Biblical Name - Zaham was a son of Rehoboam, king of Judah (II Chronicles 11:19).

The letters featured in this piece are ZAYIN HEY MEM. Taken together, and reading from right to left, they spell ZAHAM.

Each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet has a special meaning and a story to tell. Here a few brief ones about the letters on this painting.

ZAYIN is the 7th letter of the alphabet and has a numerical value of 7. The ZAYIN looks like a sword or a scepter. ZAYIN makes a sound like the Z in Zebra. ZAYIN means SWORD, TO ORNAMENT, TO SUSTAIN.
I represent the observance of the Sabbath (Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 1:3a).
ZAYIN is one of 7 letters which may be adorned with TAGIN, or little crowns, in the TORAH, TEFILLIN or MEZZUZAH scroll. These are called the SHAYNAYZ GAYTZ letters - SHIN, AYIN, TET, NUN, ZAYIN, GIMMEL and TSADE. Each one of these letters contains a ZAYIN. A TAG is composed of 3 strokes which themselves look like little ZAYINS. There is a wonderful story in Talmud, which describes Moses ascending to Heaven to find God occupied in affixing TAGGIN to the letters of Torah Menachot 29b.

HEY is the 5th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 5. HEY means BEHOLD. The HEY is constructed of a DALET and a YUD. HEY makes a sound like the H in Happy. HEY appears twice in the YUD HEY VAV HEY Name of God.
The heavens” are the totality of twenty-two letters. The letter HEY produced the heavens to give them life and to water them and the earth (Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 1:30a).

MEM is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 40. MEM makes a sound like the M in Middle. But according to the ancient kabbalistic text Sepher Yitzirah, the MEM hummmmmms! MEM is usually associated with the word MAYIM - WATER or EEMAH - MOTHER. MEM is composed of a CAF (20) and a VAV (6) = 26, which have the same GEMATRIA as the YUD (10) HEY (5) VAV (6) HEY(5) = 26 – name of God - the holiest of God's Names.
The MEM is one of the 5 letters – CAF, MEM NUN, PEY, TSADE – that have 2 forms. One form is used in the beginning and the middle of a word – the open MEM . The other form is at the end of the word – the closed MEM. According to Talmud, the open MEM represents revealed teaching and the closed MEM represents concealed teaching AIR (Shabbat 104a).

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This work is accompanied by the kabbalistic explanation printed above.

The original 5x7 watercolor painting of this image is available.

mat color:: blue

stock number:: nm21-113