Ayin
By Fred D. Hofeldt on Jun 28, 2010 | In A Paleo-Hebrew Course, Chet to Ayin
Ayin (Ahyin)
The ayin, like the aleph, is a silent Hebrew letter and takes on the sound of its nikood (vowel). It has a gamatria numerical value of 70. It’s Hebrew-Phoenician meaning is eye, to see, to know, to understand or to experience. The ayin represents sight and insight (a perception of complex thoughts and concepts derived from integration of knowledge, understanding, wisdom). As eye it means, perception, or spiritual insight. The utmost insight is to know that all God’s Commandments are reduced to love. In the Hebrew, ayin is spelled soffit nun-yod-ayin and closely resembles mayin (water)(soffit nun-yod-ayin-mem). Does not the eye tear from insight of both joy and grief? In the Hebrew, chayim mayim means “living water” or the Holy Spirit? Through the narrow eye, the entire universe is brought into focus.
Proverbs 3:7 (KJV) “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.”
Ayin, like man’s two eyes, has two prongs on top representing the Father and Son, while the silent nature of the ayin represents the Holy Spirit (“that still soft voice”). The eye is the window to the brain, since it is through the sense of sight that man perceives the external impressions of the environment that he internalizes and thus is enabled to understand the creation more thoroughly. The eyeball symbolizes the world or planet earth; the white sclera represents the ocean or sea of mankind; the iris is the land masses or the Promised Land of Abraham; the pupil is Jerusalem, the Holy city of Zion; the image received on the retina is the Heavenly Father’s dwelling place, the Temple or His Holy Word, the Scriptures. As you look into someone’s pupil, it may reflect their soul. In Genesis 3:7 (KJV) Adam and Eve became aware of their sin in both physical and spiritual sense as they were now separated from God and naked.
In the first day of creation, light prevailed over darkness, for by His primordial light, God proclaimed the first day as “good.” After Adam’s fall, God concealed this Shekinah Glory from the unworthy and hid it in His Torah as the ayin, as in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV) which exhibits an enlarged-elongated ayin in the Shema:
Genesis 3:7 (KJV) And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV) Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Here in the Hebrew text we pobserve that Hear (Shema) is spelled elongated ayin-mem-sheen.
Lamentations 3:36 (KJV) exhibits a diminished ayin.
Subvert (tav-vav-diminished ayin-lamed) is written with a diminished ayin to denote the lack of insight in being so foolish as to subvert the will of God.
Lamentations 3:36 (KJV) To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
Job 38:13 (KJV) has an ayin lifted above the line.
Job 38:13 (KJV) That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Here "wicked" is rashim (soffit mem-superscript ayin-sheen-reysh), where the ayin demonstrates the wicked are being shaken out of the earth. The wicked have no spiritual insight. It is the Holy Spirit that seals the believer and removes spiritual blindness and deafness, but the Holy Spirit will only lead in our understanding the scriptures on a “need to know” basis, depending on the sincerity in which we pursue biblical knowledge. In this quest the farther along we advance, the more satisfying and stimulating is our Christian life.
The octaves of the Ayin are ayin-tet-bet. In the bet we see dualism such as good and evil or two eyes for sight. The tet, drawn like a serpent, stands for objective good but underlying evil or evil looking as good. The ayin is insight to discern between this good and evil.
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