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Volume 11, Number 3
Summer 2004
In This Issue
Cover Picture Explanation: The Hebrew letter
 – pronounced “sheen” – is the
“sh” sound in a Hebrew word. It is often used alone to represent the Name of
God, “El-Shaddai”, sometimes called the mother name of God. “Shad” means,
“breast”. As a baby gets all its needs met on the mother’s breast – love,
comfort, assurance, etc. as well as nourishment – so The Almighty One is the
supplier of our needs.
Some see the sheen in type around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The dark
images on the cover picture (resembling a “W”) depict the 3 valleys
pertaining to the Mount:
1. The Kidron Valley on the east separating the Temple Mount from the Mount
of Olives.
2. The Hinnon Valley, west of Mt. Zion.
3. The Middle Valley was the Tyropean Valley, or Valley of Cheesemakers,
separating Mt. Zion from Mt. Moriah. It is indistinct today because the many
layers of ruin and rubble, left by the many destructions of Jerusalem, have
completely filled this valley.
For comparison we have superimposed a sheen from a modern Hebrew font on our
front cover picture. You can judge for yourself if there is a likeness.
After Solomon’s famous dedicatory prayer of the First Temple, “HaShem
appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, ‘I have heard your prayer, and
I have chosen this place to be a Temple of offering for Me.
“If I ever restrain the heavens so that there will be no rain ... or if I
ever send a pestilence among My people, and My people upon whom My Name is
proclaimed, humble themselves and pray and seek My presence and repent of
their evil ways – I will hear from Heaven and forgive their sin and heal
their land.
“Now, My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers of this
place. And now, I have chosen and sanctified this Temple that My Name should
remain there forever, and my eyes and My heart should remain there all the
days” (II Chron. 7:12-16).
We are grateful to Lambert Dolphin for some of the above information (re:
valleys) from his fine article on the Temple Mount.
The Ineffable Name by Chris Josephson
Letter from the Editor |
