God is a Four Letter Word

The Essenes related their concept of Law to the tetragrammaton – the 4 letters YWHW that we tend to translate into “Yahweh.” This word is often interpreted as the Hebrew name for God. Yet Murray Webber, author of the book, An Introduction to Gnostic Hebrew Qabbal (© 1995) tells us that what should be pronounced for the tetragrammaton is the word, Adonai. The words God and Lord, he firmly states, are not interchangeable in Hebrew (page 18)!

Furthermore, in the section on the Hebrew letter Daleth -- the 4th letter (every letter in Hebrew has a corresponding number), Webber notes that many spellings of the word for Spirit or Creator in a variety of languages are made of four letters!

He uses the English word, Lord, rather than God, then mentions these others:

Yod He Vav He (YHVH, the tetragrammaton) for Hebrew
Dieu    ---  French
Gott   ---  German
Odin  --- Norse
Jove  ---  Roman
Zeus  ---  Greek
Atma  ---  Hindu
Nebo ---  Assyrian
Isis   ---  Egyptian

OK, I’m sure there are others that don’t match that formula, but isn’t it fascinating? The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 numbers (2+2 = 4). And the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Tav, has the numerical value 400  (4+0+0 = 4), and also a large multiple of 4.

And here’s more to be excited about – while I have a very limited knowledge of languages, how about the word, Love? It’s 4 letters, too. And also in Spanish (Amor), French (Aime) and German (Leib).

I have some exposure to a system of numerology, but at this point am curious about what any of my readers might think about this. What is significant for you about the number 4?