Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Most English readers glide right past that opening line. But in Hebrew, "in the beginning" is a single word:
בְּרֵאשִׁית — Bereshit
And buried inside that one word, letter by letter, is a message about Jesus Christ and what He came to do.
Let's walk through it together — every letter, the ancient picture behind it, and the real Hebrew and Aramaic words embedded in it. Every claim below includes Strong's numbers, lexicon entries, and links so you can check it all yourself.
Before we start: how ancient Hebrew letters work
The Hebrew alphabet didn't start as abstract squiggles. The earliest forms were pictures. Bet was a tent. Resh was a human head. Aleph was an ox. Over centuries, those pictures were simplified into the square script we see in Hebrew Bibles today, but the pictographic roots are well-documented. The Ancient Hebrew Research Center has done extensive work cataloguing the original pictographs, and the academic study of paleo-Hebrew script is covered in standard references (see Wikipedia: Paleo-Hebrew alphabet).
With that background in place, let's look at the six letters of בְּרֵאשִׁית, read right to left.
The six letters and their meanings
ב — Bet · House / Tent
The pictograph is the floor plan of a nomadic tent. The word beyt means "house" or "household." You'll find it in Strong's H1004 (bayit: house, temple) and all over the Old Testament. Bethlehem, Beth-el — house of bread, house of God.
Source: AHRC — Beyt; Strong's H1004
ר — Resh · Head / Man / First
The pictograph is a human head. The word rosh (H7218) means "head" and appears nearly 600 times in the OT. You probably know it from Rosh Hashanah, "the head of the year." Brown-Driver-Briggs calls it a "common Semitic word."
Source: AHRC — Resh; BDB Lexicon via BLB
א — Aleph · Ox / Strength / Leader
The pictograph is an ox head. In a culture where the ox was the strongest working animal you had, this letter carried the idea of strength and a leader. It's the first letter of אל (El), which means God (H410: "strength; the Almighty"), and the first letter of אלהים (Elohim, H430), used for God 2,346 times in the KJV.
Now, to be precise: no standard lexicon says "Aleph = God." Aleph means ox, strength, leader. But Aleph begins the name of God, and in Jewish tradition, Aleph represents the oneness of God (Wikipedia — Aleph). The connection is real, even if it comes through the name rather than the letter alone.
Source: AHRC — Aleph — "The root (אלף) is an adopted root from the parent root אל (El)… meaning strength, power and chief"
ש — Shin · Teeth / Sharp / Consume
The pictograph is two front teeth. The Hebrew word shen (H8127) means "a tooth (as sharp)." The AHRC records the pictographic meaning as "teeth, sharp, cutting" — the two front teeth pressing down to cut food.
In the word-picture teaching tradition, this gets extended to "consume" and "destroy," because that's what teeth do. The Father's Alphabet paleo-Hebrew chart lists it as "Teeth, Eat, Front, Consume, Destroy." To be upfront: that extension to "destroy" comes from the pictographic teaching community, not from Brown-Driver-Briggs or any standard lexicon. The base meaning of teeth/sharp/cutting is solid.
י — Yod · Hand / Work / Deed
The pictograph is an arm and hand. The word yad (H3027) means "hand" and appears over 1,600 times in the OT. The AHRC gives the meaning as "work, make and throw; the functions of the hand."
Source: AHRC — Yud; Wikipedia — Yodh: "derived from a Semitic pictograph representing a hand"
ת — Tav · Mark / Sign / Cross / Covenant
The pictograph is two crossed sticks, making a mark or sign. The Hebrew word tav (H8420) means "a mark; by implication, a signature." In Ezekiel 9:4, God tells the angel to go through Jerusalem and put a tav on the foreheads of the faithful — a mark that would spare them from judgment. Brown-Driver-Briggs defines it as a "mark on forehead, sign of exemption from judgment" (BDB via BLB).
Here's where it gets really interesting. The Gesenius Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon, one of the standard classical Hebrew lexicons still used by scholars, records the Arabic cognate as "a sign in the form of a cross branded on the thigh or neck of horses and camels," and notes that "the letter ת, which in Phoenician, and on the coins of the Maccabees has the form of a cross" (Gesenius, quoted at Temple Study). The original Tav looked like a cross. That's not devotional speculation. That's Gesenius.
Source: AHRC: "two crossed sticks… mark, sign, signal"; Gesenius Lexicon via Temple Study
Real words inside the word
So far we've been looking at individual letters and their pictographic roots. But something else is going on inside בְּרֵאשִׁית that doesn't require any pictographic interpretation at all. There are actual Hebrew and Aramaic words embedded in it, and you can verify every one of them in Strong's Concordance.
בר (Bar) — "Son"
The first two letters, Bet and Resh, form the Aramaic word bar, meaning "son" (H1247). This word shows up all over the Aramaic sections of Scripture: Daniel 3:25 ("the form of the fourth is like bar-elahin, a son of the gods"), Daniel 7:13 ("one like bar-enash, a son of man"), Proverbs 31:2 ("What, my son? And what, bar of my womb?"), and Ezra 5:1–2.
It's the same word in Bar-tholomew (son of Tolmai), Bar-abbas (son of the father), and Bar-nabas (son of encouragement). Abarim Publications confirms: "The Aramaic word בר (bar) is cognate of the Hebrew word בן (ben), basically meaning son."
There it is in the opening two letters. The Son.
Source: Strong's H1247; Strong's H1248; Abarim Publications; Wiktionary — בר
א (Aleph) — "God"
The third letter standing on its own is Aleph. As covered above, Aleph begins the name El (אל, H410: God) and Elohim (אלהים, H430: God). In the pictographic tradition, Aleph represents the supreme strength of God — the One whose name it begins.
So now we have: The Son of God.
ראש (Rosh) — "Head"
Letters two through four — Resh, Aleph, Shin — spell out rosh, "head" (H7218). Nearly 600 occurrences. One of the most common words in the Hebrew Bible.
שית (Shayit) — "Thorns"
The last three letters — Shin, Yod, Tav — form the word shayit, meaning "thorns" or "thorn-bushes" (H7898). This word appears 7 times in the Old Testament, all of them in Isaiah, always referring to thorns and briers in judgment:
"I will lay it waste… there shall come up briers and thorns (שַׁיִת)" — Isaiah 5:6
"Every place… shall be for briers and thorns (שַׁיִת)" — Isaiah 7:23
"Wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns (שַׁיִת)" — Isaiah 9:18
"The light of Israel shall be for a fire… and it shall burn and devour his thorns (שַׁיִת)" — Isaiah 10:17
"Who would set the briers and thorns (שַׁיִת) against me in battle?" — Isaiah 27:4
BDB defines it as "thorn-bushes" (BDB via BLB).
Thorns. On the head.
Putting it together
Here's what we find when we read through the letters and embedded words of בְּרֵאשִׁית:
| Letters | Word | Reference | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| בר | bar | H1247, H1248 | The Son |
| א | Aleph | First letter of H410 El | of God |
| ש | Shin | Pictograph: teeth (AHRC) | consumed, destroyed |
| י | Yod | H3027 yad | by His own hand |
| ת | Tav | H8420 | on a cross, the sign of the covenant |
| שית | shayit | H7898 | with thorns |
| ראש | rosh | H7218 | on His head |
The Son of God, consumed and destroyed by His own hand, on a cross, with thorns on His head. The sign of the covenant.
Before God said "Let there be light." Before He separated the waters. Before He formed Adam from the dust. The plan of redemption was already written. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
Being honest about what this is (and isn't)
Let's not overstate the case, because the truth is compelling enough on its own.
The facts that can be verified in any concordance or lexicon are these: bar means "son" in Aramaic (H1247, used in Daniel 3:25 and 7:13). Rosh means "head" (H7218, nearly 600 occurrences). Shayit means "thorns" (H7898, 7 occurrences in Isaiah). Tav means "mark" or "sign" (H8420, used in Ezekiel 9:4). The Phoenician Tav had the shape of a cross (Gesenius). El means God (H410). Yad means hand (H3027). Those embedded words are real. They are in the concordance. You can look them up right now.
What goes beyond standard linguistics is the practice of reading individual letter-pictographs as a sentence. That approach is called "Hebrew word pictures," and it belongs to the devotional and illustrative tradition, not to mainstream academic exegesis. The jump from Shin ("teeth/sharp") to "destroy" comes from the pictographic teaching community, not from BDB. The connection between Aleph and God runs through the name El, not through the letter itself. Hebrew4Christians puts it plainly: "While the study of the pictographic script can sometimes yield insight into the underlying meaning of Biblical Hebrew words, it is generally to be avoided as a stand-alone exegetical principle since this can lead to speculations and doubtful interpretations."
That warning deserves to be taken seriously, and you should take it seriously too. But consider this: even if you set aside every pictographic interpretation and stick only to the words that can be verified in Strong's Concordance, you still have son, head, thorns, mark/cross, and God embedded in the very first word of the Bible. That fact doesn't require any speculation at all. The words are there. What you make of that is between you and the Lord.
Why this matters
Jesus told His disciples:
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished." — Matthew 5:17–18
Not the smallest letter. Not a single stroke. Every yod. Every tav.
Next time you open to Genesis 1:1, slow down on that first word. You're reading about the Creator who stepped into His creation, wore a crown of thorns, stretched out His hands on a cross, and sealed an everlasting covenant in His own blood.
It was always the plan. It was there in the beginning.
בְּרֵאשִׁית
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." — John 3:16
References
Strong's Concordance (via BibleHub.com):
H410 — El: God, strength, mighty one · H430 — Elohim: God · H1004 — bayit: house, temple · H1247 — bar: son (Aramaic) · H1248 — bar: heir · H3027 — yad: hand · H7218 — rosh: head · H7898 — shayit: thorns · H8127 — shen: tooth · H8420 — tav: mark, sign
Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (via BlueletterBible.org):
H1247 — bar · H7218 — rosh · H7898 — shayit · H8420 — tav
Ancient Hebrew Research Center (Jeff A. Benner):
Pictographic alphabet overview · Aleph · Beyt · Yud · Tav · Parent root dictionary — Shin
Other reference sources:
Abarim Publications — בר (bar) · Wikipedia — Yodh · Wikipedia — Aleph · Wikipedia — Paleo-Hebrew alphabet · Wiktionary — בר · Gesenius lexicon on Tav (quoted at Temple Study) · Hebrew4Christians — pictographic caution · Father's Alphabet — paleo-Hebrew chart
Resources
You might find the following resources helpful:
- Davar App: https://davar.peplamb.com
- Bible App: https://bible.peplamb.com
- Free Audio Bibles: https://peplamb.com/free-audio-bibles/
