In the English Bible, Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This ten-word statement consists of seven Hebrew words in the Hebrew text. Below is the verse with the Hebrew words above the English:
Bereshit barah Elohim Alef-Tav hashamayim vehat haeretz.
In the beginning created God the heaven and the (earth).
The King James Version (KJV) says “heaven,” but as we continue to read we discover that the “heavens” were formed, meaning that there are several levels of heaven. These include the “third heaven” identified in the Scriptures (see 2 Cor. 12:2). The same Hebrew word for heaven here is also translated in the plural form as “heavens” in the Old Testament (Gen. 2:1, 4, etc.).
Some suggest that this seven-word Hebrew phrase portrays an image of the ancient temple’s golden candlestick: the menorah. The temple menorah had seven branches, the center shaft called the “servant branch.” Notice that at the very center of this Hebrew phrase are the two Hebrew letters, Alef and Tav, which are left untranslated. These two letters, Alef and Tav, are found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and are often pronounced “et.” These two letters are used in Hebrew grammar as a marker to point to the word that follows as the definite direct object. However, as recorded in Revelation 1:8, Jesus is standing in the midst of seven gold candlesticks (a menorah) and announcing, “I am Alpha and Omega,” which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In Hebrew, Christ would have said, “I am the Alef and the Tav,” the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. If we read Genesis 1:1 this way, “In the beginning God created the Alef-Tav,” then this phrase can be understood that God declared the beginning from the ending at the very beginning, and that Christ was with God in the very beginning.
Looking at it again in the form of the menorah, the center is the Alef-Tav, or the same place of the “servant branch” (the center shaft) on a menorah. The oil of the anointing flows from Christ who promised to send the Holy Spirit to all believers.
From Page 2 of the Perry Stone Hebraic Prophetic Old Testament Study Bible
