This Biblical New Year, the Hebrew calendar moves into 5787, written in Hebrew as תשפ”ז.
Rosh Hashanah 5787 began at sundown on Friday, September 11, 2026, and ends at nightfall on Sunday, September 13, 2026. Every year I love walking through the letters that spell it, because in the ancient pictographic script, each Hebrew letter began as a picture, and those pictures still carry meaning today.
This year, as I looked at the four letters, Tav, Shin, Pey, Zayin, I began to see a picture forming. Not just four separate ideas, but a sequence. A story of what God is doing in this season.
I’ll be honest, I’m not writing this from a distance. As this new year has come in, I’ve also just learned that the house I’ve worked and lived in for years is closing, and our whole team is being made redundant, me included.
So these letters aren’t theory to me right now. I’m watching them happen in real time, and I want to walk you through them the way I’m living them.
Watch the full video to see this walked out in more depth.
The Four Letters of 5787
ת Tav – The Mark
The ancient picture for Tav is two crossed sticks. A mark, a sign, a seal. It is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, closing out the full range of the alphabet the way “It is finished” closes out a work.
Tav speaks of something being sealed and confirmed. Before anything else happens in this year, God is placing a mark on this season. A sign that says, this is real, this is Mine, this is sealed.
ש Shin – The Fire That Presses
The ancient picture for Shin is teeth. The action of pressing, chewing, consuming. It carries meanings of sharp, press, consume, destroy, and in later Hebrew thought, Shin became associated with fire, the consuming fire of God’s presence.
This is the letter of decluttering. Of pressing out what no longer belongs. Shin is not gentle. It is the sharpening, the pressing, the burning away of what has grown old, cluttered, or heavy in the mind, the soul, the life. Before the new can be built, the old has to be pressed out.
If you feel like this season has involved more letting go than you expected, more cutting away than adding on, Shin says that is not an accident. It is the shape of this year.
I feel that one closely right now, a place I called home for years being pressed out of my hands isn’t something I chose, but I don’t believe it’s outside what this year was always going to ask of me.
פ Pey – The Mouth That Opens
The ancient picture for Pey is a mouth. Meanings of open, speak, blow, edge.
After the mark is sealed (Tav) and the old is pressed out (Shin), something opens. A mouth that had been shut begins to speak again.
This can be your voice, your testimony, your prayer life, a door that opens where one was closed. Pey is the letter of breakthrough into speech and utterance. What was held in is now released.
ז Zayin – The Sword That Nourishes
The ancient picture for Zayin is a mattock or plow, an agricultural tool. Its meanings are cut, harvest, food, nourish. In later Hebrew, its shape sharpened into the image of a sword, and the same root behind Zayin (zan) is also the root of mazon, the Hebrew word for food, sustenance, provision.
Zayin also speaks of a weapon, a sword. And here is what stood out to me. The word comes from a root that means nourishment. That tells us something. Sometimes, in order to be nourished, we have to go through warfare.
To occupy the land, we have to go and take the land. To see progress anywhere in our lives, we have to go and do it. Not forcefully, not by striving, but prayerfully, and believing it is already ours. Go and get it! It’s yours!
That is why the table is prepared before the enemy. Psalm 23:5 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The table doesn’t appear after the battle is over. You have to go and sit at that table, by faith, and watch it be prepared for you, even while your enemies are still standing there.
This is the letter I’m sitting with the most this week. My whole team just watched a door close that none of us chose. And yet, underneath the grief, I keep sensing that this cutting is not the end of my sentence, that there’s a table being prepared even while I can’t yet see where it’s set. I don’t have the next chapter figured out. But I believe Zayin is already at work in it.
Bringing the Letters Together
The Hebrew letters Tav, Shin, Pey, Zayin tell a sequence:
- Tav – God seals this season. It is marked as His.
- Shin – The old is pressed out. Decluttering of the mind, the soul, the life.
- Pey – What has been sealed and pressed now opens into voice, breakthrough, testimony.
- Zayin – What was cut becomes harvest. You go, you take the land, and you sit at the table in victory, even in the presence of what opposed you.
This is why I am calling 5787 a Season of Victory. Not a victory that skips the fight, but one that comes through it. The mark is sealed. The clutter is pressed out. The voice opens. And then, the feast, even while the enemy is still watching.
If You Are in This Season
Maybe you already feel the Shin of this year, the pressing, the letting go, more decluttering in your mind and spirit than you expected. I want to encourage you, that is not the whole word. Zayin is coming. The cutting is not the end of the sentence. The table is being prepared.
You don’t have to fight in your own strength. But you do have to go. Go and take what is already yours. Go and sit at the table before it looks ready, and watch God prepare it in front of you.
I’m choosing to believe that for myself this week, and I hope you’ll choose to believe it for whatever you’re facing too.
A Prayer for This Season
Our Father,
Thank You for sealing this new season as Yours.
Give us courage as You press out what no longer belongs, the clutter, the old, the weight we have carried.
Open our mouths again to speak, to testify, to pray with fresh fire.
Give us boldness to go and take what You have already promised us.
And prepare our table, even now, even here. Let us sit down in victory in the very place we have been contending.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.