Kabbalah

The Seventy-Two Names of God

A specific scribal technique applied to three consecutive Exodus verses generates seventy-two three-letter combinations that practical Kabbalists treat as usable divine names.

Exodus 14:19–21, describing the angel and pillar of cloud moving behind the Israelites as the sea splits, consists of exactly three verses of seventy-two Hebrew letters each. The technique, associated with the Sefer HaTemunah tradition of practical Kabbalah, writes the first verse forward, the second verse backward, and the third verse forward again, then reads the resulting three lines vertically in columns of three letters. The result is seventy-two triliteral strings, each treated as a distinct divine "name" tied to a specific quality of the encounter at the sea. Because the technique is extracted from a moment of dramatic divine intervention rather than a static description, these seventy-two names are used less as titles for God than as targeted invocations, each one keyed to a particular kind of help or protection.

The seventy-two-name technique became especially prominent through later print traditions (Names literature and amulet books) that circulated the grid derived from these three verses as a standalone practical device.

Exodus