Sephirah
Binah
Binah means Understanding and develops Chochmah's initial insight into a structured, comprehensible idea. It is often compared to a womb because it receives the seed of wisdom and brings its implications into fuller form.
1 correspondence · 0 with an ancient or scriptural source · 0 with no source located
All the tables The sephiroth table
The oldest attribution here is Divine name YHVH written, first attested 1200 BCE.
Divine name
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YHVH written
Traditional- Who says so
- Not yet attributed to a school
- Earliest verified attestation
- 1200 BCE
- Ancient or scriptural source
- Not yet investigated
נכתב יהו"ה ונקרא אלהים — the Eighth Gate of Sha'arei Orah. Gikatilla organises by NAME rather than by sefirah and counts upward from Malchut, so the gate ordinal and the sefirah number run in opposite directions. The gate verse and the name's locus are the same verse, and that is the point of it: the Tetragrammaton here carries Elohim's vowel-points, written one way and read another, which is exactly what Gikatilla says this sefirah's name does.
Evidence
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Moses for the Torah; the prophets and the men of the Great Assembly for the rest, Tanakh, c. 1200–165 BCE (composition); canon fixed by c. 100 CE — Habakkuk 3:19
Where the name itself stands in scripture: יֱהֹוִה אֲדֹנָי חֵילִי. Cited by locator; the kabbalistic claim is about the name, not about this verse's plain sense.
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Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, Sha'arei Orah, c. 1290 — Sha'arei Orah, Eight Gate, Third Sefirah
The gate's own opening formula names the sefirah and the name together.