The Tree of Life is mentioned in
Genesis and again in Revelation. Let's have a look at the Tree of
Life in Genesis this week and then next week we will have a look at
the Tree of Life in Revelation:
In Genesis 2:9, life in
Hebrew is Chay, and it means, according to the
Strong's Concordance, "happiness in the king's presence,
God is the God of my life."1
The word Chay in Hebrew is
also made up of two Hebrew letters. Now, I don't know if you know
this, but there are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and
each letter has a name, a numerical order, a meaning, and a sign.
It is truly an amazing language, and the more you study it, the
deeper the meaning will be revealed to you. The Bible is really
rich in discoveries and hidden gems that can take you a lifetime to
unravel, which makes it the most exciting book ever written.
But for now, back to the word
Chay. The word has two Hebrew letters, namely Chet and
Yud. Let us have a closer look at both these letters and see what
we can glean from them:
Chet is the eighth letter in the
Hebrew alphabet, and it represents a fence as well as new
beginnings. According to the book The Beauty of the Hebrew
Language by Nathalie Blackham,2 she refers to the
Hebrew word for life, which includes Chet:
"The word for life in Hebrew is
the grammatical indicator of plurality. We are not granted one
life, but two. This one life on earth and then our second eternal
life. We should live our life here not losing sight of our eternal
life."
Isn't this just exactly what the
tree of life was all about? It was about humans living their lives
here on earth, but at the same time having access to a heavenly
life whilst they are here. And all this is represented in this one
letter Chet.
Then the letter Yud is the tenth
letter in the Hebrew alphabet and represents a hand. Once again, I
would like to refer to what Nathalie Blackham says about Yud:
"The Sages explain that God
created the universe with the letters Yud and Hey, which stands for
the divine Name 'YAH.' With the letter Yud He created the world to
come, whilst with the letter Hey, He created this world. Thus the
Yud is used several times in the Bible as a reference to life in
the world to come."3
Once again, how wonderful is the
Hebrew language? This one letter that forms part of the word
life gives us an indication that the tree of life gave
humans access to the world to come. This shows that God allowed
them to be a part of that exotic world even then already. His heart
of love wanted them to be part of it, from the beginning. God
wasn't withholding anything from them. He is a God Who wants to
share all of Him and all that He has with His creation.
So, if we take these two letters
together, along with the Hebrew meaning of Chay, we see an
extraordinarily beautiful picture. Allow me to paint the picture
for you: within the fence of God's will was His hand, giving life
that will last forever, even into the world to come. It was a new
beginning, with Him at the center of it. He was already granting
Adam and Eve eternal life, access to heavenly life. Thus, in the
King's presence they could be happy, they could live forever with
God as their life. Hand in hand they could have literally
experienced heaven on earth, already part of the world to come,
breathing in exceptional encounters.
Unfortunately, this didn't happen.
They violated the single and only rule that God gave them. So
instead of keeping them within the fence of eternal life, He had to
place them outside of it, keeping their sinful natures away from
it. He had to do it; otherwise, the whole earth would have become a
severely evil place with vile sinful men living forever, becoming
even more evil the older and more mature their sinful natures
got.
The rest of the Bible is therefore
the love story of how God masterminded a plan to bring people back
inside the "fence" where eternal life is. It is the beautiful story
of how He didn't just allow them back inside the "fence", but how
He finally destroyed the "fence" and infiltrated their bodies with
this everlasting life.
(Excerpt from The Tree
of Life by Ilze Henderson)