613 Commandments Series | Entry #3 of 613 | Category: The Creator
Entry #1 established that Yahauah exists and that knowing Him is foundational.
Entry #2 established that nothing else is to occupy His place — no created thing, no person, no system, no comfort.
Entry #3 moves into something more intimate: how we speak about Him, think about Him, and treat His name.
The third commandment is not simply a rule against profanity. It goes far deeper than the careless use of a divine name. To understand what Yah is actually protecting with this instruction, we have to do what we always do — go back to the words themselves. Because the English word “blaspheme” does not carry the full weight of what the Paleo-Hebrew text is communicating.
When we look at the original words, this commandment turns out to be about the entire posture of the heart toward the Creator. It is about whether we diminish Him, dismiss Him, speak against Him, or — most striking of all — attempt to erase Him.
And when we step back and view it through the lens of a child’s relationship with a parent, the reason behind this commandment becomes not just understandable — it becomes something every person with a heart can feel.
Scripture References
Two primary texts anchor this commandment:
“Do not blaspheme Alahayam or curse the ruler of your people.” — Exodus 22:28
“Anyone who blasphemes the name of Yahauah is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.” — Leviticus 24:16
The severity of Leviticus 24:16 is striking. Capital punishment for words. But the weight of the consequence reveals the weight of the relationship. This was not excessive — it was proportional to what was at stake. An entire covenant people, called to carry the name of Yahauah before the nations, could not afford to have that name treated as worthless in their midst.
Yahushuā Ha’Mashayakh reinforces the seriousness of how the name is handled:
“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.” — Matthew 12:36
And the apostolic writings echo the call to honor:
“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” — Ephesians 4:29
Additional scriptures for self-study:
Leviticus 19:12
Deuteronomy 5:11
Proverbs 30:9
Isaiah 52:5
Romans 2:24
James 3:9–10
Revelation 16:9
Paleo-Hebrew Rendering & Meaning of Key Words
Exodus 22:28
𐤀𐤋𐤄𐤉𐤌 𐤋𐤀 𐤕𐤒𐤋𐤋 𐤅𐤍𐤔𐤉𐤀 𐤁𐤏𐤌𐤊 𐤋𐤀 𐤕𐤀𐤓
The critical word here is:
𐤒𐤋𐤋 — qalal — “abate, make bright, bring into contempt, accurse, despise, be easy, revile”
Most English translations render qalal as “blaspheme” or “curse” and leave it there. But the Paleo-Hebrew range of meaning opens this up considerably. When we read the commandment through each layer of qalal, the instruction multiplies:
“Do not abate Alahayam” — do not put an end to Him, do not diminish His power, do not reduce His influence in your life
“Do not accurse Alahayam” — do not pronounce a curse upon Him, do not call for harm to come against the Most High
“Do not despise Alahayam” — do not look down on Him with contempt, do not scorn Him, do not treat Him as beneath regard
“Do not revile Alahayam” — do not taunt Him, do not assail Him with abusive speech or attitude
Notice that qalal also includes the phrase “make bright” and “be easy.” This is a subtle but powerful dimension — the commandment also guards against treating Yah as if He is light, effortless to dismiss, a casual afterthought. There is a kind of dishonor that is not loud or hostile but simply too casual — treating the Most High as ordinary.
Leviticus 24:16
𐤅𐤍𐤒𐤁 𐤔𐤌 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 𐤌𐤅𐤕 𐤉𐤅𐤌𐤕 𐤓𐤂𐤅𐤌 𐤉𐤓𐤂𐤌𐤅 𐤁𐤅 𐤊𐤋 𐤄𐤏𐤃𐤄 𐤊𐤂𐤓 𐤊𐤀𐤆𐤓𐤇 𐤁𐤍𐤒𐤁𐤅 𐤔𐤌 𐤉𐤅𐤌𐤕
The critical word here is different from Exodus — and the shift matters:
𐤍𐤒𐤁 — naqab — “appoint, blaspheme, bore, curse, express, with holes, name, pierce, strike through, sockets, dell”
Where qalal spoke to posture and attitude toward Yah, naqab speaks specifically to what is done to His name. And the physical imagery embedded in this word is arresting — bore, pierce, strike through, with holes.
When someone naqabs the name of Yahauah, they are not just speaking carelessly. They are doing something that the text compares to piercing through or boring holes into something. Read through every dimension of naqab, the commandment in Leviticus is saying:
“Anyone who speaks without respect to the name of Yahauah...” — treating His name as common, without weight or reverence
“Anyone who invokes evil upon the name of Yahauah...” — calling for harm to come against His name and what it represents
“Anyone who strikes through the name of Yahauah...” — attempting to erase His name, remove it, or hollow it out of meaning
That last dimension — striking through — is perhaps the most sobering. It is not just profanity. It is the act of erasure: the attempt to remove Yahauah from significance, from memory, from centrality.
For deeper study of all the other words in these two verses, the Paleo-Hebrew Dictionary is an excellent resource to go word by word through the full text.
The Reason Behind the Commandment
To understand why this commandment carries such weight, we have to understand what a name means in the ancient Paleo-Hebrew world.
A name was not merely a label assigned at birth. A name was a declaration of nature. It described who a person was, what they carried, what they represented. When Yahauah revealed His name to His people, He was not giving them a word to call Him — He was revealing His character, His nature, and His covenant.
To blaspheme, revile, despise, or strike through that name was to attack the very identity and covenant of the One who created them. It was not a personal offense in the way we use that phrase today. It was a covenant breach — an act of rejection against the source of life itself.
This is also why Leviticus 24:16 extends the commandment to foreigners as well as native-born Yasharaal. It was not a tribal protection of a tribal deity. Yahauah’s name carried a standard that transcended ethnicity or background. Anyone within the covenant community — regardless of origin — was held to the same responsibility.
And there is a practical wisdom embedded in this: a people who allows the name of their Creator to be treated as worthless will eventually find themselves treating Him as worthless. Language shapes culture. Culture shapes behavior. Behavior shapes destiny. The protection of the name was the protection of the entire relationship.
Practical Application
When a Child Dishonors Their Parent: Seven Dimensions of Blasphemy
If we temporarily set aside the legal dimensions of the Torah and look purely at the relational one, each form of qalal and naqab corresponds to something recognizable — something that damages the bond between a child and the parent who gave them life, raised them, and provided for them.
1. When a Child “Abates” Their Parent
“I don’t need you anymore.”
Dismissing a parent’s authority, wisdom, or influence as no longer relevant. Treating their guidance as insignificant because it is inconvenient.
Why it’s harmful: The child begins cutting themselves off from a source of experience, protection, and hard-won wisdom. Even when a parent is imperfect, dismissing them entirely tends to produce unnecessary mistakes that a listening ear could have prevented.
2. When a Child “Accurses” Their Parent
“I wish you weren’t my parent.”
Wishing harm upon them. Hoping for their failure. Calling for their suffering — in prayer, in thought, or in word.
Why it’s harmful: It turns the heart directly against the person who invested the most in that child’s existence. It replaces the natural bond of family with hostility, and it wounds both the one who speaks and the one who receives it.
3. When a Child “Despises” Their Parent
Mocking their intelligence. Treating them as worthless. Being embarrassed by them in public. Looking down on everything they represent.
Why it’s harmful: Contempt destroys gratitude. It becomes nearly impossible to receive wisdom from someone you have convinced yourself is beneath you. And a person who has nothing to learn from their parent will eventually learn those lessons the hard way — alone.
4. When a Child “Reviles” Their Parent
Verbal attacks. Insults. Public humiliation. A steady stream of abusive language directed at the one who raised them.
Why it’s harmful: Words wound in ways that time alone cannot always heal. Even when genuine disagreement exists, abusive speech breaks the trust that the entire relationship depends on and often leaves marks that outlast the argument.
5. When a Child “Blasphemes” Their Parent
Treating their name and reputation as worthless. Constant public ridicule. Dishonoring them before others in a way that communicates: this person does not deserve my respect.
Why it’s harmful: Respect is one of the foundational pillars of any healthy relationship. Once respect disappears from a family bond, the relationship rarely functions as it was designed to. What was built on love begins to look like opposition.
6. When a Child “Curses” Their Parent
Calling for evil to come upon them. Rejoicing when they suffer. Actively seeking their downfall or their pain.
Why it’s harmful: It replaces the love and honor the relationship was meant to carry with bitterness and hostility — and that bitterness rarely stays contained. It spreads into every other relationship the child carries.
7. When a Child “Strikes Through” Their Parent
Perhaps the most devastating of all: pretending they never existed. Refusing to acknowledge anything they contributed. Erasing them entirely from memory, identity, and history — as though they were never there.
Why it’s harmful: A person loses connection to part of their story. Without that connection, the understanding of who they are and where they came from becomes distorted. Identity built on erasure is identity built on a gap.
Applying the Analogy to Yah
A child may not always understand their parent. They may not always agree with them, appreciate them, or feel grateful in the moment. And yet — the parent remains the source of that child’s life.
Yahauah is that source for all of us, infinitely more so.
When His people forget Him — as the Scriptures show they repeatedly did — it never stopped at simply not thinking about Him. Forgetting Yah naturally progressed through a pattern that looks exactly like the seven dimensions above:
Diminishing His importance in daily decisions
Ignoring His instruction because it felt inconvenient
Despising His authority when it required sacrifice
Speaking against Him in moments of hardship
Seeking other sources of wisdom and provision first
Eventually attempting to remove Him from the center of life entirely
This is the progression that the commandment is designed to interrupt. It is not merely about loud, dramatic profanity. It is about protecting the relationship from the quieter, slower erosion — the casual dismissal, the contemptuous attitude, the gradual replacement of reverence with indifference.
Many of the prohibitions around cursing, reviling, and blaspheming are ultimately about rejecting, dishonoring, or severing relationship with the One who created, sustained, delivered, and instructed His people.
Words are not just words. They reveal what is happening in the heart.
Closing Reflection
There is a weight to a name.
When Yahauah revealed His name to His people, He was not simply giving them a sound to speak. He was giving them access to His nature, His covenant, His presence. His name carried everything He had promised — deliverance, provision, guidance, relationship.
To blaspheme that name — through contempt, through carelessness, through cursing, or through erasure — was to treat that entire covenant as worthless.
But here is where this commandment speaks beyond the ancient world and into ours: we do not have to speak a single word of profanity to violate its spirit.
Every time we diminish His authority in our lives, we are practicing a form of qalal. Every time we speak of Him casually, as though He were common, we are making Him “bright” and “easy” — treating the Most High as ordinary. Every time we allow our actions to communicate that His name means nothing, that His instructions carry no weight, that He can be set aside when convenient — we are performing a form of naqab, piercing through the relationship one small erasure at a time.
The third commandment calls us back to reverence. Not the hollow reverence of performance — but the deep, genuine reverence of a child who knows what their parent has done for them, who understands where they came from, and who refuses to let that love be met with contempt.
Honor His name. Not because He is fragile. But because He is faithful — and faithfulness deserves to be honored.
U’naqab sham Yahauah. — And whoever strikes through the name of Yahauah.
May it never be us.
This article is part of the ongoing 613 Commandments series through the Institute of Paleo-Hebrew Research & Culture. For deeper study of the names, letters, and meanings referenced here, explore the Paleo-Hebrew Dictionary — a foundational resource for anyone who wants to understand Scripture from its ancient roots.