HEBREW WORD STUDY – I WILL DWELL IN THE TEMPLE   YASH’I BOHEL

ישעי  באהל  Yod Shin Ayin Yod     Beth Aleph Hei Lamed

Ruth 3:9: “And he said, Who [art] thou? And she answered, I [am] Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou [art] a near kinsman.”

I sat down yesterday and began reading he Book of Ruth from my Hebrew Bible. I saw something I never saw before. Every verse in the Book of Ruth begins with a Vav. The Vav is a conjunction (and/or/nor). There are only eight verses that do not begin with a Vav.  I took the first letter from the first word of each of the eight verse that did not begin with a Vav and found Yod, Shin, Ayin, Yod  Beth, Aleph, Hei, Lamed.  From this I get yash’i  b’ohel which means I will dwell in the tent (tabernacle, palace or temple. 

Is there a reason why every verse in the Book of Ruth, except eight, starts with a Vav?  Is there some Divine intent behind it. I figured I was not the only one to notice this strange phenomena so I searched out the internet and found what many different Jewish scholars had to say about this, but, of course is such matters, there was only speculation into why every verse except eight begins with a Vav.  Of course speculation is really all you can only do as they are no Scriptural guidelines in how to interpret such mysteries, if indeed, there was divine intent behind it.  As I it appears the only attempts at understanding this was from Jewish sources, I decided to do a little speculation on my part from a Christian perspective. As always when I go off the reservation like this I present my personal findings for your consideration only. Perhaps you have some speculation yourself on this matter,  blaze a new trail so to speak and look at this through the eyes of a Christian  and form your own opinion or speculation.  Perhaps God put these little codes, mysteries or phenomena into Scripture to allow the  Holy Spirit to whisper a special message to you.  In one of my upcoming Hebrew classes I will present other such phenomena and how you can find them so you can do your own speculation and maybe find a hidden message in Scripture which God will reveal to you personally.

 First let’s consider the Vav.  It is a picture of a tent peg. A tent peg connects the tent to the ground so it will not blow away in the wind.  In grammar it is used as a conjunction joining two thoughts together. Ancient Rabbis saw the Vav as a connection between heaven and earth.  In a Christian context I see Jesus represented in the Vav,  the Messiah who connects us to heaven. Boaz is a kinsman redeemer a picture of Jesus who redeems us from our sins.  Perhaps embedded in this Book  of Ruth is a sort of code.  The whole theme of this book is that of a kinsman redeemer and the constant use of the Vav is to remind us that Jesus is our redeemer. In other words it’s message is about redemption.  It is Jesus whose death on the cross offers us redemption. If you take the first word in the book vayehi which means “and it came to pass” and the last word of the book which is dodi, for David, add its numerical value vayehi – 31, dodi – 14 you get 45.  What other word has a value of 45?  The word Adam. So from the beginning to the end of the Book of Ruth we have a picture of God’s redemption for the original sin of Adam through His Son Jesus.  And the secret message in the eight verses that do not start with a Vav tells us that Jesus will dwell in the temple. What does the Apostle Paul tell us in I Corinthians 6:19?  Our bodies are the temple of God.

Hence, the book of Ruth is telling us that the Messiah will redeem us from our sin and once we are purified by the blood of Jesus God can enter our bodies and establish his temple in us to dwell within us. Think about that.  The Almighty God of the Universe has established a temple within your body to dwell. 

Ok, if there was no Divine intent in having every verse start with a Vav except for eight verses which the first letter of the first word in each of those eight verses spell out “I will dwell in the temple” is just a coincidence then that coincidence simply reminds us that Jesus Christ is our redeemer who will cleanse our sins so that He may dwell within us, our bodies which are a temple of God.