The Mystery in Lev Tahor: The Hebrew Word for Clean Heart

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According to the Bible, what is a clean heart? Doesn’t everyone already have one? If not, where does a clean heart come from? What mystery can the Hebrew letters in Lev Tahor, the clean heart, reveal to us that would help us understand more about these two words? Will anything direct us to Messiah? Let’s find out. 

Our ancient Prophetic Scriptures contain many portions that describe events in the life of a remarkable man named David. Once he was a lowly shepherd boy, later he was a giant killer, and eventually, he became King of Israel. His life, however, was marred with a number of tragedies that were often of his own doing. 

The prophet Jeremiah explained the problem David faced, which is a problem common to man.  In Chapter 17 verse 9 Jeremiah wrote this:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

The apparent inability of David to consistently obey Elohim and avoid the results of disobedience led him to this fervent prayer in Psalm 51 verse 10:

Create in me a clean heart. O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 

The clean heart is Lev Tahor. In this request, David is asking YHVH to do something for David that David is obviously unable to do for himself. He is asking for YHVH to give him the ability to choose and seek in his heart only those things that will please Elohim. Can He do that? Will He change us from the inside out?  

Let’s first look at the ancient pictographic letters in clean, the word Tahor, and see what mystery might be found there. Tahor is spelled Tet Hey Vav Reysh.

Ancient Hebrew 

     

    

Modern Hebrew

   

TET

 

Tet is the picture of the coiled snake and means to surround or to encircle.

HEY

 

Hey is the picture of the man with his hands lifted up to the heavens and means to behold and can be a picture of the Holy Spirit the Revelator. 

VAV

 

Vav is the picture of the wooden hook or the iron nail and means to add, or secure, or join two things together that are separated from one another.

REYSH

 

Reysh is the picture of the head and means the leader, the highest, or the prince. 

The pictures that are represented by these ancient letters show us something about how we become clean according to God. David was asking for his heart to be surrounded by the Holy Spirit that is connected to the prince. What about this prince? For that, we need to investigate the numbers that each of these four letters represents. 

Tet is the number 9 and refers to the conclusion of a matter, the summation of man’s works, and can refer to the fruit of the spirit. 

Hey is the number 5 and stands for grace or favor with God. 

Vav is the number 6 and describes man’s enmity with God. 

Reysh is the number 200 and contrasts the insufficiency of man with the sufficiency of God. 

This coming prince, that David has not yet met, will be the one who will be sufficient or able to overcome the enmity that David has with God and make him clean. He will accomplish this through the grace of God and will not only bring a conclusion to David’s dilemma but will produce the fruit of God’s Spirit in David’s life. This prince who we know as Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, Jesus the Christ, will bring each of us the victory in our hearts that we so desperately desire.

Rabbi Paul wrote to a group of believers that had changed hearts. They had come out of a lifestyle of sin against God.  He reminded them in 1 Corinthians Chapter 6 verse 11 that: 

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 

Rabbi Paul reminds us we will be cleansed by the blood of our Prince, Yeshua, who has secured our relationship with the Holy Spirit and set us free from the bondage of sin.

Now let’s look into the letters in Lev the word for heart and discover what is hidden there. 

Lev is spelled Lamed Beyt

Ancient Hebrew

 

Modern Hebrew

 ​
LAMED 

 

Lamed is the picture of the shepherd’s staff and indicates control, authority, or the voice of authority.

BEYT 

 

Beyt is the picture of the floor plan of the tent and can mean the house, the family, the physical tent or body, and is the first letter in the Torah that identifies the Son of God. 

This is quite a beautiful picture for us to understand. The heart was the leader or the one in control of the physical body, the tent in which David was dwelling. This was the cause of David’s dilemma: his heart was full of things that were leading him in a direction he no longer wanted to go. 

These two letters are also numbers and they complete the mystery of David’s heart. 

Lamed is the number 30 and stands for a blood sacrifice. 

Beyt is the number 2 and refers to God the Son. 

Now we can see what Elohim wants in the heart of David. The leader in David’s heart needs to be the Son of God, who by His blood sacrifice can set David free from his old nature. 

The writer of the book of Hebrews also describes this mystery for us. In Chapter 10 verse 22 he writes this:

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.   

In his wisdom, David turned to the one place that offers help for our wicked hearts. Our Prince, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, will with His own blood sprinkle our hearts clean. The Holy Spirit will reveal and lead us in ways pleasing to Elohim. With a Lev Tahor, we will no longer suffer from an evil conscience but will be able to draw near to Elohim with full assurance of our faith in Him.

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