When God was about to create the world by His word, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet[10] descended from…
- Date of account
- Modern scholarly compilation of much earlier traditions, published 1909
- Source
- The Legends of the Jews — Volume 1
- Reference
- The Legends of the Jews — Volume 1 · selected passage 6
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English translation and synthesis from rabbinic sources
- Translation
- Henrietta Szold; compiled by Louis Ginzberg
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
When God was about to create the world by His word, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet[10] descended from the terrible and august crown of God whereon they were engraved with a pen of flaming fire
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyWhen God was about to create the world by His word, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet[10] descended from the terrible and august crown of God whereon they were engraved with a pen of flaming fire. They stood round about God, and one after the other spake and entreated, "Create the world through me!" The first to step forward was the letter Taw. It said: "O Lord of the world! May it be Thy will to create Thy world through me, seeing that it is through me that Thou wilt give the Torah to Israel by the hand of Moses, as it is written, 'Moses commanded us the Torah.'" The Holy One, blessed be He, made reply, and said, "No!" Taw asked, "Why not?" and God answered: "Because in days to come I shall place thee as a sign of death upon the foreheads of men." As soon as Taw heard these words issue from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, it retired from His presence disappointed.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice can compare the passage's descriptive features with later reports, but resemblance does not turn a vision, angel, mythic creature or sacred narrative into a modern incident report.
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