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Triangular Tablets of Wisdom

In researching illustrations of the Tablets of the Law, we find that they are invariably shown as rectangular in shape or rectangular with rounded tops. Many of us remember Charlton Heston, in the Cecile B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments, coming down the Holy Mountain as Moses with these depicted tables. I did come across two interesting presentations where the tables of the law were rectangular, but with a triangular cut top.¹

Those portrayals stirred in me the memories of wisdom writings and symbolism represented in triangular formats—the triangular formats of the Tetractys of the Pythagoreans, the Tetragrammaton of the Judaic Kabbalah mystics, and the Ennead of the ancient Egyptians. It makes one consider if these could have derived their shape and symbolism from one or the other, or perhaps they all share the same divine inspiration.

The Pythagorean Tetractys was represented by the shape of a triangle with ten symbols (commas) arranged as one would picture bowling pins. Pythagoras, born in the fifth century BCE, taught that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality. He taught that through mathematics everything could be measured in rhythmic patterns, geometry, or cycles. You may be familiar with his name from the Pythagorean Theorem, used for finding the lengths of the sides of a right triangle: A² + B² = C².

About Pythagoras and the Tetractys author Manley P. Hall writes:

The teachings of Pythagoras indicate that he was thoroughly conversant with the precepts of Oriental and Occidental esotericism. He traveled among the Jews and was instructed by the Rabbins concerning the secret traditions of Moses, the lawgiver of Israel…Pythagoras was initiated into the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Chaldean Mysteries.² [Author's emphasis]

Theon of Smyrna declares that the ten dots, or Tetractys of Pythagoras, was a symbol of the greatest importance, for to the discerning mind it revealed the mystery of universal nature.³

Fig. 2.1—Tetractys

The Judaic Kabbalists, who follow mystical rabbinic teachings based on an esoteric interpretation of Hebrew scripture, study the Tetragrammaton. The Tetragrammaton plainly means “four-letter word.” The four-letter word it addresses is the Hebrew name for God, Yod Heh Waw Heh, again represented in a triangular format. P.D. Ouspensky goes into detail on the study of the Tetragrammaton:

The study of the Name of God in its manifestations constitutes the basis of the Cabala…These four letters have been given a symbolic meaning…According to the Cabalists the four principles permeate and compose each and everything…The idea is quite clear. If the Name of God is really in everything (if God is present in everything), then everything should be analogous to everything else, the smallest part should be analogous to the whole, the speck of dust analogous to the Universe and all analogous to God. “As above, so below.”…In Alchemy the four principles of which the world consist are called the four elements. These are fire, water, air, and earth, which exactly correspond in their meaning to the four letters of the name Jehovah.⁴

Fig. 2.2—Tetragrammaton

This treatise will show that Ouspensky's description is exactly the case—a case for Oneness. The Cayce reading 288-27 concurs with Ouspensky, the alchemists, and Plato as to the four principles that make up the world:

Q-4. What are “the forces of the natural elements?” A-4. Fire, earth, air, and water. These are the natural elements in the physical plane, and—as the forces of these have influences—as the spirit of the air…the spirit of each! See?

The Ennead, Greek for nine, is a group of nine related Egyptian gods and is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts which are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious writings dating from at least 2200 BCE and from which The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day evolved. The Ennead is usually represented in the shape of a pyramidal (triangular) hierarchy of gods or principles that they represent.

Author and student of Egyptology Marie Parsons comments on the Ennead:

…the group of nine gods that embodied the creative source and chief forces of the universe (though this number was not always nine; at some times it was as few as five, and other times as many as twenty or more; and often, the traditional Ennead includes a tenth god, Horus the Elder).⁵

Author John Anthony West in his book Serpent in the Sky describes it as:

The Grand Ennead emanates from the Absolute, or ”central fire” (in the terminology of Pythagoras). The nine Neters (Principles) circumscribed about the One (The Absolute) becomes both One and Ten. This is the symbolic analog of the original Unity; it is repetition, the return to the source.⁶

While within the Pyramid Texts themselves it states:

Utt. 442

The king becomes a star.

Truly, this Great One has fallen on his side, He who is in Nedyt was cast down. Your hand is grasped by Re, Your head is raised by the Two Enneads…Who live by the gods’ command, You shall live! You shall rise with Orion in the eastern sky; You shall set with Orion in the western sky.⁷

Fig. 2.3—Ennead

The fact that the title of the quote is “the king becomes a star” and in said quote it states that “…Your head is raised by the Two Enneads…Who live by gods’ command, you shall live!”, then it is not difficult to picture two triangular tablets of commandments (“god's commands”), which, when overlapping each other, create the King's Star, a six-pointed star similar to the Star of David, also known as the Seal of Solomon and the Creator's Star. Such a star could be considered akin to a spiritual periodic table of the makeup of the universe and humankind, not only in laws but also in the way it represents the four principle elements of fire, water, air, and earth.

The Bible itself confirms Moses’ awareness of such Egyptian esoteric knowledge. In Acts 7:22 (KJV) it states that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Along these lines, the laws of the Ten Commandments as found in the Bible also have comparisons to the Egyptians’ negative confession found in their Book of the Dead—a book Moses would have had familiarity with. In the Ten Commandments when a law states “Thou shall not…,” the negative confession laws of ancient Egypt state “I have not…” (See Appendix 1 for a comparison of the two documents.)

I also find it curious that it seems confirmation of Moses’ understanding of Egyptian wisdom is noted in Acts 7:22 which when the numbers are listed as 22/7, they become pi? Pi is an important, advanced mathematical constant necessary to determine different aspects of a circle, and the circle often is a representation of God and eternity. Though the concept of pi seems to have been known to the Egyptians, it is still debated today as to whether it is represented in the Great Pyramid. Is this a hint in the Bible of the importance of geometry, particularly sacred geometry and the universal wisdom contained within it?

An Egyptian hieroglyph adds further support to the framework of this triangular tablet hypothesis. This hieroglyph, pictured on the following page, appears as a bowl with a diamond shape or the shape of two triangles placed base to base etched in its center. One of its translations is an alabaster bowl, but this bowl with its triangular shapes is also at the core for another translation which is a scroll or a priest carrying a scroll.⁸ Moses, the Hebrews’ lawgiver, could easily be identified as “a priest carrying a scroll,” or in this case, two triangular tables.

Fig. 2.4—“A Priest Carrying a Scroll” Hieroglyph—Temple at Edfu, Egypt

The bowl by itself in hieroglyphs means “lord,” and I wonder if by adding the diamond in the bowl that such a stone or jewel is being signified within ourselves as houses of the soul? This meaning could be similar to the New Testament quote calling us living stones and reminiscent of the Buddhist mantra Om mani Padme hum, behold the jewel in the lotus. Such connections will be explored in more detail in later chapters. Interestingly there is biblical New Testament writing where Jesus has an alabaster bowl or box of unguent poured over his head. This “baptism” is in his preparation for fulfilling the laws and becoming the covenant. In the biblical Old Testament perhaps there is another clue at the beginning of Moses’ life. As written in the New Jerusalem Bible, the King of Egypt instructed the midwives to watch the two stones (possibly birthing bricks) at birth (Ex 1:16 New Jerusalem Bible), and if a boy was born, they should kill him, but all girl infants could live. Is this a symbolic reference for the coming of the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and identifying the future lawgiver who is to receive them? At this point Moses the infant, the future high priest and lawgiver of the Hebrews, is placed in a papyrus basket (bowl) and placed in the river Nile. So right from his beginning we have two stones and a basket/ bowl that are linked to Moses, an apparent connection that seems more than coincidental in symbolism both in the Egyptian hieroglyph for a priest carrying a scroll and the two stone tablets of the commandments carried by Moses.

Besides the Tetractys, Ennead, and Tetragrammaton, there are additional writings referencing divinely inspired triangular tablets. Author Manly P. Hall mentions similar triangular tablets found in the writings of Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews. It states that the patriarch Enoch:

…placing in the deepest vault a triangular tablet of gold bearing upon it the absolute and ineffable Name of Deity. According to some accounts, Enoch made two golden deltas. The larger he placed upon the white cubical altar in the lowest vault and the smaller he gave into the keeping of his son Methuselah…⁹

The case for similarities and the crossing paths of these three different schools and the biblical Decalogue are evident. Hall ties Pythagoras to Egyptian and Judaic traditions, West links the Ennead with Pythagoras, and all the above-cited authors connect their meanings to the unity of the Creative Forces in the universe. This evidence in turn lends itself to support the theory that the tablets are triangular.

You may ask why the shapes of the tablets are important enough even for discussion since the tablets are merely the modern day equivalent to paper that a contract is written upon. In today's world only the words of the contract have significance. Remember, literacy in the general population in the ancient world was not common. The ability for the majority of a population to read is a modern day event and long before written language was commonplace people could grasp symbols. Symbols could cross boundaries of different languages and alphabets and be shared by the populace. The phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” is an adage for a reason. The shapes have a spirit of meaning in themselves.

The essence of spiritual law and core principles was not only in the ten words but also in the shapes. These two proposed triangular tablets, these “houses of the soul,” create the six-pointed star, the Seal of Solomon, the Creator's Star. This star combines the individual symbols representing the four ancient elements of the universe: fire, water, air, and earth. (See symbols on the following page). They make an early symbol of the unification of the spiritual and physical forces, of heaven and earth.