The four-lettered word anciently referencing God, and employing the Aramaic-Hebrew alphabet or ketab merubba ("square script"), is reproduced above. In Roman-based text, it transliterates to YHWH, with the understanding that the "square script" rendition is in practice read from right to left. The pious Greek-speaking Jews referred to the YHWH as the tetragrammeton. Using the alphabetic letters of the Aramaic-Hebrew as guide, its "left-to-right" sequence is "yod-het-waw-het."
A most interesting curiosity of the tetragrammeton, is that if its "square script" characters are made to assume an upright, or vertical, stance ... with the "yod" superior, and so forth ... then the resulting representation takes on a distinct appearance of the human form. The "yod" appears as a "head," the "het" resembles the clavicle and upper extremities of the brachial girdle, the "waw" mimics the vertebral column, and the repeated "het" calls to mind the apparatus of the pelvic girdle, to include the pelvic bones and the legs.
This icon constructed from ancient letters thus testifies to the fact that when God chose to take on human flesh to redeem His world, He was lifted up on the cross to destroy and crush sin, death and the devil ... by becoming a worm, indeed becoming our Sin; much as Moses' brazen serpent was raised and used by God to rescue His faithful Israelites from the deathly bites/stings of fiery serpents.
In its own way, the tetragrammeton is a Corpus. The orthodox Lutheran, true to his and her Confessions, rightly reveres, displays and preaches the crucifix.
Next (Deo volente, Part 2): How the Name YHWH testifies to the Triune Truth, according to Pastor Richard Wurmbrand (1983), a Jewish Lutheran
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