Ge 1 Notarikon - The father example
Ge 1 Notarikon - The father example
Father ab אב is 'after he spoke and created the heavens and the earth א he revealed himself to man ב'. But since each letter is a metaphor, we have different ways to express the metaphor which shed more light on the meaning of the word.
The aleph א can be expressed as 'Holy' or 'separated'. This is because there is only one creator. He is different from anything and everything that has been created. Father could be expressed as the Holy one who revealed himself to man.
The first three days of creation are expressions of the aleph. The Spirit hovered over the face of the waters, God separated light from darkness, he separated the waters above from the waters below, and he separated the dry ground from the waters.
On the third day, he expressed that he is the Father using different symbols. Grass came forth from the dry ground. Ab also means 'green shoot. The green shoot is a living metaphor for the father expressing that he is the giver of the first life.
There were trees with their fruit with their seed. The fruit on a tree is also called ab. Fruit is like a father and the seed like it's child. But it also shows that the Father is the giver of the second life. First a tree would be a shoot, and then produce life. God is the giver of the first and second lives.
The words used to express this on day three do not contain 'ab'. They use different symbols to establish a pattern and communicate the idea of what a father is.
The key thing to observe in this is not that words are themselves metaphor, but that the lives of the shoot and tree are also metaphors. The lives of the people in the Bible are metaphors. They express ideas about Christ.
What of the herbs created on day three? The herbs were given to men to eat. [1] With eating as a symbol for learning, between the giving of the first life (the grass) and the giving of the second life (fruit) you have the revelation of God to man; bet ב God revealed himself to man (herbs). This is also expressed by the aleph א. This is the very theme of the Bible: Between the creation of man, and his being 'born again', he learns from God.