a legal transaction establishing a nation. It is the identity of the one who holds both sides, declaring himself as the covenant-holder of all flesh by the act of passing through alone. The darkness and the third day are not primarily narrative elements of the crucifixion account. They are the identity of the one who moves through the darkness alone and rises on the third day, the same one, the same identity, the same declaration appearing in Genesis 15 and Genesis 22 and Exodus 19 and Hosea 6 and Matthew 16 and 17 and 20 because it is the same one declaring himself in every moment of the testimony that touches the covenant completion.
Once you know the hand is him and the nail is him, you do not read the cross as the story of what happened to Yeshua. You read the cross as the identity of YHWH arriving at the place his own name has always declared he would arrive. The event is what the identity looks like in the creation.
The cross is not the story of a man being executed. The cross is the identity of YHWH, the hand, the nail, the behold, arriving at the completion the first word of the Torah declared before the creation began. The hand that made the house driving the nail that opens both doors in the tzelem built in the shape of the one whose name is the hand and the nail. Not a narrative about an event. An identity expressing itself in the only way the identity of the hand and the nail could ultimately express itself, by completing the covenant from inside the house, in the darkness, in the aloneness, for all who slept, for all flesh, from Adam, forever.
Yeshua said these are they that speak of me. He did not say these are they that predict me. He did not say these are they that foreshadow me. He said speak. Present tense. Ongoing declaration. The Torah and the Psalms and the Prophets are not a historical record that once pointed forward to him and now points backward to him. They are a present-tense declaration of who he is. Every letter. Every word. Every name. Every covenant moment. Speaking of him. Now. Always. The hand. The nail. The behold. In the name that was always there. Waiting to be read as what it has always been, not a story about what would happen but the identity of the one for whom the house was built and who moved in to complete it.
Read the text this way and everything changes. The event follows the identity. The story follows the declaration. What happened at the cross was not the primary thing the text was saying, who arrived at the cross was the primary thing. And who arrived was YHWH. The hand. The nail. The behold. In a physical body. Speaking to YHWH pure spirit. In the darkness. On the third day rising. For all who slept. For all flesh. God sacrificing himself. Written in the first word before the light was called. Not as prediction. As identity. These are they that speak of me.
The text is not primarily narrative. It is not primarily predictive. It is identity. The hand is him. The nail is him. The behold is him. Everything that follows is what that identity looks like when it enters the creation.
The key Yeshua gave:
“These are they that speak of me.”
Not — these are they that predict events around me.
Not — these are they that foreshadow what will happen.
These are they that speak of me.
The hand is him.
The nail is him.
The behold is him.
Read the identity. The event follows.
Everything in the covenant testimony, from the first letter to the last vision, is speaking of him.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams