Learning Hebrew has especially opened up the scriptures to me in beautiful symbolism.
Today, after church, I was studying the creation story in Genesis.
I was reviewing notes from Rebecca Stay. Day 3 of creation was when the water and seas were GATHERED together, and the dry land appears.
The 2nd half of Day 3 was when the earth brought forth grass, herbs and SEED and trees yielding fruit. This directly corresponds to day 6. With the dry land - Animals could be placed on the earth. The 2nd half of day 6 was when man and woman were placed on the ground (Adamah). Males who bare SEED and females who bare fruit. The males are responsible to GATHER the seed. The field is white already to harvest. They gather and bring the seed (Children) of God to the font. Women bare fruit and bring the first fruits to God. As Rebecca Stay told us, read Alma 32 from a woman's view. Find the imagery of a woman's womb where a seed is planted and grows with swelling motions. Woman are also a symbol of God. No other religion has our view of God. He bares children with a female counterpart.
The Hebrew verb to GATHER is qavah קָוָה.
It means to gather together. Another meaning is to wait eagerly for.
It means Hope.
“Mikvah” מִקְוֶה is used in scripture in the context of "gathered water". A mikvah is a font, a place of cleansing for ritual purity.
The mikvah offers the individual, the community and the nation of Israel the remarkable gift of purity and holiness.
The world’s natural bodies of water—its oceans, rivers, wells and spring-fed lakes—are mikvahs in their most primal form. They contain waters of Divine source, and thus, tradition teaches, the power to purify. Created even before the earth took shape, these bodies of water offer a quintessential route to consecration.
Remember, The word “mikvah” also means hope. The hope that goes with the act of immersion, the hope or expectation of being cleansed and being able to start fresh.
So the root kvh to gather goes with mkvh a place of gathering associated with hope.
When Alma brought forth the believers to the Waters of Mormon. They entered into a covenant and they clapped their hands for joy. They certainly felt the hope of a new life beginning a they came out of the waters of baptism. They returned to the womb to be born again. This was a place of hope actualized. Alma, as a priest, had the authority of the priesthood to perform these baptisms because the priesthood holds the keys of gathering. I have joy in the symbolism of the different responsibilities of woman and men in God's plan. Woman bare fruit from the seed. They bring Heavenly Father's children through the first veil into mortality. Men plant the seed and later gather it to the "place of gathered waters" (mvqh) so that the soul can pass through the 2nd veil back to the Father.
All this is possible because of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who along with the Father is the author of this plan.
I found beautiful word play in Jeremiah 17:13 when he gives the LORD two names. The Hope מִקְוֶה of Israel and The Fountain of living waters.*
The linked concepts of mikvah (collected pool of water) and tikvah (hope, confidence) are played out where the prophet poetically expresses the ideas through the metaphor of trees either rooted and flourishing beside water when we trust in God, or drying up for the lack of water when we put our trust in man.
¶Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departethfrom the Lord.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not seewhen heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
A few verses later, Jeremiah summarizes:
O Lord, the hope (Heb: mikveh) of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
“Mikvah” מִקְוֶה
The KJV translates Strongs H4723 in the following manner: linen yarn (4x), hope (4x), gathering together (1x), pool (1x), plenty (1x), abiding (1x).
*Living water was the preferred source for a mikvah immersion.
The linen yarn is also an interesting meaning. King Solomon had linen yarn brought.
Was it to make garments fit for a king?
The binding together, or twisting together, of yarn, gives us a good mental picture of what it means to align ourselves with God, and wait for him. We gather ourselves and bind ourselves to his word and to him, we line ourselves up with him, and wait for him in confidence and hope. קָוָה is the word used in Psalms to 'Wait upon the Lord'.
