ידו בכל ויד כל בו
himself is, the fruit of adam, his hand is in all and the hand of all is in him
spoken of Ishmael “He Hears” in Genesis 16:12 RBT
Which comes first, the seed or the tree?
Genesis 1:11 presents a challenging text:
And mighty ones is saying, the Earth is sprouting a sprout of herb, a seed is sowing a tree of fruit making fruit from and to ourselves, straightly his seed is within himself upon the Earth, and he is becoming an upright.
Pick any translation and you’ll find a lot of words crammed into a sentence that makes little sense. Translation traditions swapped the verb “sowing” with words like “yielding” or “bearing” or “seeding”. But the word is in the causative participle form of to sow or scatter seed, i.e one who sows seed. Is the grass sowing a seed? Or, is the seed itself(himself) sowing a tree? This verse lacks any vav-conjunction which makes it challenging to break down the thoughts, yet the words themselves are plain.
“Because the whole flesh is as the grass, and the whole glory of her is as a flower of a grassy-place; the grassy-place dries up and the flower falls away.” 1 Pet. 1:24 RBT
This kind of self-reference with a seed leads to interesting philosophical or logical considerations. It creates a situation where the action of sowing is directed back onto the seed itself, implying a self-generating or self-propagating quality.
But is it not also a self referencing paradox to say, I am whom I am, or, I am being who I am being?
And the Christ, the Good Seed,
Another parable he put before them, saying, the queen of the heavenly ones has become like a man who sowed the good seed in his field. (Matthew 13:24 RBT)
This is a parable representing the paradox of Christ as both the man sowing and the good seed sown. We learn that he is “sowing himself”: Life begets Life. This leads to the reasoning that Christ proves himself, as life proves itself. “I am being who I am being.” and “I am the Life.” In other words, He is the Life, and, the Life is He. If you are in him, therefore, you should seek and find yourself.
Hebrew Reflection
The Hebrews undoubtedly embedded this paradox within many Hebrew verb roots such as נונ nun (Strong’s #5125) and היה hayah (Strong’s #1961) which mean to propagate and to be/become respectively. Notice also the verb roots can be spelled backwards and forwards. The letters are reflected.
Further, we can perhaps see something to the dual nature of life in that life proves life. And thus death is that which should disprove life. If all life dies, was it life to begin with? This would perhaps answer the question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Consider the verb “swallowed” in the complete form in Isaiah 25:8,
He has swallowed up the Death to victory.
Or,
I am in the father and the father is in myself.