Checed, Geburah and Tipharah

The nerd in me got really excited when I just discovered the blog of a convert who was raised in the Jewish faith. I have long been interested in the Hebrew roots of the Book of Mormon and will definitely read more of his posts. But this one caught my immediate attention. It deals with the parallels between the Exodus narrative and Lehi leaving Jerusalem. This concept is not new. Just go to bookofmormoncentral.org and search "Lehi Exodus" for instance. But the particular connection made in this post is nothing I have ever heard about, and it requires familiarity with Jewish tradition. I recommend reading the whole linked post (it's actually important for the understanding of the rest of this post), but to put it very shortly, there are three terms in the Exodus story that, according to the Zohar, refer to the attributes of God. These same three terms are found in 1 Nephi 2.

The three attributes of God that Exodus 14 and 2 Nephi 2 refer to are

• Checed (kindness, related to mercy)
• Geburah (power, related to justice)
• Tipharah (beauty, relating to the idea of harmonization, creating a balance between the two above)

My thoughts immediately went to Alma 42 and the beautiful harmonization between justice and mercy. Next I also realized that I have actually identified and discussed this concept in 1 Nephi before, without understanding how it relates to the ancient Israelite understanding. In this post I identified a pattern with these three same terms. So what does this all mean? Let's have another look at the scriptures from 1 Nephi 1 in this new context:

the power [Hebr. geburah], and goodness [Hebr. tipharah], and mercy [Hebr. checed] are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful [Hebr. chacad], thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish (1 Nephi 1:14)

The context is Lehi praising God after he has seen a vision. A personal manifestation of God leads to Lehi's exclamation of God's main attributes from an ancient Israelite perspective, it seems. By the way, since this was new to me, I had to check if this is a common Jewish understanding or just some stranger's claim in an obscure blog. But there are several other sources explaining this concept, like this one and this one. A few verses later, Nephi states

I, Nephi [Presumably the Egyptian equivalent of the Hebr. tipharah], will show unto you that the tender mercies [Hebr. checed] of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty [Hebr. gabar] even unto the power [Hebr. geburah] of deliverance. (1 Nephi 1:20)

(Note: In addition to the three word listed above, there is one additional link in each quoted verse because it is another variant of the word that shares the same root as one of the three). 

As I also pointed out in the earlier post about this, Nephi uses his own name in this mix in 1 Nephi 1:20 as a possible wordplay. It is assumed that his name comes from the Egyptian word for good or fair, somewhat equivalent to 'tipharah'. Thus, perhaps Nephi views his own life and story as a manifestation of God's balance between power/justice and kindness/mercy. 

Also, as I explain in the post, when using these terms in connection with the phrase, "I will show unto you", Nephi connects these attributes of God to their exodus. This new insight provides further support for that. The next verse reads, "For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream", marking the beginning of Lehi's exodus. What happens next is that they travel to the Red Sea, like Israel, and we get the word links to Exodus 14 that also refer to God's attributes brought up in 1 Nephi 1. Nephi is playing on a theme where the fundamental attributes of God are manifest in his family's exodus from a wicked environment to a promised land, just like Israel of old.

Even though Nephi rejoices in plainness and doesn't hide his writings in as much symbolism as, say, Isaiah, he still follows the Israelite scribal tradition where as much meaning is added into as few words as possible in a multi-layered text. This was not produced on a whim.