Is There a Hidden Code in the First Five Books of the Bible?
I watched an Instagram video the other day that caused me to fall down a Hebrew rabbit hole. The pastor in the video said that there was a type of hidden code in the first five books of the Torah– Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
If you take certain letters from each book, it spells out a message. I’ve heard of this before, but never looked into that much. This idea isn’t new, people have been finding these hidden gems for hundreds of years.
The thought here is that in Genesis and Exodus, the letters spell out Torah. In Numbers and Deuteronomy, the letters spell Harot, Torah backwards. And in the middle, Leviticus spells out YHWH, God’s personal name.
Awesome! The first five books of the Bible are all pointing towards God. That was something I’d never heard of before.
Then I scrolled through the comment section and someone was saying, “I read Biblical Hebrew and this isn’t true.”
I know and trust the pastor that posted the video, and I don’t think he’d intentionally post something that wasn’t true. But, genuine mistakes happen. I wanted to find out if this was true.
I don’t read Hebrew– though I have seen the Hebrew alphabet before and have heard pastors explain the different meanings of words and letters. I also know how to use a concordance fairly well, so it’s not completely unknown territory. And I’m good at Googling stuff, so I felt confident that I could get to the truth of this matter.
Torah in Genesis
The first goal was to find “Torah” the Hebrew letters Tav Vav Resh He. The instructions were to take the first Tav, then count 50 letters past that and find Vav. Then count 50 letters past Vav to find Resh. And 50 letters past Resh should be He.
It worked! I found all four letters to spell Torah, and they were each 49 letters apart from each other. You can count and find 49 letters in between each letter that’s highlighted. Note: we’re reading from right to left, each line is a verse, and the first letter in each line is the verse number which doesn’t count in the 50. Also note that the – and : symbols aren’t letters.
Torah in Exodus
The next thing to find was the same letters in Exodus.
Again, we begin with the first Tav letter we see and count from right to left. Again, just like in Genesis 1, the letters that spell Torah each have 49 letters in between them.
YHWH in Leviticus
Next, we need to find YHWH or Yod He Vav He in Leviticus. This is God’s personal name, which is pronounced Yahweh.
We start with the first letter Yod and count from right to left to find the other letters. Each letter that spells YHWH has 7 letters in between.
Torah Backwards in Numbers
Finding the first three was cool, but finding Torah backwards in the next two books was more challenging for me. I did lots of research online, and spent way too long staring at Hebrew letters. But, what I found was still cool.
First, instead of starting with the first He letter, you start with the He that’s in Moses’ name. There’s another He that occurs before that, but you need to start with the second one, which is the first letter of Moses.
When I figured out that I needed to start with Moses, I found He, Resh, Vav, and Tav, each with 49 letters in between.
Finding Torah backwards in Deuteronomy
The last one seemed to be the most difficult. I read many conflicting opinions about where to start counting. Some people said it was the same as the other books, some people said you need to start at the 5th verse because that’s when the book of Deuteronomy actually begins. Another person said you won’t find it until the 5th chapter of Deuteronomy. And some people said the numbering was different, and that there would be 48 numbers in between instead of 49.
I tried all of those different counting methods and couldn’t find the letters evenly spaced out. I could be counting wrong, but I found the other 4 and couldn’t find this one.
Maybe someone who knows how to read Hebrew better than me can find it. If you do, please send me a screenshot of the text with the letters highlighted.
I thought this would be a cool Bible code to find, but it seems to be missing the last piece of the puzzle.
On another note, one of my favorite Bible codes that’s much easier to find and understand is in Genesis 5. This chapter is one that most people skip right over because it’s a genealogy. It doesn’t appear to be exciting, until you figure out what the names mean when they’re put together.
Adam = Man
Seth = Appointed
Enosh = Mortal
Kenan = Sorrow
Mahalalel = The Blessed God
Jared = Shall Come Down
Enoch = Teaching
Methuselah = His death shall bring
Lamech = The Despairing
Noah = Rest and Comfort
When you put that into sentences, it’s the full Gospel story.
Man was appointed mortal—sorrow. The Blessed God shall come down teaching. His death shall bring the despairing rest and comfort.
In the Garden of Eden, mankind was appointed mortal. The earth became filled with pain and sorrow. Then Jesus came to earth, and many people called Him Teacher. His death brought the despairing rest and comfort.
