Thursday, March 20, 2014

Who's the Man?

In Moses 7:35, God the Father seems to provide several names for himself.  Two of them are "Man" names, and they're both fascinating.

In Hebrew, "Holiness" may be two things: qodesh or qedusha. In addition to other meanings, qodesh is a name of the temple ("Holiness to the Lord" and "The House of the Lord" are identical statements), and qodesh qodashim, the Holy of Holies, really means Holiness of Holinesses.  So if God is naming himself Ish Qodesh, the Man of Holiness, it might mean The Man of the Temple.

Qedusha, another word translatable as "Holiness," can also mean "the sacred female one."  Now this starts to get really interesting, because in Hebrew the word for "man," ish, can also mean "husband."  So if the Father is introducing himself as Ish Qedusha, he might be saying he's the Husband of the Divine Woman.

That this latter interpretation is likely is suggested by the other "Man" name he gives himself: "Man of Counsel" in Hebrew is probably Ish Etza, the Husband of the Tree-Lady.  Ish Qedusha and Ish Etza would be parallel statements, connecting us into the imagery of 1 Nephi 11 (the white and beautiful Virgin is the white and beautiful tree), Isaiah 5:18-20 (the Tree of the Holy One of Israel is removed with ropes from the Holy of Holies, leaving it a dark cave), and others.

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