Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek — who spoke what and when. Then you write your own name in Hebrew letters.
First the mechanics, because they make last week's point visible. Three-letter roots, and how a whole family of words grows from one. Writing without vowels. Verbs that care more about whether an action is complete than about when it happened. A quick history of the script, from paleo-Hebrew to the square Aramaic letters we see in a Hebrew Bible today.
Then everyone gets the aleph-bet and writes their own name. This is the part people tell their friends about.
The God names: El, Elohim, El Shaddai. Then YHWH — where it comes from, why English Bibles print LORD in small capitals, and what that convention hides.
Then the covenant cluster: berit, hesed, emet, qadosh. We will spend real time on hesed. If you leave with one word this year, leave with that one.
Read: Exodus 34:6–7
This is God describing himself. Hesed is in there. Watch for how many of the words are about disposition rather than power.
Entirely optional. Come either way.
Sit with this week’s passage and see what the Spirit shows you in it — a connection, a question, something that will not leave you alone, something you think the rest of us need to hear. That is not an interruption of the night. That is the night.
The subject above is the field we are working, and it is a real boundary. The Spirit who inspired these texts is the one who lights them up, and he does not compete with himself. What he gives will open this material further, not change the channel.
Send it ahead if you can, by replying to the message that brought you here. We open by hearing what the week turned up, before anybody explains anything.