Manifestation

by Brad Scott

I have heard the word manifestation or manifest used quite frequently in my life. In high school we were taught the "Manifest Destiny" of this country. My mother used to tell me that smoking would manifest itself later by causing me to be short. It just so happens that she was right about that. (If I hadn't quit years ago, I may have ended up a midgit!) When I worked for the railroad in my youth, the conductor on the weigh car (caboose) always had to produce a manifest at every major stop, i.e., a list of what was contained in the boxcars which could not be seen.

Our English word manifest comes from the Latin word manifestus. This word means to make clear, visible or evident. The word in our Bible taken back through the Greek into the Hebrew is galah (גלה). This word is used quite extensively in the Tanakh. Its verbal root means to expose, uncover or reveal. One of its closest cognates is galut (גלת), which is the name, in Hebrew, of the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation (Hitgalut). This word is used to describe something that was hidden and is now exposed or revealed. This is how this word is used in both covenants.

Devariym (Deuteronomy) 29:29The secret things belong unto YHVH our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 40:3-5The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of YHVH, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of YHVH shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of YHVH hath spoken it.

Yochanan John)17:3-6And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Yeshua‘ the Messiah, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

1 Timothy 3:16And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Shalom Alecheim! ◊